OurDecay

After rewatching this debacle (I enjoy pain)… this is sort of a bold statement, but I’m not so sure Braden Smith isn’t the best player we’ve seen this year. He’s unreal. And not in a classical big-scorer way. Just plays at an elite level and clearly has cut his teeth in big-time games versus future NBA players. What he did defensively to us was probably even more amazing than his offense. I used to think he was overrated. He’s not.

A game like this is why you build a roster that is one of the oldest in D1. And my goodness are we deep. Capable players 9-10 deep.

That Essegian portal pickup could end up like winning the lottery. He was a dude as a frosh.

The last 7’+ tall NU player with legitimate P6 talent was: _________

Payne is such a dude. Please God.

Those 3 Big Ten guys are big-time shooters. That said, of the three I would expect Battle to do the best. Tominaga is better at circus shots and super-deep threes and even with a hand in his face but every time I watched Battle this year he has an absolutely pure shot. Against air I’d expect him to do the best.

Big Ten undefeated in postseason so far?

Let the record show we received 7 votes in the final AP poll before the tourney. Bet nobody had that on their bingo card. Great, great regular season. Now let’s go make some history. Edit: we received 12 votes in the final coaches poll

FWIW, I think A&M’s coaches are going to be miserable prepping for us this week. We are worse for them than they are for us. We are a scary matchup nightmare.

Some may find of interest - nice payoff of silently compiling stats over the last few decades of a rough program I cannot help but love. Note: these rankings are over the last 44 seasons (1980-present) and include the coaching tenures of Iba, Nee, Collier, Sadler, Miles, Hoiberg. Rienk Mast’s 7.8 RPG is the best for a NU player since 2007-08 (Maric, 10.2) NU’s KenPom rank of #32 would be their best final ranking of all time (previous best: #35 (2007-08) NU’s scoring differential of +7.5 PPG is their 3rd-best in the last 40 seasons, behind +9.0 (1990-91), +7.6 (2003-04) NU’s scoring average of 76.8 PPG is NU’s best since 1995-96 (80.2) NU’s free throw shooting percentage of .754 is their second-best since 1980. In 2011-12 they shot .767. NU’s 12 conference wins is their second-most all time behind their 13 in 2017-18. NU’s NET ranking as of 3/11/24 is #37. Including NET’s predecessor RPI, that would be NU’s best ranking since their RPI of #19 in 1993-94. Double-Digit Wins: NU won 18 games by double-figures this year (9 non-con, 9 conference). This is the most since at least 1980. The top 10 in double-digit conference wins: 2023-24: 9 (18 total) *11 vs P6 teams* 1981-82: 8 (12 total) *8 vs P6 teams* 1997-98: 7 (13 total) *8 vs P6 teams* 2017-18: 7 (12 total) *7 vs P6 teams* 1990-91: 6 (18 total) *8 vs P6 teams* 1998-99: 6 (14 total) *7 vs P6 teams* 1980-81: 5 (7 total) *6 vs P6 teams* 1991-92: 5 (11 total) *7 vs P6 teams* 2005-06: 5 (11 total) *6 vs P6 teams* 2015-16: 5 (12 total) *6 vs P6 teams*

It is. I started researching it last week. Will post some full stats once everything gets updated after today. We clobbered some teams this year.

The way NU brought energy and casually took care of the game by double figures is kinda astonishing. We are really, really good. They didn’t care about decades of Husker history of failing at inopportune times. Didn’t care about supposedly not being able to win road games. They just went out and were the better team like they are. 22-9 (12-8) is serious.

Completely agree. I think it’s a badge of honor if we were to finish top-4 in this league without any serious threats for all-league players. interestingly, all-Big Ten teams should be inversely related to COTY in our case. If we finish 3rd in this damn conference without any marquee players then Hoiberg has to be lock for COTY (he might be anyway)

Just FWIW, right now at most places like CBS and of course BTN…we are not a topic of discussion of bubble but NCAA seeding. Yesterday they were pondering if we could elevate to a 7-seed down the stretch. This is a wild position to be in. Would be great to finish off Michigan on their senior night and be sitting at 22 wins before the conference tourney. So great.

Thru 30 games: +7.2 PPG (76.5-69.3)