OurDecay

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)

We are such a scouting problem. Season High Point Totals: Reink Mast: 34 (has scored 20+ 4 times) Keisei Tominaga: 31 (has scored 20+ 5 times) Brice Williams: 25 (has scored 20+ 2 times) Juwan Gary: 22 (has scored 20+ 3 times) CJ Wilcher: 22 Jamarques Lawrence: 19 Josiah Allick: 16 Eli Rice: 16 Sam Hoiberg: 15

Matt Abdelmassih is at St Johns. And they have a roster full of kids that look talented on paper but lack toughness and cohesiveness. weird.

I actually think we are safely a tourney team in the committee’s eyes at this point. We are good, we have great story lines, and we’ve beaten two top-6 teams. Basically we just can’t collapse. They aren’t looking for reasons to knock us out, they are looking for reasons to not even have us in the bubble discussion. We get to 20 wins and we are safely in IMO.

Not specifically relevant to the topic of this thread, but I do think eyeball test matters beyond all the metrics. We went shot-for-shot at Illinois in February after beating #1 Purdue by 16 in January. People saw. We look like a very good team.

I think this award is probably affected by team success. If NU makes the dance that helps Wilcher win it IMO

CJ over the last 14 games: 3-PT: 35-63 (.555) FT: 22-22 (1.000)

Interesting: Fred Hoiberg’s Record Thru First 87 Games: 19-20 (32): 7-25 20-21 (27): 7-20 21-22 (First 28): 7-21 Total: 21-66 (.241) His Record Thru Last 56 Games: 21-22 (Last 4): 3-1 22-23 (32): 16-16 23-24 (First 20): 15-5 Total: 34-22 (.607)

Dude…agree big time. Been saying it all year…we are a terrifying scout. We have so many shooters and scorers.

Interesting stat thru 20 games: Point Differential at NU, Last 40 Years: 1. +9.0 PPG (1990-1991, Nee, 87.6-78.6) 2. +8.6 PPG (2023-2024, Hoiberg, 78.6-70.0)* 3. +6.7 PPG (1993-1994, Nee, 87.3-80.6) 4. +6.4 PPG (2007-2008, Sadler, 67.1-60.7)

FYI…not “same old Nebraska” Huge win.

Kinda surprised by the anger and dismay from folks about this loss. This is NOT “same old Nebraska”. Same old Nebraska hasn’t ever been here, coming out to a half-dead road crowd after beating the #1 team in the country by 16 three days prior. ANY team - and I do mean any - was going have a letdown there. And there is not enough of a talent delta to overcome it. Teams come out flat. Lose on the road. Coaches get outcoached. It happens. It’s a 31-game season. And I have to tell you, there’s a 4-game stretch coming down the road that looks like an 0-4 deal (look at our schedule, you’ll see it). But that doesn’t mean we can’t still go 22-9 and be a safe tourney pick. So let’s all just keep our poo together. This wasn’t one of the games projected as a win, folks. Sure, you could say it was a “winnable” game. So is any game. Michigan St, Kansas St, Indiana, and Purdue were likely losses and went 4-0 against them. So let’s not lose perspective. We will give Rutgers a good game. They will be ready to go. I swear, some of you act like you haven’t been a masochist NUBB fan for very long. If you have, you should know better and enjoy the 13-4 start! GBR!

We all need to appreciate just the kind of resilience CJ Wilcher has had to get to this point. Dude started 24 of 32 games for us last year, and got recruited over. Slid down our depth chart. Instead of pouting, he’s actually played the best basketball of his career and has embraced his role: FG%: 49.4% this year (39.9% last year) 3PT%: 40.0% this year (31.3% last year) He has gone from 27 mpg to 16 mpg and is matching his production from last year while also cutting his turnovers significantly. He is a revelation.