Norm Peterson

I picked Keon because if the defense sells out to stop Bryce from getting the ball, Keon is the only other guy who seems reasonably likely to not only be able to reliably hit from outside, but who can also break his defender down on the dribble and get to the rim and score. I wanted 5 guys out there who I thought could hit the front end of a 1-and-1. That left Derrick Walker on the bench. And, too often during the season, the guy missing front ends was Trey. And he and Banton both were just mid-60s from the stripe. So, I wasn't sure I wanted them in there. I wanted to eliminate the possibility that they could leave a shot blocker inside to contest at the rim, so I wanted to spread the court with shooters, but in the event Bryce misses the shot and the ball remains live, I wanted some length to play defense on the other end, so I went with Lat and Keon for their length.

Ok, I guess I’ll go first. Bryce McGowens circled Lat Mayen CJ Wilcher Keisei Tominaga Keon Edwards Yeah, shockingly young lineup, I know. I’m going with five guys who I expect will all be good free-throw shooters and who I think are all threats to hit from three point range. With 10 seconds on the shot clock, I’m sending two guys to each of the corners, two more to each of the wings, and let Bryce McGowens go one on one with whoever they think can guard him, figuring advantage offense and, with just two guys on an island, Bryce should probably be able to come away with a bucket more than 50% of the time.

Thank you, Thor, for being a great ambassador of the program and the university, for always making the hustle-play, and, most especially, for blocking that shot.

Wisconsin is in town. There's 45 seconds left in regulation, we're up 75-73, and we have the ball. A win and we solidify our spot in the NCAA tournament, so there's a lot on the line. The fans have not sat down all game long. It's been a clean game. There's no foul trouble. We're not yet in the double bonus. There's a dead ball because Brad Davidson just got called for a charge, and Wisconsin makes some substitutions to get their best defenders on the floor. You pull an envelope from your pocket. Inside that envelope is a slip of paper with 5 names on it. You made a guess, 10 months earlier, about who Nebraska would put in the game in just this situation, and you circled the name of the player you thought would have the ball in his hands the last 10 seconds of the possession. You look to see how good your guess was. Whose names are on your list, and whose name did you circle?

I think Ranger was a 13 seed, so they were going up against a 2 seed. And Coffeyville was like a 10 seed going up against something like a 3 seed. So they both won in upsets. Both of the repping us pretty well.

I don't think Barry Collier had a clue how tough it was going to be to recruit as Nebraska in the Big 12 and what kind of players he would need to compete at the P5 level, and he was woefully unprepared for the challenge. He thought he could get by with 3rd team all-Jayhawk conference juco players when we were used to having 1st team All-American juco players. It took him 3 years to realize he needed huge help with recruiting and, by that time, the die was cast and he was in big trouble. Doc was at least trying to get the better juco players as well as some quality HS kids, but he still lacked the recruiting chops and it's no wonder he took a position here under Hoiberg with an understanding that he wouldn't have to take part in recruiting.

Louis Truscott was pretty highly rated coming out of high school. He'd have been top 150 if they'd had those rankings back then. Lue would probably have been a 5-star and Hamilton a 4-star. Strickland and Boone were both 4-stars, for sure, and Woolridge might have been on the cusp of being a 5-star. I think he was rated in the 20s by Street and Smith at the time. He wasn't in the teens. He didn't make the McDonald's AA game. So I'm guessing really high 4-star on the borderline of 5-star. Jamar Johnson was another fairly highly-ranked kid coming out of HS. So was Carl Hayes and also Lewis Jeter. They might have been Rivals 150 quality. Jamar Johnson certainly was. Depreis Owens was probably a 4-star. Chester Surles was probably a Rivals 150 guy. Mikki Moore was under-rated. A project. Big programs weren't looking at him. Tony Farmer was a mid-major transfer because his school dropped their program. I don't think he was heavily recruited out of HS. He was good, though. Kimani had no HS recruiting ranking; he was a juco transfer, so he wouldn't have made the list. Terrence Badgett doesn't quite make the list either. I think he was a good Nebraska player but that was at a time where Nebraska kids didn't really get recognized for basketball.

So, I was curious how the list would look if we added in transfers over the last 2 decades. Top 20. Here's what I come up with: 1. Bryce McGowens .9920 2. Isaac Copeland .9901 3. Anton Gill .9810 4. AW III .9801 5. Haanif Cheatham .9695 6. Glyn Watson Jr. .9692 7. Keon Edwards .9666 8. Dalano Banton .9641 9. Wilhelm Breidenbach .9568 10. CJ Wilcher .9541 11. Thomas Allen .9429 12. James Palmer Jr. .9361 13. Ed Morrow .9322 14. Yvan Ouedraogo .9161 15. Isaiah Roby .9110 16. Alonzo Edwards .9059 17. Christian Standhardinger .8997 18. Samari Curtis .8971 19. Jordy Tschimanga .8942 20. Brandon Ubel .8934 So, only three of the top 20-rated recruits in the last 21 years (per their high school recruiting rankings) were brought in by someone not named Tim Miles or Fred Hoiberg. In three recruiting classes, Hoiberg has accounted for six of the top 10 and 8 of the top 20-ranked recruits (based on high school rankings) since the turn of the century. Four of the top 10 will be freshmen on next year's Husker basketball team. That's the big stat. Four of the top 10 will be freshmen next season.

