Norm Peterson

Adrian Martinez is the living embodiment of the sunk costs fallacy.

He’s maybe 100 pounds over his playing weight.

That last sentence rhymed. Just sayin.

Terrance Badgett is a BIG DUDE now. Saw him at a charity golf thing a few years back and he looks more like a former Husker defensive tackle than a former Husker basketball player. BIG dude. BIG. Very big. Not body shaming him. He's just a very large individual. I'm jealous, to be honest.

By the way, I think this is probably the biggest reason we won't see Derrick and Eduardo on the floor at the same time playing a traditional, OG-version of a PF and a C. They are the depth for each other. We don't really have depth for them. Except for maybe Oleg, but he's sight-unseen and who knows how ready he'll be.

I get that last year those two fouled at a higher-than-average rate. But it's probably not going to happen a lot that both of them pick up two fouls in a first half. If it does happen, we no longer have Yvan, so I guess we'd probably roll with a combo of Lat and Wil.

I don't want to get too off in the weeds, but I think you underestimate the value of joining a team in the summer and going through all of those workouts, followed by fall conditioning (which we're getting some video clips of our guys doing right now) and then full-blown practices, which began mid-October last year, more than a month before DePaul paused basketball activities due to Covid. And it wasn't like they went cold turkey on hoops for 2 months. They flew to Iowa State for a game on December 6 that was called off after they got there. I have to assume they practiced for at least some period of time prior to leaving for that game. Also, I think Depaul played three games, not two, before Keon joined the squad. He enrolled for the winter term, which began January 3. According to ESPN, Depaul played 3 games in December. But, back to the preseason stuff, there's a reason why I've expressed concerns the past few years about guys like Keisei and Yvan missing all of summer workouts with the team while they chased other aspirations. I think stuff like that matters. All the other players on Depaul's team were D1 athletes, too. And they had the advantage of all that pre-season stuff. High school seniors who show up on January 3rd are going to feel lost. Let's see what he does. Maybe he's not all that. But I'm not going to base that off of what he did at Depaul. I don't think that's a fair representation.

There's certainly some potential that could work. Walker could be your traditional power forward and Eduardo certainly has the frame to play your traditional post. Everyone says Hoiberg just does positionless basketball. Not sure if that forecloses what you've described, but if not, I suppose it could happen. The problem is that it takes a shooter out of the lineup. If we did that, we'd really need to make sure the backcourt was stacked with guys who can drain it from deep. Interesting thought.

I would like someone unexpected to be so good we can't keep them off the floor.

@aphilso1 One point I'd make about Keon and Depaul is that he joined them mid-year. He was originally a 2021 recruit, just like Bryce. According to ESPN's rating, he'd have been a top 50 kid in the nation in the 2021 class. That's this year's freshmen. When he joined Depaul, they'd already gone through summer workouts. Fall conditioning. Pre-season practices. And several games. He's joining an established rotation, going in there cold as a high school senior. I wouldn't judge him at all by what he did at Depaul.

Well let's put it this way: No matter who makes the rotation, they'll have had to earn it by beating out someone else who was probably pretty good rather than by getting there because we just simply didn't have anyone else we could put out there with a straight face. So, I guess if Edwards makes it, it's a good thing because it means he's better than someone else. And if someone else makes it, it's a good thing because it means someone else is better than him. Hey, look at us! We actually have competition for playing time! Crazy times, man, crazy times.

I think you're right. I think Verge does start. One of the things that occurs to me is that, over the last several seasons, certainly for as long as Fred has been our head coach, we haven't had that player that made other players around him ... better. You could argue that Cam Mack did that a bit, but the players he was dropping dimes to couldn't hit their shots, so there's only so much polish you can apply to a turd. But look at those clips of Verge dishing to Derrick Walker, for instance. I think Derrick Walker will be a more productive player for us on offense with Alonzo Verge running point than if Dalano Banton was running point. In fact, there might not be another player on the roster who benefits as much from a Banton-for-Verge swap as Derrick Walker. Him and Andre, for sure. Dalano could drive and kick to the corner or wing, but otherwise he'd be driving to the basket himself. You didn't see him drop the ball off much for someone else down low. And part of that was that just wasn't his game. I mean, if he gets it inside, he's not going to dish to the tall guy because he IS the tall guy. The perimeter guys are going to get their looks because Fred's system is designed to do that. But for the big men, it takes someone to set the table for them a bit. And Verge is more of a guy who can do that compared to Banton. And the really nice thing for us is that both Derrick (60% FG%) and Andre (64.7% FG%) are both players who can take advantage. I'd look for Derrick's 4.4 attempts per game to go up. It might just be one additional attempt per half. But if he makes 60% of those additional attempts, he can pretty easily go from just under 6 points per game to just over 8. And that's enough from our big man when you have guys all over the floor who can stroke it from deep, which we oughta have this year.

Because Wilcher and Edwards are great players? Or because, if they make the rotation, it would mean they're better than other guys whom we know more about?

Be worse if it was Wisconsin.

Not that I would complain. I mean, we miss out on the #61 player in the class. It wouldn't suck to then fall into the #62 player. I'd be OK with that. Wouldn't feel like it was sloppy seconds.

Is there any smoke or fire with the Barlow kid, though? I mean, I haven't seen anything. We have a spot. He's ranked 1 place below Isaac Traudt on Rivals 150. Seems like a kid to go after. But is there any relationship there? If there is, we should expect a visit soon as he's a 2022 kid; otherwise, don't figure we're involved with him at this point.

Crazy thing, as much as I loved Yvan and thought he was a great kid (and he was and is a great kid), he wouldn't have caught those passes. And if he had managed to snag the pass, he wouldn't have been able to score the ball. Derrick can do that. And I think Eduardo can too. That's going to help move that needle I've been talking about. Net effect of a whole bunch of little things. This is one of those little things that, added together, could make a big difference.

Here's the third one, just in case anyone was counting and didn't see three in the other tweet.

I've seen 3 nice dishes posted on the Nebraska Basketball twitter account. Each one of them has been from Alonzo Verge to Derrick Walker. Could we be onto something?

At this point, I think we could put 50 random names of college coaches/prospects on a wall and throw darts and we'd find someone better than Frost. This is year 4. We are inept at offense. Either the scheme sucks or the coaches suck at teaching the scheme. Or, we don't have the players, which is also on the coaches. Interestingly, Illinois' 1st year head coach didn't seem to have a problem implementing his scheme in one off-season. I just can't find anything positive to take away from this last game. And, given what we've seen over the last 3 seasons, I just do not have any reason to think it'll be any better going forward. Our record under Frost in close games is shockingly bad. And it goes back to season #1. The problems we had 3 years ago are the same problems we saw on Friday. And, somehow, we had better players back then. I will be SHOCKED if we win 6 games this season. But if he wins any fewer than that, he needs to be shown the door.

Parker, Simeon, Omaha. Anyone else? That'd be a hell of a class there. I'd take it.

So Gonzaga scored a commit from a non-point guard who lacks consistent 3-point range. Yeah, we used to do that all the time.

Can someone please explain to me how a backup QB can learn a system in a single off-season and run it more effectively than a 4th year starter?