unl

Are expectations for this year mostly in the NIT range? Not making the NIT and hear the grumbles, any bubble talk would be icing on the cake? I just want to see marked improvement from last season where we can look at the future and be optimistic.

So, either Nebraska or Indiana now, it would appear?

I admittedly haven't seen all the prospects out there - transfer or otherwise - but this guy has got to be at the top of the list. I think he could be the next TP. "Oh, look, that guy has mediocre stats until he went to Nebraska".

nu - I'm with you. So far we lost two regulars from the rotation though. cwg - I was hoping we did that this year.

Curious to see what you think. I know there have to be some options available, but, the more pieces we lose the bleaker the outlook. Look, we only have 13 scholarships available, so when 2 leave, that's 15% of our scholarships. If 3 leave, that's 23%. You get the picture. At this point, our starting lineup still could be Watson, Petteway, White, Shields, Morrow. That doesn't look too bad.

That tweet makes it seem like his family wanted him to transfer...and Miles' quote ties it together a bit.

If he can shoot as well as Ray Gallegos.......

She was cut by Minnesota last year. Row6, HB, - etc can you tell us why she didn't stick in the wnba? At first, it seemed premature to coach when she was playing less than a year ago.

Hopefully Junior Conklin. He dropped 10% points or so from his junior year (which was just incredible) to his senior year (which was still darn good. I agree - they should be able to shoot like they did last year...

If Petteway comes back, I would think NU will finish closer to 4th than 12th. I'll go - 5th because I didn't like it when I wrote 6th. Petteway average 18, Shields average 19, and White averages 13. Petteway may lead the team in shot attempts but that number will go down with having a little more offense brought in next year. Walt pretty much has to come back (won't be shown the door) unless another big is secured as a transfer or late signee, because we need something of a post player type to go with Morrow and Hammond (who is my leading transfer candidate because he burned his redshirt and didn't play much. See Hawkins, Nate). Benny almost undoubtedly will come off the bench. I see Watson and Smith (finally we can just call him Smith and not be confusing) being our primary points. Benny will be defensive energy off the bench that we lacked this year. I'll say we hit 20 wins, so however many losses that would be...20-13? or something like that. Scoring from most to least I have as the following: Shields Petteway White Smith Pitch Tai Fuller Morrow Watson Jacobsen Benny Did I miss anyone? As stated above, Hammond is my transfer vote (not even really wishing it on the kid - I would be fairly pleased if there was no attrition). I am hoping we can get some major contributors the following year to replace Petteway, Shields, Walt, and Benny and give some growing space for Watson, Morrow, Jacobsen, Roby, Fuller, Tarin, and Tai. Am I too optimistic? I'm shooting a hair high, but I think this is pretty doable or even likely.

-David Rivers is going to remember this game for all the wrong reasons, unfortunately. -Welcome back, Shavon. Hope to see you on Wednesday. -Tai got called for a foul where I'm not sure there was anything wrong, if your guy runs into you, I mean, you're allowed to have contact...thing is, Tai didn't appear to touch him with his hands, arms, or much else for that matter. -Weird, seemingly quick technicals called on both benches/coaches. -Did Melo flop to draw at least two "fouls"? Particularly the 2nd and 3rd ones called on his defender? -14 missed free throws. That's all you can say... -Rough way to finish but played well for the most part.

I know Leslee isn't healthy, but did he suffer a setback? If it was just a substitution thing (Miles didn't think he was effective in his 5 minutes) then I start to wonder if our whole substitution patterns are off. Guys play 30 minutes one game and hardly play the next. It's been that way for everyone not named Terran, Shavon, Walt, or Benny....

So we've added Moses, Fuller, Hammond, and T Smith to the rotation who replaced Gallegos and Hawkins. With that in mind, why have some said "We need guys that can score" when this wasn't even a topic for discussion last season? It was pretty much the same team, no?

Shields effort just looks...not good. Is he fatigued? He's looked the same way the whole game. His man has scored a lot of points tonight...

