Norm Peterson

Be nice to get that 6th seed in Denver rather than the 8th seed in Milwaukee, though I'd gladly take either. Milwaukee has the added advantage of the availability of Spotted Cow beer.

Yeah, well, that's shaping up to be the plan. I've already scouted the opening round sites. Wichita and Denver would both be great, makeable drives.

With my theory that you want your single-play home games to be against teams you *could* beat at home but probably *won't* beat on the road, and your single-play road games to be against *either* teams you are unlikely to beat either way or teams you most likely *would* beat either way, I'd say this schedule sets up pretty well for us. In other words, I'd rather get a home dub against UCLA if the odds are we lose to them at Pauley. And it's OK to lose to MSU on the road since chances are they'd also beat us at home. Better to have those home games against teams you might not beat if you played at their house but can probably win if they play us here. In the single-play road category, we have winnable games at Washington, Penn State and Northwestern. We also have a single-play road game against an Oregon team that probably would beat us here. Single-play home games include Rutgers, USC and Minnesota. And, notably, our closing stretch includes 3 winnable home games and a winnable road game at PSU. So ...

I spent a fortune going to Memphis last year thinking I was going to witness history then. I did get in a good round of golf at one of the local Memphis munis (they have some nice munis down there). And I ate some great barbeque. But the basketball was an absolute gut punch and I basically emptied my "fun money" fund. This year, I'll have to dip into retirement savings to hopefully see some history made. Might mean beans and wieners if I make it into my 80s.

Portal recruit: you get the kid typically 1-3 years; recruitment is typically active on a high-intensity basis for roughly a month from the time the kid enters until he probably commits; you find out pretty quickly if you're in the running or not; you'll be able to evaluate his body of work both from HS (for freshmen transfers) and college; time investment in recruitment from a coaching perspective is minimal; player comes in older and more advanced from a skills/physical ability perspective; established transfers command much more NIL$$$ but you can probably find some bargains. HS recruit: you get the kid typically 1-3 years (more is rare); recruitment is active on a low- to medium-intensity basis for a year-and-a-half; it might be awhile before you find out if you're really in the running or not and even if they commit, there's still a chance the kid will decommit; you'll have a lot of hudl highlights to digest but it's still some guesswork as to whether his skills will translate; time investment in recruitment from a coaching perspective is substantial; player comes in younger and less mature from a skills/physical ability perspective; not as high of an NIL price tag unless they're blue chip recruits. I was thinking about this recently when I was perusing the Rivals 150 and not seeing our school name listed among the commit choices of the top 150 HS basketball players in the country for 2025. And it hit me like, yeah, so? How long will most of these kids stick with the program they start with? How soon before Cameron Boozer either jumps to the NBA or falls to the portal? It's nice to have some stability and have a 4-year player like Sam Hoiberg out there hustling and making plays. On the other hand, we seem to be OK primarily focusing our recruiting attention on roughly the last week of March, all of April, and the first couple of weeks of May every year.

I think we've got ol' Enzo right where we want him.

In order to win 3 of our first 5 league games we need to pick up a road win at either Iowa or Purdue. I'll say Iowa is most likely. Be nice to get one of them. To win 3 of the next 5, we have winnable home games against Rutgers and USC. We also face a ranked Illinois team at home. And then two road tilts at Maryland and Wisconsin. Be nice hold serve at home and to win in Madison. Our third 5 features road contests at Oregon, Washington and Northwestern sandwiched around two home games against Ohio State and Maryland. That'll be tough to find three wins, but @Washington and the two at home seem the most likely opportunities. Final five is our chance to really finish strong: Three at home with Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa all coming to town. The two road games are both tough at Penn State and Ohio State. If we absolutely had to find 4 wins to finish out the regular season, there are opportunities to do so in those final 5 games. If we don't win at least 3 of them, it'll be very disappointing. If we can manage 3 wins out of each group of 5 league games, well, obviously, that's 12-8 in conference to go with a non-con record of 10-1. I'd have to think we'd be better than an 8-seed if we did that.

In the running for play of the season. Came right after Juwan got juked and (I believe) the same guy drove baselines for a wide open layup.

What's crazy is we're 33rd, but we're still only 10th in the B1G.

They were 17th. They dropped 2 spots.

Also, I swear the UCLA guy grabbed Brice's hand and pulled it so he couldn't free himself and then acted like he'd been mauled.

I started to get some Husker Hoops PTSD with about 4 min left. Where'd that 13 point lead disappear to? And it's like, not this shit again. But, we pulled it out. Players made plays. Rollie, Andrew, Sam and Brice hit some clutch free throws. And we beat the spread on a day when we shot like crap. This wasn't quite a must-win but winning it sure takes some pressure off down the road.

It also makes better whiskey.

I think this is a great idea. It allows non-bluebloods to balance age against beauty, basically. The post-Covid experience really showed that you can level the playing field more readily when a team with some early-entrant lottery picks goes up against a team with a guy who's played 5 years.

Hunter Sallis ain't bad, but Imma take Brice.