Leaderboard

Hey guys. Sorry for my vent. Lifelong diehard here. My family purchased season tickets when I was in 8th grade- back in 1990. (I know, I’m old) Experienced the highs of Nee’s teams to being a proud member of the “6500” barflencht coined us during the Collier years, to attending Doc’s basketball 101 events, to befriending players on Coach Miles teams. Thought Fred was an absolute home run “I can’t believe we got him” hire. I work with about 50% bluejay alums. I bet them donuts for the office every year. I’ll be waking up early tomorrow to buy 7 dozen and get crap thrown- and deservedly so. I drive from Omaha to each home game. Leave work early to make the 6pm games. Even took a half day of PTO today to “prepare” for the CU game. I just told my son I have no motivation to leave work Friday and go watch the team against Idaho State. I’ll go to the Sunday game, but this is just painful to watch. It’s like they’re not even being coached. I drive thousands of miles (I calculated and it’s kind of sobering) every season to pay my $5 to park so I can make the trek over the bridge while I can’t feel my face in January and hope it doesn’t start to be white out conditions for the drive home so I can see my daughter and wife again and don’t slide into the ditch so I could see Verge go 4-23. And do it again and again. I buy into the hype as much as anyone. Tominaga is close to Curry. Lat made 88 out of 100 threes. Keon would start at most schools- so would Wilcher, Wilhelm has grown to 6-10, up from 6-9, Bryce is already a lottery pick….I must love punishment. Actually, most of us longtime season ticket holders and diehards must. I have balls of steel from them being kicked so many times. When I think about all of the money I throw out the window on tickets, gas, mileage, my time, etc, etc…it’s probably not a great investment. But I’ll keep coming back. I’ll keep clinging on hope that we get it figured out. That Verge will settle in and become a distributor. The Tominaga hones in his bombs. That Walker remembers he had to sit out games and to play like he did when he first was eligible. That K-Web will lead us now to some wins. That is all. I’m down. I’m spending 80+ bucks on donuts to feed my overweight bluejay coworkers tomorrow morning. This is my 7th year I’ve lost the bet, out of 8 years there. No worries, I now budget for it….

As much as it is a joke on this web site, Creighton gets kids who fit their system right out of the gate. I have officially never looking at who is coming in, I am tired of reading all the hype about a kid and then making it impossible for them to be that good. Will keep going and cheering, fuck this is year 54 so can’t stop now! actually am scared that if they ever do win an NCAA game I will die soon after because I then would have seen everything.

We literally look like we aren’t coached. There’s zero way FH forgot how to coach (or never could). What is happening? We look like a team that the coach is afraid to hold them accountable. I don’t see, when I watch, what we drill. Offensively or defensively. What do we practice? We look like we’re playing pick up ball. I can tell you exactly what Creighton practices and what they drill, btw.

Almost a completely brand new team for McDermott, and look how well he has them moving, cutting, and passing. Every. Single. Year. It’s what I thought maybe our offense would look like this year, but it’s just more of the same for us.

That was Walker's worst game as a Husker. Zero points on offense and Kalkbrenner made him look like a mediocre defender and rebounder. Lat made some threes, but was very poor defensively and is still a liability if he puts the ball on the floor. We were better with Eduardo and/or Breidenbach on the court. We were obviously better with Kobe and CJ on the court. The ball actually moved around and we played with a purpose. Trey has a broken foot. I say throw Kobe out there with 4 freshmen - CJ, Bryce, Wilhelm and Eduardo - and let them go. Kobe's presence on the court is great for the young guys. He's constantly encouraging and giving constructive criticism. I loved how he wouldn't let Eduardo complain to the ref after a foul. Those 4 freshman play hard, have talent and just need some time and repetition to learn how to play at this level. Keon and Keisei, as well. Play the young guys and don't process ANY of the underclassmen after the season. Stick with them and let's build an actual team. As Husker fans, we don't even need to win. We're used to losing. We just want a team that's enjoyable to watch and easy to root for.