I feel like I'm hijacking the thread but with AW(4)3, Watson, Morrow, and Jacobsen, and loss of 3 big seniors, we may look very guard heavy like we did when Ade was the 5 and Ryan was the 4. But the talent and versatility will be a big improvement. Gotta have high expectations next year.

First off - nobody is making excuses here. NU is 13-14 which is the record earned. I don't think anyone has The Answer, but, I do question if the injuries to Leslee, and to a lesser extend Moses, affected the team early on...which may have carried further into the season. What if Leslee is healthy and Moses is available just to add a few minutes to the rotation? Let's be reasonable here. I say NU with Leslee beats Rhode Island, that we don't need overtime and he gives us +4 points and we win. I say the same for Incarnate Word (still am not used to how that sounds much like UM-BC did). Creighton Hawaii Indiana and Iowa were our next losses (Incarnate Word was after Creighton but the point remains the same). All fairly close losses. Not nailbiters, but not blowouts. Leslee would have no doubt helped in some of those games. No question. Would we have won all of them? Likely no. A couple? Probably safe to say a couple. Would that have helped the teams psyche to be, say, 10-2 instead of 8-4? Would our rotation have been more settled? Would NU have been up enough to try other players and see if they fit? I'm not blaming the season on any one thing, because none of us know. But, this is one of my biggest "what if's" of the whole season. I'm not suggesting NU would have gone on some big, 2014esque run, or been ranked, or been going to the Tournament, or anything like that. But I do question if there was an impact from the early adversity to the end result.

Did anyone catch the foul called when White went up for a layin? It looked similar to the infamous David Rivers' foul called on him that has been discussed about on here. From the 300s, it looked like he did the same thing - fell over on his own and got a foul called.

No basis to argue against either of those two calls in the videos. Just crazy. They still make me mad haha. Edit: Petteway's reaction is kind of funny in Rivers' "foul".

At work today, several guys claimed that Fuller flopped. I still stand that it was malicious. He did not need to put his arm around Fuller's neck and pull. Let's say Fuller flopped. #10 ran down the court and did not look back - he knew what he did. I'll be interested to see if the Red Zone has any plans for this guy.

That chokehold on Fuller courtesy of #10 was pretty damn malicious. I think you could argue NU didn't deserve more free throws in some of the recent games, but 25-7 in tonights game is a bunch of crap. If we can see this team the rest of the year, we might have a nice little run. Great game for the most part. The technical and Terran's fourth foul were head scratchers.

Dave, so you're saying addition by subtraction? Free throws are killer. We can't continue to let our opponents shoot 3 times as many free throws (15-20 a game!!!) and expect to win...Part of it I would question the refs but the bigger part of the equation is we look lazy - go to the rim and draw contact! We pass up jumpers to pass to well-guarded players then either hoist up a bad shot or turn it over. We are not playing smart basketball and we are not giving 100% effort on offense. Frustrating. We have the pieces to do it. All but 3 players are here from last year including a walkon, a player who came in the final 2 minutes of blowouts, and a reserve. We can also play, or beat, anyone in the league. To me, it's more mental. A little focus and determination goes a long, long way.

I looked but didn't see anything posted yet - So NU had 6 buckets in the first half. How many did Wisconsin have in the second half? 6. In fact, NU made more buckets than Wisconsin..... Wish we could have got to the line more. This was a winnable game. Glad the players didn't fold, however, we could have, and should have, won this game. The defense was outstanding. I'm leaning toward Tai starting to give a little more offense.

Honestly, I think we win 3.

Rhode Island and Incarnate Word really grind my gears - bad teams, very close games. But if I picked a third, I'd say we'd beat Indiana again in a rematch. The record at the Vault is really good. Let's win all the home games and win 2 road games. NCAA is a long shot but it's a possibility. Let's put it this way - with the way the season has gone, I find it a positive to have tough games to close out the year. You can earn a spot in the NIT or NCAA tournament with games like that. Plus, you never know what the B1G tournament holds.

First, I'd like to see this game have several overtimes. Second, I'd like to play Michigan coming off a big win instead of a hard-fought loss.