jayschool

What? We'd dunk all night on those little punks.

Get the HELL OUT OF MICHIGAN!!! Everybody.

Well, time to check out the women's ga . . . oh, my goodness . . . never mind.

Izzo can kick back now that he's properly intimidated the refs.

Husker Fever > This Guy

Terry got to know Tim when we all were at CSU. Terry knows coaching.

And Illinois' resurgence is cause for concern for us.

With the 'Cats flailing tonight at Illinois, who is savoring the possibility of Northwestern losing out and missing the tournament while Nebraska wins out and makes it? Sweet irony in this season of inevitability for Collins' Wildcats.

Sit down, Richie! Nah. John? Greg? Pat? Probably not. Sit down, Fran! Would work, but I'm afraid Fran might be armed, so not worth the risk. Thad and Tom it is.

Norm is Ryan Gosling compared to Thad.

Great point. The second. And that, of course, is the rub for those thinking we need a change at the top. They would argue that steady progress is expected and that hasn't been seen. I can't argue that if you simply look at year-to-year progress (as Miles achieved at CSU), but had the 2015 team achieved any kind of success, as was expected, there would have been progress through the first three years, and then the inevitable rebuild starting in 2015-2016. Unfortunately, because 2014-2015 was such a major disappointment, these past two years aren't being looked at in the way they should be — as a roster makeover begun last year and continuing this year. Next year can't be called a rebuilding year, though, because of the experience returning. That's the way I look at it: Year 1: Survival (Done) Year 2: Achieve (Done) Year 3: Achieve (Not Done) Year 4: Rebuild (Done) Year 5: Rebuild (After White), with slight improvement (Likely Done) So what comes next? Year 6: Achieve (Post-season) Year 7: Achieve (NCAA win) Those are reasonable expectations, in my mind.

Just take out the part about being a reputation-point whore.

Further, let's look at the expectations for Miles at Nebraska. He came here from Colorado State, where his five teams improved from 0-16 to 4-12 to 7-9 to 9-7 to 8-6 in conference play. The final team went to the NCAA Tournament, where CSU lost in the first round, but that's a program that has won games in the NCAAs in the past. 2012-2013 = Left a seriously depleted roster in his first year, Miles had pundits wondering if his first Nebraska team might repeat his first winless conference record from CSU five years earlier. The Cornhuskers were unanimous choices to finish in last place of the 12-team Big Ten. That team finished 5-13 in the conference, in 10th place, and defeated Purdue in the conference tournament. EXPECTATIONS EXCEEDED. 2013-2014 = Transfers Terran Petteway and Walter Pitchford were unknown quantities at the beginning of the season, when pundits included Nebraska in the league's bottom three with such in-depth analysis as "and Penn State, Northwestern and Nebraska are . . . um . . . yeah." Nebraska finished fourth in the 12-team league with an 11-7 record, losing to Ohio State in the first round of the conference tournament and to Baylor in the friggin' NCAA Tournament. EXPECTATIONS FAR EXCEEDED. 2014-2015 = So that young Nebraska team that made its run to the NCAA Tournament the year before was supposed to finish fifth in the conference. The Huskers started the year ranked, but something happened to team chemistry, and a season-ending nine-game losing streak finished a deeply disappointing 5-13 conference season. EXPECTATIONS NOT MET. BIGLY. 2015-2016 = Preseason pundits pegged the Huskers for 12th in the 14-team league, noting that Miles had to bring in six newcomers to support seniors like Benny Parker and Shavon Shields. Another losing streak to end the conference season — this time five games — left the team at 6-12 and in 11th place. However, a short three-game run in the conference tournament lightened moods a bit. EXPECTATIONS MET. 2016-2017 = It's not over, but before it began at least one site picked the Huskers to finish 14th. Others had them 13th or 12th, if they felt generous. This was fueled, primarily, by the loss of Shields and a former Husker who transferred to Hell instead of sticking with his teammates. The Huskers still might have a four- or five-game losing streak in them to finish the season, but the likeliest bets at this point are they finish 7-11 or 8-10 in the conference, and somewhere between 8th and 10th place. EXPECTATIONS EXCEEDED. If that happens, and the Huskers win a game in the conference tournament, it'll be Miles' fourth losing season in five years, which are the data that many are using to dismiss the optimism those of us have on this board. The argument could be that Nebraska shouldn't be entering seasons picked to finish at or near the bottom of the league, that after five years, Miles has had a chance to build a roster that should automatically be considered a mid-level conference team that contends for the post-season every year and makes the NCAA every third year or so. My argument would be that Miles — as a coach — has exceeded expectations, based on the analysis above. I would argue that his success as a recruiter and developer of talent is still out because he sought that quick fix in Year 2 that led the team to the NCAA Tournament, and that quick fix was supposed to give him a second year of success working primarily with transfers while he built a roster from scratch with that 2015 freshman class (Watson, Jacobson, Morrow and McVeigh). But it didn't happen in 2014-2015 the way it was supposed to. In fact, I would argue that if that team had just played .500 ball in the conference — still not meeting expectations but also not suffering through a nine-game losing streak — that this wouldn't even be a discussion right now. Considering all that Miles and the Husker basketball program has been through in the past, Miles' tenure should be regarded as one that has generally exceeded expectations and is showing — right now, as I type — signs that sustained success is just around the corner. Finally, as a reputation-point whore, I'll finish with a sentence that needs a semicolon. Miles can coach and recruit; whether he can sustain a roster that will fulfill all our fantasies is yet to be seen. He deserves at least two more years to make that happen.

MSU 71 NU 68

My best Nebraska shirt is 12-14 this year. Coincidence? I think not.

No Jordy, No Ed, No Boards.

Fouls 18-7.

With Aaron Craft, OSU. Without Aaron Craft, tie.

Bardo: "He caught a shoulder to the face." No call, of course.

Nerf, baby. Two-handed.

I've never made a one-handed dunk, either.

Borchardt?

One . . . two . . . four . . . five

So this is the game where we don't do anything right, eh?

Yes. Generally an intelligent poster, but convinced that Miles era has run its course.