It wasn't just us complaining about the Big Ten officiating this year. Other fans did too. And I often wondered if poor officiating in the Big Ten might affect the conference's recruiting. At the very least, I could see it having an impact on player retention and people entering the portal.

The gripe wasn't about losing games and blaming the ref. The gripe was about having a level playing field and feeling like you got a fair shake. If you have a rule, but the rule isn't enforced evenly or equally, then you don't really have a rule at all. And if you only apply that rule against me and not against others, then I'm going to feel like the system is unfair.

I grant that some of the most contentious areas are judgment calls that can often go either way.  But the problem is when the calls always seem to favor the blue team over the red team.  If the same action is a block whenever I'm on defense and a charge whenever I'm on offense, I'm going to lose faith in the officiating. And I have lost faith in the officiating.

The officiating is bullshit, and I don't feel like they're even trying to make it look like they're being even-handed anymore. That's all. That's it. Thanks for letting me vent.

4 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

Stealing this title that Norm provided in one of his recent takes.  I thought it could use space for an interesting discussion.

 

We have heard about how we started to change the culture last year and broke out this season, in part, due to this evolution.  We also know from the recent past, that skill and talent isn't the only requirement in building a team.  Pieces must fit together so the team is cohesive and are all moving the same direction. 

 

Talk, talk, talk; but what is the magic formula?  How come some players get it, and others do not?  Certainly there must be traits that you have to look for and recruit towards, right?  There are well over a thousand basketball players currently in the portal.  We fans are like kids in a candy store, yelling out to our mama's, I want that one, and that one.

 

How do the coaches choose the multiple players we need?  Can we give psychological profile tests to the players?  Do they meet the entire team on their visits?  Thoughts, knowledge, answers, more questions?

Look at the poster on the wall in the background.

12 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

Culture. Fit.

I don’t mean to imply that he would not be a good fit with our team culture. I do mean to suggest that culture and fit should be priorities. And given his limited production at Iowa State, I wouldn’t just jump on the “he’s a former five star; therefore, he must be really good” bandwagon. I would expect the staff to do their due diligence in trying to assess what was going on with him that he didn’t succeed in Iowa State and isn’t sticking around.

Culture. Fit.

1 hour ago, aphilso1 said:

It's in my Top 10 movie list, and is a Top 5 musical along with Phantom of the Opera, My Fair Lady, Jekyll and Hyde, and Hamilton.

Les Mis, Wicked, Greatest Showman, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair could/should all be up there somewhere.

19 minutes ago, Dead Dog Alley said:

They are all also taking advantage of a fifth season of playing due to the extra year of eligibility.  The extra year of development makes a  much bigger difference for some than for others.

I am so in favor of giving everyone a 5th year. I might have mentioned that.

On3 is showing Fidler 100% to Nebraska. Anyone know anything?

6 minutes ago, FredsSlacks said:

as it stands 4 of our top 6 guys from a 23 win team are returning. if we lose any of those top 4 it starts getting dicey.

Five of our top 8. The only rotation player to portal was a non-starter.

We honestly wouldn't have to do a ton in the portal to improve our standing. At this point, Brice probably slides back to his 3 spot, Gary to the 4, Jamarques re-enters the starting rotation at the 2, and Ulis probably starts at point.

Land that trio of Bellevue West guys, though, and I would feel pretty good about things, provided we keep those other five guys.

12 hours ago, cipsucks said:

No.  Can I make you worse by quoting you?  

No, we've all reached rock bottom.

I'm hearing of another departure. Not from the rotation guys.

23 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

Tarris Reed, Mich

Frankie Fidler, Omaha

Koren Johnson, Wash

William Kyle, SDS

JP Pegues, Furman

Tony Perkins, Iowa

OUT:

Keisei

Allick

Boogie

Ramel*

Eli*

Blaise*

CJ*

IN:

Janowski

Frager

I'm sure we've reached out to more than what's quoted above, but that's all I saw with a twitter search of "Nebraska portal." Ideally, I'd like to see us bring in freshmen and develop them over the course of their careers. In the era of NIL deals and the transfer portal, that appears to be an aspirational goal that isn't very realistic.

