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he really knows how to finnish....

I have no idea how the idea we got lucky last year exists. We lost two starters, our best player missed 5 games, our true center missed tons of time, and Sam missed time. Guys who shot the 3 well most of their careers had off years (CJ and Bando). One of our prized recruits redshirted. Seems to me we got VERY unlucky and we still got to .500. Also in my dreams Lloyd wins the PG spot and is a poor man’s Jalen Pickett with a little more size. I agree with those who say he could be the difference.

I'd agree that Brice is a 3 level scorer and he does seem like he might end up being the scoring focal point if there is one. While he is an exceptional 3pt shooter, he also shoots well from mid-range and gets to the FT line. A statue doesn't take 115 FT attempts. The unfortunate comparison to Griesel sort of distracts from this. We all like Lawrence but when you look at this numbers from last year they're not great though you'd expect them to be better this year. Ramel had a year to prep so he'll be more prepared but I don't see him being anything beyond a complimentary scorer and hope that he is able to fill the distributor/ball handler role.

I don't want to put too much on the kid -- especially for someone we've never seen play at this level -- but it's possible Ramel could be that guy. I think it was the Husker basketball official Twitter account that posted a video of clips of Ramel portraying the other team's best player. He was getting shots off against our best defenders. He's able to drive to the rim, pull-up from mid-range, and shoot the long ball. Three-level scorer. Plus he's long. I think he could be that guy.

Sam could do a lot but he was not good at creating a shot for himself at the end of the clock.

I think the path each of those guys took played a big part in the players they became. Griesel's evolution as a player probably doesn't happen at a higher level where he got to play right away as a hustle guy 3/4, then mid-career moved into a point guard role, then after three years developed into a really effective player as a senior that earned him the opportunity to make the leap to a high-major conference. Similarly, I think the freedom Scheierman had early in his career playing against Summit League defenses as a primary initiator allowed him to develop into the dynamic player he became by the end of his time there. I know Matt thinks Creighton messed up by not running everything through him as the point guard, but he's just not dynamic enough physically to consistently create with the ball in his hands in the Big East like he did at the Summit level, though he eventually found a beter balance as the season went on between his on- and off-ball play. There was definitely a big adjustment period for him though. Like Griesel, Tonje and especially Allick were both late bloomers in high school (Griesel was good early then exploded at the end like Tonje, whereas Allick played mostly JV his junior year). Tonje was always a shooter and a bouncy straight-line athlete, but his offensive game really expanded as a senior. Lateral quickness and ball-handling against athleticism were concerns, though. At CSU, John didn't play much as a freshman and wasn't particularly good when he did get a larger role as a sophomore. He broke through a bit as a junior and was their second-best player this past season as a senior. But he has one season out of four as a double-digit scorer in the Mountain West. Does he stick around for four years to become that if Nebraska takes him out of high school? Wrightsell didn't look anything like a high-major player his first two years at CSF, but a breakout year has earned him this opportunity to test himself in the SEC. It's also worth noting that Griesel and Scheierman are the only ones on that list we've actually seen play a season at the high-major level to this point. I think the conversation is far more nuanced than seeing guys have success elsewhere and saying Nebraska should have recruited them out of high school.

To do this exercise properly, you can't view last year's roster through the lens of how they actually performed. You have to look at it from how it appeared entering the season. And that roster was full of holes and question marks entering the season. Key returning players: Walker - serviceable but undersized big man Wilcher - high expectations after ending the '21-'22 season with increased efficiency. Probable leading scorer. Key transfers: Sam - big pickup, but still a question mark since he would be playing more of a PG role than he had previously. Not an elite passer or ballhandler Bandoumel - lockdown defender, average offensive player Gary - undersized PF who has elite defending and rebounding abilities for his size. Dennis Rodman Light (before Dennis went crazy). Blaise - questions about his health and ability to make the jump up from JUCO competition, but has potential to be dominant force That's really it. The rest of the roster were freshman and guys who needed to make a monster leap in production compared to the previous season. And looking at this year's roster compared to that isn't even close. We are miles ahead of where we were a year ago.

