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I've written this before, but it bears repeating. I covered the Miami Hurricanes just shortly after they re-booted their program in the mid-'80s. Bill Foster came from Clemson and was given a year to build a roster and let the players work together in practices and scrimmages. In short, they had a whole year to do that — Hoiberg threw together almost an entire roster in a month. THIS IS LIKE STARTING A PROGRAM FROM SCRATCH, but without the proper lead-in time. You're not going to be any good doing that unless you're Calipari or Krzyzewski recruiting a roster of one-and-done sure-fire NBA players. And even then it takes time for those teams to reach some sort of cohesion. We'll get there, and I'm guessing we'll look a lot different in February than we do now. We just may not win more than a handful of games between now and then. There are no one-and-done players, unless you count Cheatham and Kavas.

Great weather on Saturday so his he and his family might not know the weather here is typically colder

I hate losing, but I saw some encouraging things today. I thought S. Utah was better than UC Riverside. The Martin kid was a legit player who could help many power 6 teams. They returned four starters and they had some nice pieces. The biggest positives were Cam and Cross. Cam showed the ability to take over a game during a stretch of the second half where we needed someone to step up. When he gets more game experience and improves his shot, he will be tough to handle. With better offensive options on the court in his supporting cast, he'll be even more dangerous. Cross was also solid. He battled and showed some real talents on the offensive end. He can put it on the floor and he showed he can score in the post. Again, with experience and work in the weight room, he's gonna be a steal. Most of our production came from guys who have now played only 2 division 1 games. We will take our lumps this year, but I saw objective improvement from game 1 to game 2. I haven't seen Stevenson play, but I gotta think he is going to be a major contributor and will help out in guarding guys like Martin and giving us another viable offensive option. He will no doubt be better than what we're playing at the 4 right now. Poor Kavas has a terrible time guarding people, and I don't see him getting major minutes down the road unless he starts lighting it up from 3. With Banton and Walker next year, we will take a step forward. And I'm sure Matt A. has a transfer or two in his sights, so more help will likely be on the way. i will embrace the suck for now and will trust that Fred will take us to another level in the not so distant future.

I’m not going get upset over any losses this year but my biggest fear is that a really rough season keeps us on the roster treadmill in the spring and we don’t close the gap on the rest of the league from a coherence and useful experience standpoint.

Proof that being good in JC, the Atlantic Sun, the Colonial or the WAC doesn't translate to Divison I, even against mediocre to bad competition: Cam Mack shooting percentages at JC: 45.6 FG, 33.7 3P, 64.6 FT. Cam Mack shooting at Nebraska: 33.3 FG, 18.2 3P, 50.0 FT. Jervay Green shooting at WNCC (2018-19): 54.7 FG, 39.0 3P, 53.6 FT. Jervay Green shooting at Nebraska: 29.6 FG, 23.1 3P, 50.0 FT. Dachon Burke shooting at RMU (2017-2018): 45.9 FG, 33.8 3P, 62.8 FT. Dachon Burke shooting at Nebraska: 35.3 FG, 13.3 3P, 87.5 FT! Matej Kavas shooting at Seattle (2018-19): 45.8 FG, 45.8 3P, 79.2 FT. Matej Kavas shooting at Nebraska: 37.5 FG, 40.0 3P, 57.1 FT. Haanif Cheatham shooting at Marquette: 47.2 FG, 36.7 3P, 78.9 FT. Haanif Cheatham shooting at FGCU: 45.4 FG, 36.4 3P, 65.0 FT. Haanif Cheatham shooting at Nebraska: 16.7 FG, 0.0 3P, 42.9 FT. I would guess these guys eventually find the range, but maybe not at the rate they were used to in inferior conferences such as JC, the Big East and the rest.

Sounds like Grace was a real factor today...came in and made plays that count. I didn't see the game...but from just listening.....very impressed in many ways

Great win. Super happy for coach and the kids. If we can stay healthy we have a chance to be very good

HUSKERS WIN HUSKERS WIN HUSKERS WIN HUSKERS WIN Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

This is a big win for the Huskers and Amy....huge Very very tough and focused today....good sign for this year !

Sallis strikes me as a player that isn’t staying in state regardless.