OK, you limited your examination to "top 25." The link you provided actually goes back a lot further than that, and so I just took a quick historical look at the older data. Thank you for the link, by the way. Some of the stuff was consistent with what I thought I had remembered. For instance, in the early days of Scout (which became 24/7, right?) I can remember scrolling through page after page of basketball recruits trying to find the top player we were going after. And it was Charles Richardson. And, according to your link, he was ranked the 793rd best player in his class. And that's about the way I remembered it. That's not a typo. 793rd. And he was our top recruit that year. It's just striking how bad our recruiting was before Tim Miles got here. Before Tim Miles, we couldn't even get our foot in the door with Rivals 150 guys. You'd scroll through the names of the players we'd offered or who were at least considering us, and it just flat didn't include any of the top names. At all. I think prior to Miles, we'd never had a Rivals 150 kid on our roster even as a transfer. That's how bad it was. And then, all of a sudden, Tim Miles comes along and we had like six. I remember doing a thread where it was like we went from zero Rivals 150 players to having enough that at least one Rivals 150 guy would have to come off the bench. In a span of only like 2 years. My, how far we had come. Sometimes, during Collier/Sadler years, we got lucky with a guy who was better than the recruiting services gave him credit for. Aleks Maric, for instance, was pretty damned good even as a true freshman. But our starting PG during a couple of the Collier years was Marcus Neal Jr. who was rated outside the top 120. OF JUNIOR COLLEGE PLAYERS. And that certainly fits with what I remember of him. For comparison, Lance Jeter was the #36 juco recruit, and Ade Dagunduro was #16. I remember how excited we were about Roburt Sallie, but he wasn't even in the Rivals 150. And he was supposed to be some kind of program changer. So, this latest flurry of commits is significant. And the guys whose doors we are knocking on now suggests that trajectory should continue.

GASO Clips on Twitter: ".@KeiseiTominaga is there to crush the run with the deep pull up but foul trouble may haunt them late 69-60 8:22 @mmontfort @RangerMbb #NJCAAmbb #GASOJUCO https://t.co/cAfiRmvv2J" / Twitter

Kay-shay, my man! GASO Clips on Twitter: ".⁦@RangerMbb⁩ used a quick run with a steal and layup by ⁦@treytennyson⁩ then a rebound and runout to find ⁦@KeiseiTominaga⁩ for his 1st 3 of the half lead 39-30 at half #NJCAAmbb #GASOJUCO ⁦⁦@mmontfort⁩ https://t.co/izkhb3qstx" / Twitter

Five on 1, you'd think they'd have beat him even worse.

How far back does this list go? Because Aleks Maric was a 4-star by at least one of the services. Joe McCray was considered one of the best shooters in his class. I'm sure that the trio of Wes Wilkinson, Jason Dourrisseau and Roy Enright were all highly regarded and I am certain that Roy was a top 100 player (maybe top 80) by one service. Then you had Collier's really big haul the year that we got Jamel White and Chris Balham. We had a 4-star kid who decommitted and went to, like, Pitt, and washed up there. So ... There were a few other players that I would have ranked in our top 30 that don't show up there, so I'm wondering how far back it goes.

Ranger wins and advances to the juco final 8 behind 16 pts and 4 steals from my man Keisei. Chris Basnett on Twitter: "Keisei Tominaga with 16 points, four 3s, four steals as Ranger College advances to the quarterfinals of the NJCAA National Tournament with an 87-75 win over John A. Logan." / Twitter

As they should.

Samari Curtis I think committed to Hoiberg. I think he was a late add when we lost the lefty PG who went to Cinci after Miles was fired, Mika Adams-Wood or whatever. Also, I think you should add transfers in there and see where it breaks out. Because I'm pretty sure that we have the top 2, and 3 of the top 4, joining us for this coming season. Edited: Forgot about Copeland also having been a 5-star. So, when you factor in Copeland and AWIII, that'd be 2 of the top 5.

OK, well then, let's take care of business next time instead of letting some midget 3-point shooter come in off the bench and drill our ass with a bunch of corner threes.

Then, what the heck, let's include him too.

I feel it's pretty safe to assume that CJ and Keon are the only 4-year-eligible transfers in program history.

Speaking of 4-year players, what if we add CJ to the list?

Two more takeaways from the Washut appearance on Gary Sharpe's show that @Nebrasketballer linked above: 1. Traudt using an official to come to Nebraska in June is a sign that we're not an afterthought. Hoiberg is personally handling this recruitment and calling him 3 times/week. He only has a limited number of officials to use and the fact that he's using one of them for us suggests that we're still in it. 2. Keisei is more than just a shooter. Good passer, good court vision, very active on both ends of the floor. Very pesky defender. BUT he got his 3-point shot blocked twice in the game Robin watched, and so there might be some question whether he'll be able to reliably get it off against Big Ten level defenders.

Bryce McGowens is already in Lincoln? AWESOME!

Same could be said for Thor. We have room. It looks like we'll probably keep a couple spots open. He doesn't count against our total this year anyway. Why on earth would you not want Thor around. Even if he doesn't get many minutes, what he would provide in terms of stability in the locker room would be a benefit beyond measure.

"Edwards, McGowens and Breidenbach were all ranked in the top 50 nationally in Sports Illustrated's SI99 released in December of 2020." https://huskers.com/news/2021/4/20/mens-basketball-huskers-continue-to-haul-in-top-15-class.aspx

1. He's quick. Part of being quick for a big man is being decisive. Knowing the move and counter move by feel so you can execute the counter immediately when you get stopped on the main move. Look at the reverse at :22 and the up-and-under at :30, for example. 2. He appears to have really good shooting touch. 3. He can score facing up or posting up. 4. He has solid footwork down to execute several post moves/counters. 5. The combination of the above (shooting ability, quickness, footwork) will allow him to beat a lot of opposing bigs in straight man. He might very well force double-teams (how long has it been since we've had that?). If he's a good passer out of the post, and we've got shooters who can fill it up, it'll be a deadly combination.