Norm Peterson

That sounds good, but he still has to be able to play defense.

I didn't have good highlight film for him. Same with Quaran McPherson.

That seems a pretty apt comparison.

I don't see Keisei as having much in common with Thor except they're both lefty shooters. If Thor could shoot like Keisei, he'd have been a solid starter and maybe an honorable mention all conference kind of selection. Good length for a guard. Reasonably athletic. Very high hoops IQ. Extremely high hoops IQ. But Thor's weakness is Keisei's strength. Thor just wasn't a reliable outside shooter other than for a short span his junior year. I see Keisei as probably having a high hoops IQ and feel for the game. His shooting is ++. But he's not long, and unless he's explosive, he's probably going to have problems. Does he have the foot speed and lateral quickness to defend opposing guards at this level? I don't know. If he does, he'll probably see the floor because he's about as automatic of a shooter as Cary Cochran.

Under-rated Academic All-American super senior with a pretty good highlight reel.

Seems like we should have better highlight video for Eduardo. He's put on 20 pounds this off-season. Could he be the most-improved player on the team?

The Flying Dutchman. @Kent Pavelka might like that for a nickname. And somehow he grew 2 inches by seeing a chiropractor? Long, skilled, true freshman stretch 4. About as skilled of a true freshman big as we've ever had that I can remember.

Long and bouncy wing who, at 6'7, can create his own shot. Good handles. Can find the rim off the dribble or pull up mid-range. Half a year of college so he comes in with some seasoning already. ESPN had him as a top 50 recruit for the class of '21 before he reclassified and joined DePaul for half a season.

Here's a shooting guard who can fill it up. 6'5 kid, so good size. Kinda got a little Teddy Allen game in the sense that he doesn't wow you with his athleticism but somehow manages to find a way to score. He counts as a freshman, but he's got a year of college under his belt. And look at this shooting exhibition:

If these are the backups, I'm feeling pretty good, right? Seems to have the tools to play point. Can absolutely drill it. Lead his juco team to the NJCAA semis. Sophomore with two juco years under his belt. Is he athletic enough to see the floor? I'm guessing so, but how long will it take him to adjust to P5 basketball?

If he doesn't make the regular rotation, it means we have other players even better. How does THAT make you feel?

Oh.

It's probably just a camera.

He gets off the plane and hits his first 5 treys in a row. Niiiiiice.

Where did I say "friend"?

He was only guessing. And apparently not a very good guesser.

So, @Omaha Husker, what's your handle on the Bluejay Underground?

Whoa! Niiiiice!! Guess he made the right call leaving. That's pretty awesome.

Guys who I think *could* be >40% from three: Lat Mayen Bryce McGowens Keisei Tominaga CJ Wilcher Guys who I think *should* be >35% from three: Trevor Lakes Lat Mayen Bryce McGowens Trey McGowens Keisei Tominaga Kobe Webster CJ Wilcher Other guys who I think *could* be >35% from three: Wilhelm Breidenbach Keon Edwards Alonzo Verge The only guy I haven't mentioned besides the bigs is Quaran McPherson and that's because I just have no idea what he brings to the table. He could be the best player on the roster for all I know. I just don't know enough about him. But this list is, I think, realistic. And it kind of puts it in visual terms why I think this team could jump a bit in the league standings in 3-point accuracy: Seven guys on the team who legitimately could be expected to shoot 35% or better from beyond the arc.

2020 PF Juco Lat Mayen - Signed - Page 3 - Husker Hoops Recruiting - Husker Hoops Central From @TheKamdyMan: "His juco does a lot of giving guys minutes spread out. He has started 14 of 16 games and leads the team in minutes per game at 20.6. He is 6th in points at 9.6, 1st in rebounds 7.9, and getting 3 ast per game. He shares a lot of minutes with his 4 star teammate Marial Mading who plays a very similar position."

That's interesting about Lat. One of his key attributes as a juco recruit was his rebounding. Yeah, sure, some other guy on his team might be out there scoring more points, but Lat goes and gets the rebounds. That was the book on him, at least, and I would have expected more from him last year in the rebounding dept, and maybe we'll see it this year. I don't know what the exact breakdown will be for Lat this year, but last year, exactly 2/3 of his shot attempts came from beyond the arc. His 138 3-pt attempts were most on the team. I think the number of attempts goes down a bit while his efficiency should go up. I'm counting on other guys becoming the 1st, 2nd and 3rd options from beyond the arc. That will allow Lat to take better shots at more opportune times. I also think he's working on adding some versatility to his offensive game and we could see more shots at the rim this coming season than we did a year ago. I think Alonzo Verge is going to be a LOT better at stressing defenses with dribble drives than ANYONE we had a year ago. And that will mean someone standing on the low blocks is going to be the beneficiary of some easy dunks from dump downs when Verge gets past his initial defender. That guy could be Lat. But I think Lat will also work at trying to opportunistically drive to the rim when opposing defenses are vulnerable. And that will happen when they're spending a lot of effort chasing our shooters off the 3-point line. Lat's pretty quick for a 6-9 guy and I've seen a number of clips of him this summer driving to the basket and scoring. He actually has a deft touch around the rim. That could be a little bit of a hidden weapon. My guess is we'll see Lat jump up into double-figure scoring (he was relatively close to that a year ago.) He'll be joined by Trey, Alonzo and Bryce. That's my guess, anyway. We have a luxury of having more guys on this roster who should be threats to score than we have had in a long, long time. So I think there are probably a couple of other guys who have the potential to be in the conversation of leading scorers. But based on what we've heard and seen, you'd have to think the smart money is on Verge, the McGowens, and Lat.

This is kind of why I was asking about weaknesses of this team over in the expectations thread. We lose our best overall rebounder (Banton) and our best per-minute offensive rebounder (Yvan). So, rebounding is probably a concern. The bigs we have don't seem to have Blaise Keita's toolkit and aren't likely to force double-teams when we get the ball into the post. And that's OK, but it means we better be pretty amazing at a couple of other spots. Bryce could be pretty amazing. We sure hope he is. I think our overall shooting is going to be lights out compared to last year. That'll help. I think this team will be a lot better than last year, but I just don't have a good sense of by how much.

Well, the flip side will also be true. He could force double teams that free up shooters. As long as he's a capable passer out of the post, it could be the other team hustling all over to make their defensive rotations and close out shooters and just not quite getting there soon enough.

Hey, a man's gotta eat.

My thought is we're going to exceed the combined win total from the last two years. We could match last year's win total before the end of November.