Norm Peterson

Trivia question: How many scholarship players on Nebraska's roster are shorter than 6'5"?

I'm going to say I don't know that he'll be a spark off the bench. He might come in off the bench; he might also start. I don't know. Depends on his defense. But let me suggest this comparison about Keisei: As a shooter, he's like a Rayes Gallegos. Except, he's a Rayes Gallegos who can shoot treys off either a left- OR right-hand dribble AND (added bonus) he can hit between 4 and 5 out of ten of them compared to Rayes' 3 out of 10.

This kid's shooting ability is transformational. We'll have one of those guys who, like so many other teams have, when he gets in the game, has the ability to get you that 3-bucket when you gotta have one. Have no idea what his minutes will look like, but he'll maybe come in off the bench and if he's hot, they'll feed him till he drops. He's a kid who could literally score 12 points in just 5 minutes of playing time. So, the other team wants to play zone, huh? We'd like them to switch to man.

I would take a vacation day to sit in and watch live hoops all day.

Be sure to update your Kenpom thread if you haven't already done so.

Keisei has some mad skilz. The question is whether he can play defense at a power 5 level.

Personally, I was just doing my part to make sure this thread didn't go over 20 pages. You're welcome.

Was anyone worried that if you asked for a refund that, even though they said it wouldn't affect anything, that it would somehow still adversely impact your standing like with getting single-game tickets?

Eduardo might not be as far behind Yvan as some on here seem to think.

Much as I hate to say it, it is kind of looking that way. Which is surprising because I thought season 1 showed some promise. It especially sucks when the guy who engineered the most impressive drive of last season is now the starting QB at Rutgers, completed 66% of his passes for 165 yards against Ohio State, and hasn't had a game with less than 130 yards passing or 61% completions this season. Meanwhile, the guy we started over him, who 2 years ago I thought was maybe going to be the best passing QB in program history, is languishing at 57% passing for 105 yards per game. Was Stanley Morgan the only reason why Adrian looked so good as a freshman? He's clearly regressed. Is that him or is that coaching or some combination of the two? Right now, we suck. That's all there is to it.

It would be a hilarious middle-finger to certain powers-that-be that, if the Big Ten said "no Bubble T" for you, PBA said, "it's all a go on our end, so I guess we'll just have a tourney without you." In fact, if PBA did that, I think it would make it tough for the Big Ten to turn it down. I could be wrong.

Which did you choose?

He shows a lot of offensive knack in this video. I think a 3-on-3 format is really ideal for him because it allows him to exploit and leverage all the things he does really well. The spacing on the floor is a lot more open. If you get by your man on the dribble, there's almost no chance of getting rejected at the rim. The video of that juco scrimmage didn't really showcase his ballhandling ability, which was pretty impressively demonstrated in the 3-on-3 highlights. The kid can shoot, though. If Webster gets an additional year and comes back, they would seem to be pretty similar players in terms of what they bring to the table. Very interesting roster being developed. Very interesting.

Nice article on Banton. 6'9 point guards aren't common in the Big Ten? Whod'a thunk? The game against Wiscy where he almost had a triple-double was not in 2015. But, other than that, nice words about our main man. He should excel in the facilitator role.

His defense looked soft. His shot was a bit off this game. But he made some heads-up, hustle plays that won't show up in the stat sheet (saving a ball to a teammate, for example.) You can see he's got a good shot. The other team played him REALLY tight the whole game and, as a result, a couple of his teammates went off. He never seemed to really try to force things. Got fouled on a missed layup in the first half that wasn't called. Got fouled on a circus layup in the second half that dropped and got the and-1. He had a couple of nifty pull-up mid-range jumpers and he was probably 1-4 on treys. I'm sure he was in double-figure scoring. But his game didn't scream "P5 Dude" at you like the guy from Navarro who I was like, "DAYUM he's good," and, sure enough, Rivals has him as a 4-star going to TCU.