I tend to think the overall roster is deeper and more versatile this year, and having a guy like Keisei effectively show-cause for the last half of the season certainly gives us a dude teams have to specifically gameplan around. However, I just do not see how we replace Walker and Greisel. Mast, imo, can maybe get to 85-90% of Walker... But Greisel just did so many other things that I'm not sure you can measure, that I am not sure we can replicate. You are getting a year older KT, Lawrence, Gary, Hoiberg, and Wilcher so you have to somewhat consider that an "upgrade" in each one of those spots. I also think Allick is a definite upgrade over Breidenbach. So yeah - overall roster and depth might be "upgraded," but I don't see how you replace the two we lost very easily. So I'm going to have to consider it a wash for now unfortunately. Also - if all you had told me about last year was that we'd sweep Iowa, beat Creighton at Creighton, beat Maryland late, beat Wisconsin, win at Rutgers - I would have guessed we were like a NCAA second round team. Yet we finished 16-16 losing in the first round of the Conference Tournament. So who the hell knows what next year brings. But I can tell you we're not going to do "that" again, so we better find wins elsewhere.

Maybe overly optimistic, but I actually see us being 5. Reasoning 1) AW & DW should be able to free up our shooters, cause of their ability to drive. Also cause I believe they are better passers. 2) Jaz, Callin and Logan are good shooters and should benefit from better ball movement 3) Alexa took expected lumps from being defenses focal points and should have a much better year 4) I think MM will make a big jump 5) I think the KU game was the confidence boost KM needed 6) though not talked about Miss Potts, I think will prove much more versatile than people think 7) I think the player development message has finally been heard ...Just my personal thoughts

This seems to be a bit of hyperbole. To put it in terms of actual records let's use Michigan St and Iowa overall and conference records last year. Both were tournament teams. And I wholeheartedly understand if we had thier record we may not have been invited, but I digress. Michigan St 21-13, 11-9 Iowa 19-14, 11-9 Nebraska 16-16, 9-11 Now that's not exactly having to climb Mount Everest in terms of improvement to get this team dancing Edit confused Mich an Mich st oops

Do not forget we will also need some good luck come the fall. Keeping everyone mostly healthy is a good start. No season ending injuries.

You’re RIGHT, we could’ve easily Won 20 with our full compliment of players for the entire season. This Team appears more “Athletic” & certainly has more shooting, x10 with the return of Tominaga. You’re greatest surprise Wins last year had to be the Road Wins @ Creighton/Rutgers/Iowa. A Good team SHOULD be able to beat teams like Maryland, Wisconsin & yes even Purdue at Home. I’m Ready to roll the Balls out tomorrow, Let’s DO This…!!!

I have watched Brice Williams, but clearly you haven't. First you compare Williams to Griesel despite their playing styles being very different. Now you are comparing Brice to the JPJ/Petteway mold of dudes who can will their way to a crunch time bucket? C'mon. Williams barely dribbles the basketball. He plays in the Klay Thompson mold. If you're looking for a comparison with a current Husker it would as a taller and more accurate Wilcher.

Yeah I keep coming back to this. We were incredibly lucky in a lot of games last year, notably 4 or 5 of the 6 games listed above. In my mind we were a lot closer to 12-20 than 17-15 or better. Look, I get it, we had manageable attrition off a team that last season overachieved their expectations by a considerable margin. And yeah the parts we plug in this year will on paper be as good or maybe slightly better as what they replaced. But does the regression to the mean cause us to simultaneously improve our roster AND end up with a worse record. The answer is, "maybe". This regression is just as likely in my mind as the '23-'24 team just plowing forward from last season and making a push towards post season play.

We replace Walker by committee. I don't know that we'll ever find the assists he produced. He and Keisei just had a thing going. They knew how to read each other. That will be difficult for anyone to replicate. But Walker wasn't knocking down treys and Mast can do that. Walker wasn't perfect, though. He had his flaws. You'd like to see him a little longer. He's maybe a bit more of a below-the-rim kind of player, for example. He managed to get stuffed a bunch by players like Dain Dainja. He also reverted back to being a bad freethrow shooter this last year. And he wasn't a perimeter threat. Griesel, too, had his limitations. As good as he was at the things he was good at, he also had some aspects of his game that weren't first rate. His handles weren't the best. His 3-pt accuracy was pedestrian. And he maybe turned the ball over more than you'd want to see. But he played really good defense and he had the unique ability to post up on smaller guards. You make a really good point about going the Griesel route and picking up guys who were veteran stars on mid-major teams as opposed to young guys who didn't crack the rotation at elite programs. But, all in all, as I said above, I think the coaches did about as good as we had any reason to hope in terms of finding the pieces we needed to find in order to build a roster that could climb further up the conference ladder next season. Maybe we'll climb further up the ladder; maybe we'll fall. But the roster moves at least put us in position to have a chance. And that's as much as we could ask.