Hoiberg’s offense absolutely requires ball movement to create open shots for the shooters on the floor for Nebraska. When you have a PG that is a high volume dribbler, that kills ball movement, and since the rest of the players on the court aren’t touching the ball frequently, that lulls them to sleep, so they don’t move without the ball, which means that they don’t get open shots in rhythm and they aren’t attempting many back door cuts to the basket, because they don’t expect to get the ball anyway. It turns into a bunch of standing around and watching the dribbler. And when they aren’t getting touches on offense, which lulls them to sleep, that carries over to a lack of intensity on defense. So it kills them on offense and defense. Verge’s stats don’t tell the whole story in regards to how much his play and decision making really hurts this team. When a team rebounds as poorly as Nebraska, the ridiculous drives to the basket resulting in poor, low percentage, contested shots at the rim are effectively turnovers in the way that they hurt the team. And when the primary ball handler consistently chooses to take those shots, rather than distributing the ball to all of the shooters that Hoiberg has assembled on this team, it sabotages the ability of the rest of Nebraska’s players on the court to play to their potential. Nebraska’s margin for error is so thin that they can’t afford to have all of their players failing to play to their potential. Until Hoiberg gets a distributor at PG, it doesn't matter how much he upgrades the rest of the talent on this roster. And all of those things kill the crowd energy in Pinnacle Bank Arena, which negates what should be a pretty substantial home court advantage for the Huskers.

On the radio this morning, the talk was about how this was a culture game, more than anything. Creighton is young and talented. I don't think they're less talented than NU. They're probably more talented, but they're less experienced in some ways, too. But CU replaced nearly every top contributor from last year's team and they were the ones that handled that atmosphere better last night. That goes back to the culture that has been established there. I think that's what Coach Fred *wants* to develop here, too. He touted that as why he ran his system instead of trying to win games in year one and praised the players on the roster for laying that foundation. But Derrick Walker it he only one that was in the program at the time. And he hasn't been all that great so far this season. Hard to hold together a culture if you're turning over the roster so much. Hopefully some continuity over the next couple of years will get it there, but it's not there yet. Coach Mac has a decade of track laid. - I liked most of what I saw from Wilcher last night. - I liked what Webster brought to the floor. I thought he brought a calming affect when things were spiraling out of control in the first half. - Not sure I agree with Ed being ready to start. He's got some talent, but he's also still very raw. Not sure what you do in the paint. The smaller lineup was the one that brought the team back, so maybe somewhat diminished roles for the front court is something we see more of. - I wonder where McPherson is in his development. I wonder if he gets a look with Trey going down. - And man, you just have to feel for Trey. I was liking how the offense looked when he was running the show, too. - Thought Bryce got a big lesson in high major basketball last night. Excited to see how he adjusts, because I think he will. - I did like that the team fought back after being down big. I hope that serves as a marker for them that they're capable. As someone else said in the thread, I do think there's a good team somewhere on this roster. But the start of this season and night has sure been a gut punch.

Listen... I am the first to say that I am a failed, losing-record coach. However, and not to toot my own horn here, but I have taken over some pretty bad, losing programs and it didn't take more than a month to see exactly what we were working on in practice come game time. Win or lose. We literally look like we are uncoached. Can anyone tell me what they think our defensive principles are? What our drive and help rules are? What our rebounding rules are on offense (let alone defense...)? We look like a team coached by a dad who watched YouTube clips of an offense he wants to run, and watched an NBA video on, "defensive rotations," (the only thing we do marginally well).

Play Webster. Sit Verge.

The missed layups are the ones that kill me. How do you hit the side, bottom, under backboard, so consistently? I don't understand how the same scenario of ridiculous runs of 15 or 20 to nothing happen every year against Creighton. I don't understand the coaching decisions. I don't understand the recruiting. I don't understand the offense. I don't understand the rebounding. All of which apparently qualifies me for a $3.5 million base salary.

I asked my wife if it’s appropriate to teach my four year old curse words as long as they are followed by the word “Creighton.” She said no. Now I am rethinking this whole marriage thing.

I had a blast watching Bolt's Boys punch the #1 team in the mouth and embrace a challenge. Basketball and Football have looked nutless for a couple years now, lets see if Hoiberg's boys have some dog in them - I'm guessing no, but never know.

