Leaderboard

Breidenbach and his famed high school basketball program is currently in Portland playing in a holiday invitational tournament. His school easily has 5 high major prospects on the team including 5 star Kentucky PG commit Devin Askew. I would say he's roughly 6'9'' with shoes. He does not look like your typical basketball player but I definitely see why Hoiberg and company like him. While the team doing pre-game shoot around he spent the majority of his time shooting free throws and making probably 90%. He's got an extremely easy shot without many moving parts which is nice to see from a "big man". In the game he was a true hustler. He was running hard both on defense and offense, he was the guy calling out everything on defense, he was diving for loose balls on the floor, and battled in the paint. He only attempted one 3 in the game and missed it but made a decent amount in pre-game. He was skilled for a big man with his passing abilities and has good hands receiving the ball. He was extremely limited when he put the ball on the floor though but that can be expected. All in all he had 16 points and was 4/4 from the line with probably 7 rebounds and a couple blocked shots. For as deep as his team is he's very much the number two to their 5 star PG and is probably why those two were the captains. You could also see the respect his teammates have for him as they made sure in warmups he would get his "change" even when he didn't make a shot. He would definitely fit the mold of big that Fred employs and is very cerebral on the court, which one would expect from a guy that's considered Stanford and has Ivy League offers. I really hope he's N come next November.

I'm gonna suggest a scenario that I think is more than plausible that puts everyone involved in a better light. No one's being a diva; no one abandoned anyone or didn't try hard enough to re-recruit him. Etc. etc. So, you're a HS kid who's a 4-star-level recruit. And you suffer a bad knee injury in the off-season so you can't do the AAU summer circuit and your senior season is in jeopardy. It's a bad deal. Extremely disappointing. Extremely. Fortunately, you've already committed to a school ... but they have a new coach after the one you originally committed to got fired. Which sows a little bit of doubt in the back of your mind. You've never had a bad injury before, certainly not one that knocked you out of commission for almost a year and one that might be difficult to overcome. Not impossible to overcome, but certainly difficult. You have doubts - however unfounded those doubts might be - about whether you'll be able to return to the same level of ability that you had before. You worry that you'll lose some of your quickness. You worry that you won't regain some of that leaping ability. You worry that you won't be able to live up to the hype and hope that the fans of the program you committed to probably expect of you. You worry that the new coach who runs the program you committed to has the same doubts about your ability to recover from your injury that you have. You don't want to come across like you're "needy" but you'd like some reassurance. Some affirmation. Something. Just give me a sign that you believe in me the way the old coach who I committed to would have done. Recruit me like I'm not committed. So that I know that you think I will still be the player I hoped that I was going to be before I got hurt. Send me a sign. Something. Anything. Oh. Word is you're recruiting a juco kid who seems to maybe, possibly fill the role I had imagined for myself. OK. Well then. Now what do I do? Switch gears. Now you're that new coach. You're an alpha male and not in the habit of trying to put yourself in the brain of a talented high school basketball player who's already committed to your program and who has seemed very firmly committed ever since you first met with him. You've got a program to run. You have hit some bumps in the road and have some internal issues to deal with. You're looking at your roster and trying to figure out your needs for the immediate future. We need some rebounding. Gotta find a kid who can get some boards. Man, oh man, need some shooting. Gotta land a shooter. Kid with ties to the state and some high-level D1 experience comes on your radar. OK, so him and Donovan. That should address a couple of those acute needs, right? Right. So who's the bad guy in this situation? Nobody. Would have preferred Donovan handle things with a bit more tact and discretion after the fact. But if you are that talented recruit who got hurt and felt doubt about how complete your recovery was going to be and was worried that the new coach wasn't as committed to you as you wanted him to be and, therefore, decided to decommit, you would want everyone who was following you to know that your decision was justified. That it wasn't just based on emotion or silly crap like that. A person in that situation might feel the need to sell the decision so that others would accept it. Sometimes our sales pitches don't reach the mark. A 19-year-old kid with no sales experience might have that problem.

The team had a full scrimmage today. Hoiberg said Dalano was 7 for 7 and Walker was 8 for 10 from the field. He said all three redshirts “were phenomenal today”.

If we're talking pure run-jump athleticism, Stevenson is probably the only one who can compete with Akol. Banton is more skilled and longer, but I think Akol is probably more explosive. That was the least meaningful part of he comment, though, and it wasn't meant to speak to his spot on the depth chart at all. Obviously the coaches aren't going to publicly say he's not good enough and has a terrible attitude, but Gates spoke highly of how Arop is handling this season and what he's bringing to the locker room. Anybody who watched him play before signing knew he was going to be a project to play at that level, especially in Hoiberg's system. Fred saw enough to accept his commitment, however, whereas he pushed almost everybody out like Penitent pointed out. There's a decent chance Akol doesn't finish his career at Nebraska like there is with any player these days, but I don't think him failing to crack the top 8-9 right now means he'll never be able to play.

"His family considered reopening his recruitment before the tear and letting the new head coach (who would later be announced as Fred Hoiberg) re-recruit him. But, the injury sent him to a dark place, and the interest Nebraska still showed under Hoiberg made the decision an easy one." He posted pictures on Nebraska's campus with Hoiberg on April 19th, June 15th, June 19th, September 14th. Not to mention he has been to multiple home games this year. Count me out on the Hoiberg ignored him narrative.

"Williams said another aspect of his decision was seeing how NU was assembling its roster with so many older transfers, both from DI and junior college ranks. Williams said he didn’t disagree with the strategy but felt like it wasn’t conducive to his goal of being an immediate impact player next season." Those damn Nebraska beat writers making things up. This whole playing time BS seems to come from *checks notes* a quote from Donovan Williams in regards to how he decommitted because Nebraska doesn't fit his goal of early playing time.

Going to be REALLY hard to get him out of NC though. NC State, VT, and Wake all in on him. All within close proximity of him. As far as Cam, just a hunch about that. Feel like he wants to play pro ball as quickly as he can. I could be and hope I'm wrong. But this or next year he'll probably bounce. We need a PG regardless though.

I'd be in on him. I think Cam may bounce early (this year or next) for the NBA. No inside info. Just a hunch. He would immediately step in I think he's gonna be hard to get out of NC though

Well said. Donovan seems like a fantastic kid, and I’m sure when a reporter asks you why you decommitted to the home town school you gotta do some tip toeing and dancing. Don’t wanna crap on a school you have affinity for - but also don’t wanna be perceived as weak and backing away from a challenge. And if early pt is what he values most, he certainly should go to a place that is going to give him that. Really don’t see any bad guys in this scenario, I know a-hole creighton fans wanna blow this out of proportion - but every party did what’s in their best interest, as they should.

I don’t think people would be so harsh if he had simply just de-committed. But he then held interviews and said “I don’t wanna throw the coaching staff under the bus, but...” and proceeded to try to throw the coaching staff under the bus, even though I think we can all agree the coaches did nothing wrong. It’s a bad look. Plus all of his other comments. I talked to two Creighton fans on Christmas Eve. After they heard Williams had de-committed, they were hoping Creighton would offer. About 24 hours later, they had completely changed their mind.

Can we please start recruiting players with easier names to pronounce at some point.

Going for red panda