Took a quick glance at the portal activity of teams who finished ahead of us last year. It is less than impressive for most of these teams. A bunch of teams are taking a bunch of guys who people on here would be furious about if they were Nebraska additions. Maryland lost Hakim Hart to Nova (stud who I believe will be a good NBA 3 and D guy). They took a wing who averaged 4 and 2 at Indiana and a guard who averaged 6 and 1 at Loyola Marymount. Neither of these guys were starters. Indiana took a 5th year forward from Miami who averaged 3 and 1. Just played spot minutes. Michigan lost their best player who carried them the entire year. They took a 5th year forward from Seton Hall who averaged 6 and 2. Was not a starter. Ohio State took a wing from Penn st who wasn't in the rotation. And a 5th year guard from Baylor who wasn't a starter and averaged 4 and 2. Iowa just took a 4th year big from Belmont who averaged 7 and 5. Some blue bloods around the country are taking younger, unproven talent (for example, KU took a freshman guard from Texas who wasn't in the rotation and Texas took a forward who averaged 7 and 4 at UTEP). Nebraska lost 4 guys who combined to average 5.9 ppg. And gained four older, proven players who started a lot of games for winning teams. Aside from Ulis, the other three had very good production, albeit at lower level conferences. It's interesting that we decided against going the Petteway/Palmer/White route of taking talented players who couldn't crack the rotation at their former Power 5 school and went the Griesel-type route.

We'll be an improved rebounding team. If Brice Williams plays a lot at the 3 we're likely to have the best rebounding team of the Hoiberg era on both ends. In terms of rebounding Mast, Allick and Keita should be an improvement over Walker, WB, and Keita at the 5. Gary and Allick should be a slight improvement over Griesel, Gary, and WB. Williams playing instead of CJ is a massive leap in rebounding ability. The numbers indicate this should be easily visible on the court. Limiting possession for the opponent and obtaining more possessions on the offensive end are one of the 4 factors to winning. Keep coming back to how important Ramal Lloyd will be for this season because I have questions about our ability to get to the FT line (we haven't added anyone who has shown that ability) and our ability to hold onto the ball.

We were 3 games back from 2nd place in the league. Iowa and Maryland tied for 5th and we were 3-1 against those two teams. Cheer up.

Here is why I am optimist about next season. 6 positives and one negative since our close loss to Kansas in our last game. 3 new talented freshman. 1 very experienced portal addition. Allison W. back. 1 new highly energetic assistant coach. For the negative we lose Issie.

I think this is a right side of the bubble team

WE are a 6th place, or lower, team until we prove otherwise.

I sincerely hope we move up in the standings but I see Iowa, Indiana and Maryland being superior. Bourne is going to be difficult to duplicate with what we have returning or coming in. Depth in the backcourt should be improved. Alexis M needs to make a jump in her post play. My take may seem negative but I believe I am taking a realistic view. I will be happy to be wrong.

We also have a little gap to make up, considering we outpergormed our exoected results by a fair bit.

watch brice williams

In all seriousness, Lloyd may very well be the player who sets our team's ceiling this year. Everyone needs a guy who can go get a bucket in crunch time. I hope Ramel's that guy. If he's not, then I don't think we have that guy on our roster.

I was about to post essentially the same comment, so I can I just pretend I typed this up myself?

Not worried about this at all. Since Hoiberg got here I've watched our players miss open look after open look. Hoiberg gets dudes open. Do we finally have the players that can knock those open looks down is the question.

I agree, but I don't see any reason why Lawrence couldn't turn into that guy eventually. I wish whoever puts together highlight reels would make one for JL. He's capable of doing some things with the ball in his hands that'll make even Tom Izzo raise his eyebrows.

Had no idea what was going on. Had to go and Google it. This article shows just how big a moron he is. As for Kriisa if he wants to come here you take him. https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/as-bob-huggins-said-theres-no-excuse-for-him-using-a-homophobic-slur-but-how-will-west-virginia-react/

Bronny might not be good enough to be drafted after next season, but you can bet LB's team will extend a contract to him. The King has ordained that the two will be on the court at the same time.

I also think this team has an unfulfilled hunger from the past two seasons.

They have the same measurables and that's where the comparison stops and the contrasting starts IMO. Completely different types of players.