Say what you want about the players, but this starts at the top. Hoiberg’s “best player” the past three years has been a transfer who is a black hole and refuses to run the offense. All three years our team has looked better when said players were not playing. Either break these kids or bench them. His offense is either too complicated, our teams aren’t good enough to run it, or he lacks the leadership to get them to run it. We get outhustled badly. All our players play like they’re potential lottery picks and don’t need to play hard. Spoiler: most of you stink…that’s why you had to transfer to the worst major basketball school ever…so maybe hustle. Trey - Has always been more athlete than basketball player. He got convinced he’s better than he is because he was one of the better players on a 7 win team. Good defender. Great dunker. Bryce - His parents should be thrown in jail for letting him come play Nebrasketball. Clearly talented. His teammates all think they are more talented. Walker - Would be a great 7th man on a tournament team. Good energy which is rare on this team. Lat- Hits shots sometimes I guess. Verge - Thinks he’s Allen Iverson. Is actually a poor man’s Bo Spencer. At least Bo and Teddy and Cam before him were fun sometimes. There is nothing fun about watching this young man play basketball. Wilcher - Plays ok in spurts. Also abuses those spurts as an excuse to be a black hole for several possessions at a time. Bro, you averaged like 2 pts last year…run the offense. Ed - He’s trying to force it to justify his minutes and does not have the talent to force it. Just crash the boards and be tall, big fella. Webster - Always liked his game. Wish he had a little help tonight. Breidenbach - Not ready to play major college basketball. I know he’s a fan favorite, but big homie has cinderblock feet. He’ll be a solid upperclassman if he sticks around. Keisei - I fell in love with a 6’1” Japanese boy this summer, and it sure seems my crush read too many of his press clippings. Horrible shot selection so far. This hurts my heart to say, but he should not be in the rotation. Edwards - I keep seeing he played minutes, but I struggle to remember seeing him on the court through 3 games. Is that bad? Heard he had a nice dunk one time in a scrimmage. This sucks. We suck again. Go Big Red I guess.

Sat next to Hawkins' (#44) family. Witnessed one of his relatives join in the "C-U!" chant then immediately clap along to the Nebraska fight song. F*ck Creighton forever.

We need to clear a big mental hurdle tonight. Like the men, Creighton is in the heads of fans and players. A good start is imperative. If the Jays keep it close or build a lead the Huskers may be in trouble. The ladies need a test and I believe this group will pass.

If we could travel back to June 1 and gave McDermott the Nebraska roster and gave Hoiberg the Creighton roster, I think the Nebraska roster wins by 20. This is perhaps the most disheartening thing. Creighton just has a way better coach than we do. It's been that way for a decade and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Lol...1990? Your are still young! My family purchased our tickets in 1977...and I know there are a number on here that have had tix before that. We used to travel to KC every year when I was little for the Big 8 tournament. I remember one time where a guy and his friends were locked out of their box seats at Kemper so I had to help him by climbing between the ceiling and the plexiglass to get into the room to let him in. Lol they kept me fed the rest of the day.

Depressing - I think we have better players but Creighton clearly had a better team. I can only assume that Fred is too attached to an NBA type offense and needs to adjust back to college. In the NBA you play 2 or 3 man offensive systems that start with dribble drives. But we don't have NBA players. Creighton runs an offense that had 5 guys moving all the time - with lots of off ball screens to get the offense moving. We don't do anything until someone starts a dribble drive and I don't think we ever set a screen for anyone who does not have the ball. Fred needs to spend some time watching this film and find a way to get some semblance of the ball movement - and player rotation that you see in good college offenses. At one point I thought we must think we are playing football - can only have 1 guy in "motion' at a time :). I actually think maybe Verge learned something tonight. He was very frustrated - but I think that was due to him sort of knowing he should not be doing what he was doing -but also not knowing what else to do. I understand the people saying he is not a PG because he certainly is not trying to run an offense that gets everyone involved which is what you want your PG to do. But - I sure don't see how he was a D-1 "shooting guard" either because he looks like the last guy on the team we would want taking jump shots. I actually think he has PG skills (ball handling and passing ability) but he just doesn't know how to play PG - and that is on Fred - and Fred's "offense". Verge is really very good at beating his guy off the dribble - but after watching the CU and West Ill game films they also know that as long as you cover the screener to take away that pass off the pick and roll and help off enough to contest the shot at the bucket you have taken away his game completely. That said I don't know whether he is 100% to blame for not making the pass to anyone else - because when we run that pick and roll the other 3 guys just stand around watching and none of them seem to be trying to get themselves open. Bryce is extremely talented in some ways - but also very raw and lacking in others. If we could get him to play as hard as his brother does we might have something. He really struggles on the defensive end and while his athleticism gets him some rebounds his rebounding fundamentals are really lacking. I am kind of hoping that Trey will really push him while he has to sit and watch now and get him to understand that playing at this level requires 100% effort 100% of the time no matter how gifted you are athletically. The most frustrating thing though is how he disappears at the end of games. He had 25 points in the Western Illinois game - but did nothing in the last 5 minutes of that game. Tonight with 6 minutes left I told my friend that if Bryce is really an NBA player he needs to take over the game now. But he barely even touched the ball the rest of the game. Obviously a lot of that is on Verge not sharing anything. We need to make Verge understand that his (and most everyone else's) primary job really needs to be to find a way to help get the most out of the skills that Bryce has. Particularly at the end of close games he needs to be the one taking a leading role in games. That said - I understand it is his 3rd college game - but great players are not afraid to put the team on their back. I don't get the criticism of Walker. He did struggle at times tonight - but the CU big guy is actually a handful - much bigger and very disciplined. What I liked is for the first time this year we let Walker do what he perhaps does best on offense - get the ball in the high post and pass to cutters. He did that quite a bit last year - but we have not done that at all this year until a couple times tonight. I don't care that he did not score much - his scoring should only come in getting 2nd chance points and passes off pick and rolls (if we ever get to a point where the opponent does not focus on taking that away). Walker is undersized a bit - but he does play hard. I do think Andre needs to be in the rotation and he does good things - primarily bringing alot of energy to the floor. But he really struggled in the first half at times also and just is not nearly as sound fundamentally as Walker at this point. Overall I can't say that I expected to win going in - but I also think the reason we did not is almost fully due to our inability or unwillingness to play as a team. That is on Fred to a large extent - but the players need to realize that as well.