So, the second choice would be to grab a kid who's got at least 2 years of eligibility left and has demonstrated some development already. Problem with that is that competition for those guys is pretty stiff. Transfers with one year seem plentiful but our success rate with them hasn't been great. And, finally, Jucos are still a possibility but they've also been more miss than hit for us.

We've got a lot of spots to fill, though, so I'm sure the coaches are getting after it.

* = portal departure

Looking back, this question almost seems comical.

Like update the thread to say "if we only had five spots to fill ..."

A week ago, we had one more spot open. One more senior exhausting eligibility than signed recruits. Now, we have five more spots to fill.

As long as we keep Mast, Gary, Williams, Lawrence and Sam H., I think we'll have a pretty solid nucleus that we can build around.

So far, nothing has been like a gut punch losing a guy I really hoped we would keep. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

34 minutes ago, Nighthawk said:

Exactly...thanks for understanding where I was coming from. 

If being bashed for opposing the happening of a hypothetical event that is never going to happen isn't what message boards are for, then I don't know what is.

Yeah, um ...

18 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

It'll be interesting to see how he turns out. I think I kept pretty quiet about my thought on Rice. I liked his shooting. I thought he was the kind of guy who didn't seem to be phased at all if others on the team were struggling. But what jason said about him above has been my take, too. He just lacks that fluid athleticism. He  might be straight-line fast, but he's not change-of-direction quick. I don't see him doing spin dribbles into the lane to get to the rack like some of the aTm players did  against us. But he's a good shooter. I think he's solid. I think he could have had a role here. But I think he has a ceiling that isn't much higher than CJ Wilcher's of it's higher at all.

Let me just say, in fairness to Eli, I think he'll end up being a good player somewhere. But it's probably sort of like what @basketballjones observed a couple of years ago about Teddy Allen. Good player, but maybe not quite good enough to be the best player on a good team. Ironically, Teddy ended up being the best player on a good team. His game just didn't jive with being the best player on a Hoiberg team that had any chance of being good. And I get the same feeling about Eli. He might end up being a really good player for someone else. And I wish him the best.

By the way, Indiana needs to build a roster and so does Michigan.

Tarris Reed, Mich

Frankie Fidler, Omaha

Koren Johnson, Wash

William Kyle, SDS

JP Pegues, Furman

Tony Perkins, Iowa

Mike Sautter reporting we reached out to William Kyle as soon as he entered the portal. Among bigs, we've also reached out to Michigan Sophomore Tarris Reed.

Guards, the list is long.

And appears to be of pretty high quality. We don't have our sights set low, for sure.

13 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Ulis if he has to battle Perkins again at PG for minutes

 

 

 

So far as I know, the NCAA hasn't ruled on Uhlis's eligibility and I don't think we can reliably depend on his availability. We need to look for other options as an insurance policy.

11 hours ago, arliepro said:

Anyone in the portal now that you'd take as the PG?

The kid from Harvard.

44 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

Can someone clarify if NJ is a point guard or if he's a CG/SG

I think CG, but I read somewhere that he was working on his PG skillset in AAU club.

18 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

WARNING...take this for what it's worth. I received this from an anonymous source.  No clue whether or not it has any validity.  Read on if you wish.

 

Keisei Tominaga Petitioning for another year

 

Heard from someone in the student service/housing that Keisei/University are petitioning for another year due to a hardship during his first year at JUCO surrounding the language barriers. Apparently there is a precedent from years ago involving an ice hockey player with a similar situation.

Keisei still not sure on what he wants to do it, but wants to keep the options open.

Color me skeptical. Extremely skeptical. That one year of language barrier would also be the covid year, which didn't count anyway. He's played 5 years of college basketball. No injuries. No partial seasons. He's going to move on.

I have no idea what this even means. But  here ya go.

1 minute ago, millerhusker said:

Tony Perkins entered the portal. Big loss for Iowa. 

Saw that. He's from Indianapolis. And IU basically needs to build a new roster from scratch.

So far, I'd say it's just like last year and the guys who are portalling are the guys who the coaches probably told to portal.

We have 4 spots to fill; we are early to the trough; we have some selling points to make for ourselves; and we probably have some cash to spend.

If you've entered the portal and you want to see how you'd fit into our system, here's some film. Feast your eyes.