Norm Peterson

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.

We're fortunate to have a few really high motor, unselfish guys. Allick is one. So is Gary and so is Sam Hoiberg.

Ultimate tell: has the line moved? If not, then he's gonna play.

There's a part of me -- the Husker Hoops PTSD part -- that worries we won't bring our "A" game tonight and that we'll somehow manage to sneak into the NIT. As a 5-seed. For a road game. Please, just win this one tonight so I can rest easy.

Feels like we were never rewarded for playing a tough schedule and now it looks like we are being rewarded for beating up a bunch of patsies. So, I guess the schedule will look soft again next year. Lesson for the NCAA: You get what you reward. Or, as Tim Miles would have said, "You get what you tolerate."