Once again, thanks for the early loss to W Illinois. Made this one easier to handle and kind of expected. To all of you that are disappointed, remember what's important here. We are getting guys ready for the NBA.

The spacing they have is excellent. Why NE cant do that with their shooters blows my mind.

To be fair, he was watching us go against our own defense.

I love that the two highest paid, most-heralded-before-they-came coaches in NU history have somehow managed to make the programs they came into worse than they were before.

That is all.

We showed up in white jerseys for a "red out". Is there any way that happens during the Miles era? We don't lose games because of the color jersey or shoes we wear; it's just one of the multitude of effects of having a program or program culture that doesn't seem to put enough value on cohesiveness

I may get some flack for this, but this team needs a "ball connector". Or in other words a guy who keeps the offense moving. Last year Banton did that a bit but Thor was really good at that over the past two years. Trey was kind of filling that role there, but now I have no idea who will. I'd personally insert Wilhelm into the starting lineup to do that. Not because he's a better player than Lat (you can argue it, but I'll opt for the experienced guy) but he is looking to move the ball based on what I see. Walker acting at the high post is something else they need to incorporate a lot more. Got Bryce two easy buckets last night and Walker did well at that last year.

Another thing that may or may not be a thing: Shoe color. Everyone on creighton's team wore something within their color scheme. NU's are all over the place. Why was Ed wearing blue shoes? Maybe it's not a big deal, but I would have liked to see a little more assertiveness there...

I used to give people crap for leaving games early. I left a couple of football games at halftime during the Callahan era because I just couldn't stand to see us throttled on our home field by teams we used to boat race. When we got down by 15 in the first half last night, I almost walked out. If bad basketball is on the floor, I'm not going to object to people leaving early anymore.

After sleeping on it, I do not feel any better about this team or the direction of the program. In fact, I might feel a little worse. During last night's presser, Hoiberg said he was still 100% confident in Alonzo Verge. This, despite a group of fans large enough to make "boos" heard in the arena feeling the same way many of us do about his hero-ball approach. There are times to stand by your beliefs but when it's obvious to even the casual fan that a change needs to be made, you now have a credibility problem. Just ask the football coach how things have worked out with his 4-year QB. I hate feeling this way after 3 games, but here we are again. I don't recall being more excited about a team than I was for this year and until now, I've not questioned my belief that Fred would get this done. But as the years of failure and disappointment continue to pile up, the emotional investment gas tank hits empty pretty quickly. I'll watch until I can't take the dribbling exhibitions any longer. I will hope it turns. But my expectations at this point have hit zero and my belief in Fred is trending down.

I don't know what to say anymore. I really don't. This was my first year as a season ticket holder. I was so excited. Willing to make an hour and a half drive one way for the games. All of that is gone already. I feel so defeated. If Creighton is even slightly above average and doesn't have a huge scoring drought, this is another 15-20 point BJ win. Even after cutting it to a one possession game, I still didn't feel "good" about where we are at. I really hope this team doesn't mentally collapse. It could get realllllll ugly if we do and this was a "star studded" team so to speak. If not this year, when? I wasn't sold on dancing, but felt that we had a punchers chance. Now I'm just hoping for things like winning more than we have the past few years. I just don't know what to think. This is bigger than any one guy. So no need to bring up individuals right now. It's a total team collapse. The fact that we are sitting at 1-2 after three home games... all against lesser teams... tells me what I need to know right now.

