Norm Peterson

So, there are things you can see from film, regardless of the level of talent. Stats can be skewed in your favor if you're playing against lower tier talent. But there are some things you either have in your toolkit or you don't, no matter whether the teams you're facing are good or not. Freethrows. Doesn't matter how good the other team is; it's just the shooter, the ball, and the basket. What's your percentage? You can also get a sense of his athleticism by watching his film. In this case, he seems to have an explosive first step and he just looks really fast going down hill. Mid-range jumpers off the dribble are another tool that you either have or you don't, and he does. A long, down-court pass ahead to a teammate breaking, I mean, you can either hit the guy in stride or you can't. And he did. He has fantastic length for a combo guard (at 6'7) and his athleticism appears to be a strength. He's obviously got solid shooting touch. He's slightly built, though, even for a freshman. Not sure how much weight he could add to his frame. But he sure does look for all the world like a kid with a D1 future to me. Talking about Bashir by the way. Looks like he plays for Caspar College.

100% agree. Much rather be a 10 seed than a 9 or 8. Not sure if it's still the case, but once upon a time I saw a stat that indicated upsets in the 7/10 contests were more common than in the 8/9 games. And you win that game and you're moving on to face the 2/15 winner rather than the 1/16 winner. Which isn't a huge difference but it is some difference.

He got an offer from Colorado a month before we offered Matar Diop.

I'll go ahead and say it. Keisei is not the best player to ever play in a Husker uniform. Not even top 10. He'll never have his jersey hanging in the rafters (or will he?). But he ignites like no one I've ever seen. When he's on, with our defense, his offense alone makes us difficult to beat. I've seen him hit so many clutch shots no one else would even attempt. And I'm not talking about deep, heat-check threes. There was one he was cutting baseline from one side of the hoop to the other, catches a bounce pass, and in a single motion, catches, turns, elevates, shoots, makes. From about 8-10 feet. Nobody else takes that shot, let alone makes it. There was no hesitation. No time to think. Didn't give the defense any time to react. Just catches and nails a shot. He's not always on. But when he is, he's scoring at all three levels and defenses don't know what to do about him except try to grab and hold him and hope the officials don't call it. Yeah, he might not be one of the best Husker players of all time. Maybe not even top 10. But he sure as hell has been one of the ten most fun to watch of all time. Even if he wasn't Japanese, the word that would seem to best describe him is "Ninja." Quick, precise, technically masterful, and deadly. And he's going to win us our first NCAA tourney game. Just watch.

Here's the way I interpreted it: They finished an undefeated home conference season by both getting double-doubles. So, they're leaving PBA THIS YEAR on a very high personal note. They closed out the home season with a dub. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

This is true. While Michigan is currently teetering on the precipice of being a Quad 3 road game, right now they're Quad 2. If we beat them, they might drop to Quad 3, but if we lose, they'll get a giant bump well into the middle of Quad 2. There's really no chance for Michigan to fall out of the top 135 if they beat us. Therefore, yeah, no bad losses on the season. But a few really good ones. Also, Michigan is not going to beat us.

Oh, so pretty much perfect for the system we run. Was that out loud?

Big Ten crew?

I bristled when I read it. "It's SALLIS! You mean SALLIS!!!" "Geez, dude, it was just a typo." "Well, it's a pretty damn significant typo on this board, mon frere. Where's my Xanax?"

Right now, we're tied with Wisconsin for 4th. We have the tie-break advantage over them currently, having beaten Purdue. Iowa is half a game back. If we win the next two, nobody can catch us. Unless there's some kind of tie scenario I haven't thought through. But we own the tie-breaker over Wisconsin and that won't change even if they beat Purdue at the end of the year because they'd only be .500 against Purdue this year and we're undefeated against Purdue.

Whoa, wait, the 5 most lopsided foul-disparity HOME games in our favor were ALL in the non-conference? You gotta be kidding me. This isn't coincidence. This confirms what my eyes have been telling me.

I noticed a lot of the fouls being called against us were on rebounds, not on shots. Also, making contact while diving for loose balls is a no-call on Battle and a foul on Bryce. Pushing off is an offensive foul when the offensive player is Jamarques Lawrence. But it's a defensive foul when the guy with the ball is someone from Ohio State. When we attacked on the dribble, they allowed a lot of contact. Or called Bryce for a charge when the defensive player leaned into him on a Euro-step move. Mystery blocking fouls on the other end. I mean, I could go on. But it's tough to attack the rim when all the calls are going one way.

That's kind of a statistical outlier, no? That's actually less than 2% of all D1 programs that can say they've been whistled for >10+ fouls than an opponent at least 3 times this season. That's more than 2 standard deviations from the mean. Which tells me I'm not just imagining things.

Yeah. There were lots of reasons we lost. I didn't complain about having to play a road game, but that was certainly a factor. As was the fact that we were uncharacteristically off-the-mark in shooting last night, more or less team-wide. I didn't see the point in complaining about playing on the road because that's how scheduling works. I didn't complain about our poor shooting because sometimes a team will have an off night. It just happens. I did complain about officiating because that's a human factor within someone's control. Something that could be fixed by someone if they cared to do so. The coaches are going to work on fixing our shooting and our shot selection. The schedule will take care of whether we get to play our next game at home. But absofuckinglutely no one is going to deal with the characteristically bad officiating in the Big Ten conference, because the conference protects the officials from being called out by coaches and players. They can suck and they're never going to hear about it. They have a monopoly and they don't have to be good. We're not the only ones who complain about Big Ten refs, by the way. I've seen fans of other Big Ten programs declare that Big Ten officiating is a national embarrassment. From what I've seen, I can't argue that conclusion. And I worry about what will happen when league teams have to adjust to refs from other conferences when they play in the NCAA tourney.

I feel sorry for Rutgers for what we're going to do to them. "9-1-1, what is your emergency." Yes, I'd like to report a murder. "OK, did you witness this murder, or ..." Actually, it hasn't happened yet. It's going to happen on Sunday. We're going to kill Rutgers.

At risk of belaboring the bad officiating take, we had 3 guys with 4 fouls; they had no one with more than 2. Final foul disparity was 21-9. Ohio State got whistled for half of their usual foul count. One more thing: If Lurch was bald, he'd look like DJ Carstensen.

I feel sorry for Rutgers.

Thought the same thing. Road game, no less.

Big Ten officiating is embarrassingly bad at times. The inconsistency from game to game and even half to half is so frustrating. And there's zero accountability. So, they can remain bad and never get called out. Who among us can be that shitty at our jobs and still be confident that we will be protected from criticism?

Except in Lincoln.

Wow. That's hard to just go without your best player on short notice and still hold it together. Take away one guy who could really help them keep us at bay on both ends of the floor.

She did not. The former Omaha Central standout Jessica Haynes played at San Diego State.

If we win tonight and against Rutgers, I'm not going to worry about whether we're in or not. Then I'll focus all my worrying on what seed we get.