Norm Peterson

Myles Johnson was ranked by 24/7 sports as the 371st overall player in the class of 2018. He had offers from Colgate, Hawaii and Cal Santa Barbara before committing to Rutgers. He's currently averaging over 8 1/2 rebounds per game. He doesn't score much -- 7.8 ppg -- but with Ron Harper Jr. (23.4 ppg), Jacob Young (15.9 ppg) and Montez Mathis (14.3 ppg) on the team, he doesn't need to. However, when he does touch the ball, he scores it 62.2% of the times he takes a shot. Yvan Ouedraogo has a long way to go to get to that level of efficiency. He's also nowhere near as long as Myles Johnson. But Eduardo Andre is that long. Longer, even. And could develop into the kind of big you'd like to see us have. Yvan has some upside, but he also has some things he needs to get straightened out. Yvan could get there, but I think his odds are longer. Eduardo just seems like a more natural, fluid athlete, he's a hell of a lot longer, and he certainly appears to have better touch than Yvan. So, if you're pinning your hopes on anyone to be that legit Big Ten big for next year, you better hope Eduardo puts in the time in the gym, at the training table, in the film room, and on the floor to develop, because he has the highest ceiling but also the longest distance to travel to get there.

Coaching is important but, without good players, good or even great coaching can only take you so far. We have to fill a lineup with kids who can shoot and score, and Grady would have been someone who could do that. Right now, we have a bunch of guys who can do the shooting part but are struggling with the scoring end of things. Missing on this one is not totally unexpected, but we are going to have to win some of these recruiting battles for players like this if we hope to climb out of the Big Ten cellar. So, color me disappointed.

So, you're saying Yvan is taking 72% of his shots "at the rim"? Define "at the rim" because I think damn near 100% of his attempts have been within 3 feet of the rim. And, according to the stats on ESPN, he's shooting 44% from the floor. Which, as you suggest in your piece, is nowhere near where you want a guy to be. Our bad shooting numbers certainly suggest that a talent deficit explains a lot of our woes this year, though.

Wait till we see what Walker can do. He could come in and be the answer in the post. And I think Andre has a lot of upside. Once his conditioning recovers to his pre-Covid form, we'll have a lot better idea of what to expect from him. And if Lat and Lakes can simply get on track with their 3-point shooting, we could see a lot of "progress" in a short window of time just from guys hitting the looks they're getting. Right now, they're just not hitting at a rate that would be consistent with historical expectations. Unfortunately, this was a year where we *needed* a full slate of non-conference games including a few cupcakes for the guys to figure out how to play together. Some of that is going to happen against some high-quality league foes and we're going to have to just bite the bullet on some losses while the team gets things figured out.

I still (somewhat reluctantly, because I don't want to put any of our other guys down) say our best hope is that Eduardo Andre develops rapidly enough to take over the starting position at center sooner rather than later, because his length is something none of our other players have and he seems to have a reasonable platform of skills to build on. I mean, he's at over 80% from the floor right now. Yeah, small sample size. Sure, he's getting looks in garbage time. But I'm not sure some of our guys could do that in a practice drill with no defenders. He looks like he has a high ceiling and it's nice that he'll be a freshman again next year.

I tend to agree with HB on this. Most of our players have some kind of glaring weakness. Our best players have some kind of hole in their game. We're forced to start either a shooting guard who is averaging less than 25% from three or a post who is averaging less than 45% from 2. And a couple of starters have weaknesses that you and I and others have been concerned are and will continue to be exposed and exploited. Yeah, you see some of our possessions go down in flames because guys aren't following Hoiberg's script. But it's easy to fall into that trap when you're playing from behind all the time and you're trying to make something happen. I think we're still missing a couple of shooters, but fortunately, help is on the way. But we'll have to wait until next season for that help to arrive.

I don't like naming names to stuff like this but look at the stat sheet for the season and see which players have eFG% way below what you'd expect for someone in their position. Which of our starters would start on any other team in the league? Do we have some who wouldn't? I guess start there.