Is Lebron a free agent after next season? I could see maybe him bribing some poverty franchise by saying he'll be willing to play his last season with them under the condition that they also draft his kid...if playing on the same team as his kid is what's truly important to him.

Another lefty. And he's 190# as a HS sophomore? Whoa.

So, just for some perspective, we have a veteran player who started 24 games for us last year and averaged almost 27 minutes. I haven't seen anyone project him into next year's starting lineup. Some people, including me, have questioned whether he even makes the rotation. Now, he *could* make the rotation. He might even start. But, for him to do that, I'm quite confident he'll need to take a massive step forward and up his game by a lot. Otherwise, we've got some other players on this roster who didn't log a minute for us last season, at least one of whom I'm confident will represent an upgrade. Maybe even a substantial upgrade. Also, I'll take Gary/Allick over just Gary by a lot. Allick, of course, started on and averaged 32 minutes for a team that was ~65 KenPom. He *could* bump Gary from the starting lineup. At the very least, he represents quality front court depth that we lacked last season. On the other side of the ledger, losing Walker is tough. Those are big shoes to fill. But Mast has a lot to recommend him. I don't think he'll do everything Derrick did, but he'll do some things Derrick did not. Like shoot treys at an above-average rate. The biggest concern I have is over who replaces Griesel. I don't know quite what to think about Ulis. A change of scenery might be just what he needs. Does he have all the right tools? Yeah, I don't know. He's an unknown for me at this point. But he did start for an Iowa team that reached the NCAA Tournament. Y'know, ~40 KenPom or thereabouts. Our portal departures this year were from the bottom end of the roster; our portal adds plug in at or near the top. We grabbed a couple of the best players from teams that were certainly no worse than we were and we grabbed a couple of role-player starters from teams that were a lot better, KenPom-wise. Griesel and Walker are big losses, to be sure, but *everywhere else* across our roster, we're at least as good as we were, and in some spots, much better. So, I feel like we have a shot to climb the ladder a bit. The coaches should be applauded. The off-season roster moves at least give us a chance.

My wife's son went along for a night on the town after a Laker game last year with AD and LeBron. He also went to Russell Westbrook's Super Bowl party at his house last year. Not that these things are relevant to anything; I just wanted to see the response was from the resident Lakers fans here.

I haven't seen other Big Ten teams mentioned in terms of "winning the portal." Sure, all teams try to improve over the prior year. But, to use a golf analogy, it's a lot easier to go from shooting in the 90s to shooting in the 80s than it is to go from shooting in the 80s to shooting in the 70s. And, if you're a scratch golfer, it's not necessarily *easy* to stay there. The effort it took you to get there is pretty much the effort it'll take to stay there. Teams at the bottom sometimes have opportunities to take bigger strides than the teams above them who, a lot of the times, are just fighting to not backslide. Our problem is we have to not only replace Derrick Walker and Sam Griesel, but we also have to upgrade the talent across the lineup. I am very excited about the first two players we landed from the portal. I'm not sure yet what to think about our PG transfer. But, if he pans out, I feel pretty good about our chances to improve compared to our league foes.

We do have Talented Players returning; And Talented Players coming in. At this point it seems to me coaching (-up) will be an important determinate in the degree of success we have this year. It will be very interesting to see how the team develops during the season.

this years roster offensively is better imo, but do they go into the season with the same defense and selfless identity? i think that will determine if we have a good season

"The Finnisher" moniker is already taken by Lauri Markkanen (of the Utah Jazz). But, no matter, if the dude can 'finish,' we could still call him the finisher. I'd take him in a heartbeat. GBR

Standhardinger's favorite movie is The Iceman Cometh.

One thing thing that occurred when we essentially swapped WB for Allick is that we opened up another scholarship in 2024-25. With our glut of guys on the roster with a 2025 graduation date, that's fairly helpful for recruiting out of HS.

You know it’s never gonna show up in Athol Kansas…

if someone uproots their life to come and wear my school's colors, I'll get their back as long as they're not behaaving like a two-legged crime spree. it's uncoommon that decisions like thiis are made in a vacuum. i'm confident that the staff gave him every support possible.

I always hate people kicking a guy when he’s down. Message boards are the worst: internet geniuses hiding behind anonymity . . . and trashing a kid. Kinda pathetic, if you ask me (though no one ever has).

Nothing will ever equal that 14 game Home & Home Big 8 Schedule, but 24 Teams is nothing more than a business arrangement that treats Universities like pieces on a Board Game.