Our Bigs are 11/37 this year, 29.7% from the field... Verge is our highest volume shooter by 10+ attempts, he is 34% from the field, 14% from 3. This isn't even hard to defend at this point, basically just don't let Bryce beat you. And how about those bigs, they can't score or rebound.

This might be the worst coached team I have ever seen. We have horrible fundamentals, zero teamwork, nobody knows their role and we run a garbage offense. That was a very average Creighton team but they coached circles around us. On top of that, Bryce and Verge’s body language on the bench when we were making our comeback in the first half was pretty poor. Both right now care about only themselves and their stats. It’s too bad Bryce doesn’t have Trey’s mentality.

The most positive stat of the night. 7 different players finished with an assist. And finished with 15 assists on 26 makes. Need to build on that.

I hope I'm wrong about Verge too, but at this point it feels like he's got every pocket stuffed with matches and he's carrying gas cans in both hands. I don't think it was a coincidence we made our best/only big run with him sitting and watching.

Verge...does he make it past Christmas...I'll hang up and listen. Biggs, Mack, Allen, all jucos...have not worked out. He went Juco before ASU, and it has me a bit concerned. I hope I'm wrong about Verge. He could be the guy who rights the ship or burns it down.

I want to apologize to Cam Mack for anything I may have posted here about his style of play 2 years ago. I've now truly witnessed horrific point guard play. I think the mid-December version of the 2019-20 team might beat this team by 15. This team does not do anything well at this point, other than shoot free throws. Even most of the 3s they made tonight were not in the flow of the offense. It's not sustainable. Their defense is a complete joke. Nobody is in the right position to guard or rebound ... often because the other players are having to rotate and get out of position to make up for a particular player going rogue or for the same player just not paying attention. Hope we can get to 8 wins this season. That's about the only unknown left to be decided.

This is awful news, especially for Trey and even Bryce. Can’t imagine it. I can’t lie, this gives me a lot less hope of a decent season now. Fred now has one less PG available, which means Verge will continue to dazzle us all with his constant dribbling and throwing up crap in traffic without looking for any open shooters.

man, I don't know how many times I have thought that if someone told me 4 years ago what a bust both of those guys would have been how much I would have laughed at them....and yet, I have a hard time believing this team won't struggle to get to 10 wins right now. So maybe 25 wins in 3 years? No way Fred makes it through that. Tre might be out for god knows how long on top of everything else. Just disappointing. Football and basketball both are making me look forward to the next thing earlier and earlier every year. Football isn't even officially over yet and I'm already past hoops and on to checking the baseball signing class.

Not just better, but more poised and mature as a freshman than Verge as a 5th year senior.

Already no chance at the NCAA Tournament. It’s not even Thanksgiving.

Over/under win total on Creighton was 10.5 when I hit the boats a couple weeks ago and under was -135. They ain’t good.

Their freshman PG is way better than our nba prospect grad transfer PG.

I’m minutes away from being done with the Hoiberg experience. This is embarrassing. Creighton is the better practiced, drilled, scouted, team. They have just as many new guys. This isn’t a talent issue. This is a team development and accountability issue. We recruit guys who we feel grateful wanted to be here. Creighton recruits guys who want to be there. One coach holds his players accountable to play to a system and a standard he wants. The other hopes and prays they don’t transfer (or doesn’t care cause he’ll just go get another transfer that didn’t workout elsewhere).

Approximately 364 more days to prepare for our next matchup

I personally feel you should share your story/comments with people in the athletic department and bball program. The, "they don't look like they're coached," comment is the most prevalent thing I am seeing all over Husker-land today. And I think it is very accurate.

Are all Creighton fans a**holes, or just the ones sitting around us? Classless group of fans. Must be a CU thing.

I honestly have no motivation to go to anymore games. I drive from Omaha and its not worth it anymore. At this point its better to just watch at home. NE had no business being down that much and losing tonight. Get it fixed Fred!!!

There's a difference between building a team and just accumulating talent. I don't know how to get talented but selfish players to start playing as a team. But I'd rather watch competitive basketball with guys like Kobe, Thor, Eduardo, etc than the brutal product we put on the floor with guys like Cam, Teddy and Verge. The good news is, I think Bryce, CJ and Wilhelm have a mix of talent, toughness and selflessness. Now we just need to keep building on that year to year, as opposed to accumulating a new group of talent each year.

Hey I’ve seen this game before! jesus figure this the F out. It’s really not as difficult as we continually make it