Doesn't that just bug the ever-living crap out of you? I think it bugs Trey McGowens, who was whistled on a foul that looked pretty clean on one end and then went down and hit a trey (no pun) even while the oompa-loompa-looking Michigan guy (is there such a thing as a tall dwarf?) smacked his elbow on the shot. He didn't argue long (because he made the shot) but you could tell he was pissed it wasn't called after he got whistled on the other end.

I've noticed over the years when you try to blend a bunch of new guys together, it generally takes a good ten games before they kind of figure out where the points come from and how to make those opportunities happen. This year, we had a bunch of new guys but not the luxury of a normal non-conference with a host of directional cupcakes to cut our teeth on. Yeah, we lost, but we were within 4 points with 6 minutes to play against a top 20 team. I think we're going to see some guys begin to appear more comfortable out there and I think we have a win or two on the horizon. Heck, you're already seeing it with Yvan. He's kind of grasped some of his limitations and what not to do and he's now focusing on where he's strong and can help the team. I'm not as down as some people are, but then that's kind of what I'm known for, right?

Dang.

Did we cover?

Anyone’s ball game now.

Right now, our bench points consist entirely of the single free-throw that Eduardo Andre hit. I was expecting more from our bench in terms of scoring this year.

I’m beginning to decide that we’re not as bad as I thought we were.

I was going to post this but you beat me to it. It's not the best Christmas song ever. But it IS the best 2020 Christmas song ever. And, for that matter, it may well capture the ethos of Nebraska basketball: "Got on a lucky one; came in 18 to 1. I gotta feeling this year's for me and you."

I gotta say that performance last night against Wisconsin was about the best overall performance of Yvan's career that I've seen. Sure, he's had games where he scored more points and grabbed more rebounds. But last night was a complete game of nearly mistake-free basketball from Yvan, against some quality Wisconsin bigs. I wish he wouldn't have missed that bunny, the only shot he missed. I'm convinced the problems he continues to exhibit trying to shoot inside are mechanical issues. But, other than that one missed shot, he played nearly mistake-free ball. He played within himself. He didn't try forcing ANY shots on the offensive end. And he was smart enough to back it out when he got an offensive rebound that he clearly wasn't in position to try to go back up with. And I did not see him dribble in the post once. Maybe I missed it if he did. But I didn't see him take a dribble even on the shot he missed. He's an aggressive rebounder. And he got a couple of blocks. I would have given Yvan a game ball. I thought he and Banton and maybe Trey were the only ones who really showed up last night.

So, @49r, you're saying who we were last year will continue to affect our ranking THIS year? For how long? I mean, with the sit-out transfers, we're nowhere near the same team this year that we were last year. And, next year, we won't be the team we are this year. So, how long does Kenpom's ranking system factor in your performance from past years? Shouldn't that have worked itself out of the system by mid-year at the latest? I mean, he has to start teams out somewhere. But at some point, it has to be about what you've done for me lately.

I'm not falling for that. I watched "Hoosiers."

YES! I made the same exact point to someone else last night. And you know what makes it all the more infuriating? Go back and watch: It was the SAME ref making BOTH calls.

True. Nevertheless, he still appears to need to settle in because his routine isn't working as well as it did in Scottsbluff.

Does Kenny factor in margin of victory/defeat? I was surprised we kept it to a 14-point game with Wisconsin last night. I actually was fairly ... OK ... with that.

Wow! A few more losses like that and we could climb into the top 110! #SoStoked

That's about our lid, probably. I'll never be ecstatic about a losing season, however. Yeah, maybe if we get there, I'll think we got about as many as the talent on this team could get, but I'll still be disappointed that that was about as many as the talent on this team could get.

Or maybe Yvan was having a career game in terms of the quality of his play and Fred didn't want to mess with it.

Really? Why? I looked at the roster going into this year and looked at their historical 3-point shooting numbers and thought, "here we go again." I really don't think we'll have adequate shooters for this offense until next year.