Hoiberg has said numerous times in the press and smaller settings that this team is going to struggle a lot especially early. He said he feels good about years 2-3 catching up pretty fast if things go well. Johnson may have helped but he was not turning this team into a post season team so I will take 4 years of Drago over him for a year every day that ends in Y. I am not worried about recruiting at all yet. He got some real sought after guys in a few weeks, give him time to target and really recruit guys he wants before I worry even a bit

As evidenced by the following... Iowa: "I’d be in seventh heaven if Hoiberg AND Frost failed." "Lol at least they have women's vball" "Heres my crystal ball prediction...nebby no matter who the coach is will never be legit..." "freddie will be retired or fired in 5 years..." "He got what he wanted, a trip to Italy, to include his family. Mission accomplished. IMHO, watching the players, they weren't impressed with the sight seeing. I see Doc Sadler is back coaching with Hoiberg. Doc quit as HC of South Miss to join nebby/Hoiberg. As the nebby HC for 6 years,Doc managed to get nebby into 3 NITs, no NCAAs. Oh well." "I watched a segment about them and their trip to Italy on the Big 10 channel. Man-o-man........their players looked like something dead, that the cat drug in. None of them passed the eyeball test as to what, one would think, a Big 10 basketball player should look like." "Hope... Nebby hoops, just like football, crashes and burns." "...Is it bad that I love that it’s killing you to have your teams suck?!?!" "Southern Utah from beautiful Cedar City wins 79-78 in double OT." Creighton: "Getting drilled at home by Riverside. Nebrasketball.. add Riverside with Incarnate Word, Sanford, UMBC, etc.." "They probably wish they had Miles back, he probably could have done better first game. ...I could not have asked for a better first game for Hoiberg." "This is glorious. What are you gonna pump now OWH?" "Wonder who wins more this year, Frost or Fred? Honestly this is a legit question lol" "Good Lord, the “nothing to gain and everything to lose” series continues for another year." Northwestern: "That may well be our only chance at a conference win ..." All other Big Ten schools: "Northwestern and Nebraska are looking to be some of the worst BIG teams this decade." "This game has been insanely poor. Nebraska makes so many basketball mistakes that you just don’t expect to see from a D1 team."

No one is above criticism...it's more about Hoiberg doesn't really need to worry about his job security in order to build this team the way he wants.

it would be kinda interesting to know how many teams have lost at home when shooting 31-38 from the free throw line?

It is now up for replay.

https://www.espn.com/watch/schedule?type=replay

It might be on watchespn I think I have watched replay from there before.

wow. two players don't make trip, two players foul out. YES! with huskers non-con rpi, that's a big win!!!

Time for ours to step up Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

oh HOLY COW! HAIBY!

I am not as convinced that the shooting percentages will improve on all of our players. Some yes, but not all. We have some players who look good from deep. Others, not so much. Just being real. High School and Juco shooters face less defensive effort than at high division one. PLUS, the line has been moved back this season. That extra several inches can make a difference. I am also concerned about our ability to finish at the rim. We miss a ton of bunnies. And those misses are not coming against many of the big bodies we will face as the season moves forward. And lest I forget...our free throw shooting...yikes.

Arena looks pretty empty!

wow. the fouls...

In an early graphic, they had some blocking stats for Cain. Except they said we were in the Summit League. Later on they realized we were in the BIG10. They keep saying we are old Big 12 rivals with Mizzou. When I was in school, we were Big 8 rivals.

Is anyone besides me watching this?

Kind of crazy numbers here to start the season that probably point to a combination of how vital Mack is to this team and how utterly inept the team has been offensively as a whole. -43 made FGs in 90 min of play (obviously terrible) -That's 0.478 FG per minute of play -Mack has had a hand in (either made or assisted on) 23 of the 43 FGs (53.5%) -Green has had a hand in 11 FGs (25.6%) -Burke has had a hand in 8 FGs (18.6%) -Last season, we made 0.634 FG per minute of game play (916 FGs in 1445 min) -Watson had a hand in 290 FGs (31.7%) -Palmer had a hand in 320 FGs (34.9%) As bad as things have been so far in 19-20, I can't even imagine where it would be at without Mack.

He didn’t have any assists. None. And no steals, either. So, you were saying? I keed, I keed!

