jayschool

What else you gonna do in Bowling Green, Kentucky on a Tuesday in mid-March? Oh, and 4,000 of those OSU fans wore this costume:

9-0

NIT higher seeds (home teams) go 9-0 on Day One. Last year, the true home teams were 12-15 through the first three rounds.

Home teams 6-0 so far tonight in the NIT. St. Mary's a lock to make that 7-0. USC and Oregon too early or too close to call.

The road goes on forever, and the party never ends for college basketball's blue-blood programs. Bill Self to coach USA Basketball Under 18 team: http://www.kansan.com/sports/bill-self-danny-manning-to-coach-usa-basketball-men-s/article_3a08e99e-26cf-11e8-a849-3f19884d7ae1.html

MM in Cedar Rapids in May. Thanks for the reminder.

Wow. It's as if Ray Price knew about me and Nebrasketball. I wish I knew how to quit you. Heartaches by the number Troubles by the score Every day you love me less Each day I love you more Yes, I've got heartaches by the number A love that I can't win But the day that I stop counting That's the day my world will end

Next year I expect heartache. Not sure in what form, but I know what's coming. For the 57th time in my life.

I have a friend who teaches at IU in Bloomington. She said she considers Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers as "adjunct" Big Ten universities. (I just realized, after hearing this and my friend at KU — who said that the NCAA experience is overblown and we should just concentrate on making an NIT run — that I need better friends.)

I was listening to an analyst on the CBS Sports HQ app (don't know who it was). He was asked why only four team made it into the Dance. He didn't mention Nebraska, but he said that the conference had only four bids is because the following teams weren't as good as expected: Northwestern, Minnesota, Indiana, Maryland and Wisconsin. The implication was, of course, that it was Nebraska — and to some extent, Penn State — who was good, and thus easier to overlook. He wasn't dissing Nebraska, because he then went on to say the Big Ten was a really good conference, and that he wouldn't be surprised to see two conference teams in the Final Four. At the same time, he said he didn't expect any Big 12 teams in the Final Four. We've speculated that Nebraska's lack of historical basketball success had to play at least an unconscious role in our NCAA non-selection and eventual bizarre NIT seeding. I'm beginning to think that argument has some merit. It certainly didn't churn anyone's butter on BTN that we're not in. And while Beilein and Painter both noted that more Big Ten teams should have been in, they weren't adamant. (And they weren't Adam Ant.)

If we win, it's a 9-hour bus ride from Starkpatch to Wacko. That's a trip for the ages, eh?

You're right — it's not about scheduling. It's about performance and perception of the importance of the non-conference schedule. Sure, we all would have loved to have beaten St. John's, UCF and Creighton on the road, or Kansas at home. But even as we went 0-4 in those games, at least my perception was "OK. So no signature wins, but no stumbles either. Perform in conference games, and we're in." Then as we continued to excel (mostly) in the B1G, it started to become clearer that our non-conference losses would matter. A lot. But it wasn't until last night and the ultimate revelation of the NIT bracket that we should have considered each of those four early losses as having been critical to our post-season chances. At the time of the games, I thought: St. John's loss: Bad matchup from the start, and this team is just starting to play together. No big deal. UCF loss: Tough start doomed us, but at least we'll pick up a couple of victories to give these guys some confidence. Creighton loss: We were there at the end, and could have won if we'd gotten a couple of calls. Creighton's a top 25 team, so this close loss may actually help. Kansas loss: Damn, that was a tough one. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Either way, another top 25 game will help our RPI and SOS, right? What I should have thought: St. John's loss: Damn. I hope St. John's doesn't suffer any debilitating injuries going forward. This one could really hurt if St. John's doesn't finish in the upper half of the Big East. UCF loss: Killer. Needed to win one even if it means two losses over the next two games. UCF is good, but if they lose Fall, they fall. Creighton loss: Crap. It'd be just like Creighton to fall apart down the stretch and lose games they shouldn't, hurting us as well. We HAVE TO BEAT KANSAS. Kansas loss: That's it. We now pretty much have to go 18-1 the rest of the way to make the tournament. The Big One that got away. Next year, every game is gonna have to be, in the words of Joe Biden, "a big f*ckin' deal."

Yeah. The Indiana AD said playing an NIT game in Assembly Hall would dishonor the court, or words to that effect. That's Nebraska football-level arrogance.

As I noted in another post, the visiting team went 15-12 in true road games in last year's NIT. Houston lost on a neutral court that should have been a home game.

Quadrants. Oh, and SAT scores.

This is me:

Mississippi in Central time zone. Which means it will be 8 p.m. there. But 40 years earlier, so 1978.

Plus, the 3-point line will be moved out 20 inches. They may not even bother to shoot 3s, meaning we may have to adjust our shots more than they'll adjust theirs.

That's what's so frustrating about all of this. We can talk all day about strategic non-conference scheduling and Q1 victories and "bad losses" and WAB, SOR, KPI, BPI, RPI, SOS, DDS, MD and MREs. But that takes away from what should be, in my mind at least, the benefit of playing in a major conference. Finish in the upper half of that conference, and you should have at least a 50-50 chance of making the Dance. Finish in the upper third, and you should be golden. So now the coaches, in addition to recruiting and developing players, and then getting them ready to compete at the highest level, needs to forecast conference strengths and weaknesses, and scheme the non-conference schedule to make up for perceived conference liabilities. It's all too, too much, and it's all too, too removed from what used to be the most important part of the basketball season: playing as well as you can during your conference season. It's a mind game played on a spreadsheet more than a physical game played on a court.

I hear color schemes and slush-fund balances will be big with the committee next year. (Hint: Go Blue and secure a top Bag Man.)

It also underscores the notion that a program like Nebraska — one that will not have any one-and-done players or guaranteed future NBAers — has to be ready to win from Day One. There's no longer any reason to think that the committee will value late-season over early-season performance. So Nebraska, in a year it feels it can compete for the post-season, needs to get as much experience on the court as possible, and get it out there as early as possible. Be ready on Nov. 1 to play your best basketball. There's no longer such a thing as using the non-conference schedule as a way to figure out what kind of team and lineups you might use when the rubber hits the road. The rubber hits the road on Day One.

Our road to NYC is more like this: @ SEC team (MSU) @ Big 12 team (Baylor) @ ACC team (Louisville) That includes winning games at universities that should be mired in scandal, not playing post-season basketball.

Here's a strategy: Join a Power 6 conference. Win 72 percent of your conference games. Earn a double-bye in the conference tournament. Don't stub your toe in the non-conference against weak mid-major teams. Achieve all that in a single season ... and get a first-round NIT road game.