Overall, I thought we saw quite a bit of improvement compared the the first game. Wins and losses truly don’t matter to me this year. I just want to see continued improvement. A lot of little things were improved in just a few days of them watching film and practicing. I thought we set better screens, blocked out MUCH better, helped and recovered quicker on defense. And, especially early against man defense, ran our stuff more crisply. Now I expect to see our young guys catching the ball with two hands and being strong and aware with it. We left a lot of points out on the court just by not doing those two simple things. But as a player, until you fail at doing these little things at game speed, you really don’t understand what it takes to do them correctly. It’s a different ballgame than it was in high school and junior college. Every game there will be a whole new set of learning experiences and teaching points. The zone obviously threw us off. We’ll see more of that this year, especially if we can’t hit shots. I expect our zone offense to get better as players get more comfortable. Buzzy Caruthers said he believes Jervay can be one of the best defensive players in the nation eventually. I see it. He has 4 blocks and 5 steals in his first two games at this level. He’s very active. Long arms, quick feet, very physical. Seems to be tough-minded. Glad to see him step up and confidently knock down a buzzer-beater to send it into overtime. Cam is fantastic. We’ll see a lot of double-doubles from him this year. Court vision, passing and speed are high level. Demeanor and body language need to get a lot better real soon though (unfortunately, not sure how fixable that is for a 21 y/o redshirt soph). Winston, Simpson and Cowan will be coming. Hoiberg’s ability to get his players good looks against man or zone in ATO and end of clock situations is just incredible. We’ve seen it numerous times already. He has a brilliant basketball mind. We just gotta start converting at a higher clip.

I took that as him Responding to losing to UC Riverside

That’s what I’m thinking. I don’t think Hoiberg has any problem telling guys they can’t play at this level. He’s got a couple on this team and those conversations will happen at the end of the year.

Hoiberg went 3-13 his first year and 16-16 overall. Theres talent on this team the bigs are just so green its gonna take awhile. Getting Walker next year IMO will be huge no pun intended. Gonna have to change my expectations thought we could be an NIT team this year, instead I wont be focusing on wins and losses as much and more so individual players growth. Hoiberg is still the man this team could win 2 games all year and I would still believe that.

Once everyone is eligible PG: Cam Mack --> Jervay Green G: Jervay Green --> Samari Curtis G: Dachon Burke --> Thorir Thorbjarnarson F: Shamiel Stevenson --> Akol Arop F: Yvan Ouedraogo --> Kevin Cross Charlie Easley waiting in the wings. Thats my take on it. Yall enjoy your weekend! I will be back on Friday. GBR

I hope Bama doesn’t make it this year. Hope this knocks em out.

Letting Orgeron go was the stupidest move USC ever made. Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

I will say this again in the post game thread. But why keep playing Cheatham and Kavas? 1. This season isnt going anywhere 2. They havent been effective so far 3. Akol, Samari, and Shamiel (when eligible) will be with the program much longer. Let them develop and get live reps in the system 3. This staff doesn't really like to recruit grad transfers anyway so who cares if you sour that pipeline Once again, i know its not fair to Cheatham and Kavas. But think about how beneficial 10-15 min a game for a whole season would be for Akol and Samari.

Jacks 79 Huskers 75

Can we honestly say what that is for this team? It's not FTs, or layips (spelling intentional) or 3 from "career 45 percent" shooters.

3 points in 7 minutes. Doc is back

Some 2OT are two teams just refusing to lose...thus seems like two teams refusing to win.

hey, that was clutch!

Just needing to improve shooting, rebounding and defending.

Well, you know what they say, if yer gonna drink ALL day, you have to start in the morning ....

I’m getting tired of hearing Kent say “layup no good.”

Agreed, he just need to pick his spots. The clear out at the end was nice....

I can rationalize with the best of them but I was expecting us, with our roster of guys who would be too good to play for UC Riverside, to be competitive last night.

Norm, mark my words. Cam Mack will deliver a Vince Carter like dunk over Frederick Weiss aka the dunk of death on some unsuspecting player this season. He drives and elevates BIG time. I noticed Arop’s shot looks nice and I saw him bury a few threes during warmups. My son and I counted Samari Curtis made 5 threes in a row during warmups, has that wrist flick of a shot but goes in. Yvan was a gem of a find. His back to the basket spin move and layup on the 7-2 guy had the crowd ooing and me getting a bit misty eyed. Cheatham and Burke need to be the leaders out there, let’s get em on Saturday!

No, I'm the one who mentioned those who should be kicked out, namely Rutgers. So I started by stating my opinion, then continued with 2 others ahead of NU in the expel dep't via the scandal talk. I forget that's not okay to have a take without someone misinterpreting the discussion I was having with myself (evidently)...