A couple of interesting notes about Kesei's first game. His team was getting boat raced in the first half and got down 71-51. At half. At HALF. They went on a tear to open the 2nd half and went on a 31-7 run in the first 8 minutes of the 2nd half to take a 4 point lead. At one point, they'd outscored their opponent 60-30 in the 2nd half. They ended up winning by around 6. Late in the 2nd half, though, Kesei goes up against one of their bigs for a long rebound. As Kesei jumps for the ball, he rotates away from the other player so that his back is to the other guy's front, if that makes sense. The other dude has ahold of the ball. And ahold of Kesei. And as he's trying to wrestle the ball away from Kesei, he literally lifts Kesei off the ground and body slams him to the floor. Literally lifted him off the floor and body slammed him. The refs called a jump ball. No foul. SMDH. Also ... Kesei's defense looks pretty soft. His shot was not on for most of the game but he made some clutch plays that won't show up in the stat sheet. He seems to be a popular teammate.

Yeah. Mack sucked as a shooter and didn't want to play defense. Which is sad because he had NBA caliber explosiveness. It's likely Banton isn't a great shooter either but his length on D is an advantage and he's probably at least a decent facilitator in comparison.

And Keisei Tominaga.

Let's see what he does this year. He has some tools to build some game around. I wouldn't say he's a hopeless cause. He's a good kid who's willing to work.

I was just trying to see if I could catch all the current tropes and some old ones as well.

Just looking ahead, as I always do, not to the current next year, which is actually this year, but to the next next year, which is the next year after this year. Looks like talk about Webster getting another year? (I'm just getting that from a post by @millerhuskerin another thread.) So, pencil him in as a starter at point, right? Because you're not going to bring a guy back for a 6th year of eligibility unless he's going to be a big contributor. So, Webster, starting at point. Then you have Banton. He'll be a junior by this point. I don't see him relinquishing the starting spot he doesn't officially have yet but obviously will. Same goes for Teddy Allen who will be a senior. Provided he hasn't transferred to his 6th school in 4 seasons. Trey McGowens will be a senior and have one year to play with his younger brother Bryce. He's just about a lock, as far as I can tell. Then you have Bryce McGowens who will be a freshman, and there's no way a 5-star player doesn't start, so just lock him into the starting 7 right now. After that, you have Yvan. He'll still be a 17-year-old freshman in a NFL strongside defensive end's body. Wow. What other program in the country has that? Lat Mayen will be returning for his senior year and if there's one thing I know about juco transfers, it's that, if they stay both years, they're usually better in year two. So, that's a lock. I think it's also a possibility that Eduardo Andre, with appropriate development, could jump into the starting lineup by then. Nebraska would just need to petition the Big Ten to allow us to have 8 people in our starting lineup. And given that the Big Ten has been so reasonable in making dispensations on our behalf in the past, I see no reason to doubt they'll grant this tiny, little exception to the normal ... y'know ... rules or whatever. (Listen, I'm just the ideas guy; I'll leave the deets to someone else.) Now, just need to await the official tweet from Brian Rosenthal to wrap this starting lineup in a little bow. I feel pretty good about this prognostication.

Agreed, Cheatham would be the most likely one. I think it could be tough, though, for anyone from last year besides Yvan to crack the starting rotation. At this stage, you never know how reliable the information coming out of Hendricks really is. But you gotta think Banton, Allen and McGowens would just about be locks to start over anyone on last year's squad. And that's over our best players from a year ago. In the frontcourt, we'll see an improved Yvan and it looks like Lat Mayen. Lat would be taking Thor's spot in the starting lineup. If Webster is the 6th man and Stevenson is the 7th (which I don't know to be the case, just going off of @millerhusker's post above) then it really is a stark indication of how bad our roster was a year ago that a returning starter gets passed up by 7 new guys. I think Thor does enough things really well that he'll have a place in the rotation if he's not a starter. But there are some other guys I'd like to see get some minutes in order to develop, Eduardo Andre and Elijah Wood being two of them.

Am I correct that none of our projected starters except Yvan played even a minute for us last year? Next question: Would any of our starters from last year save Yvan crack the rotation this year?

Hunter hasn't signed yet. Some Tarheel blog quoted him saying he'd release a top 6 soon and then wait until spring to sign anywhere. Weird things can happen. It's not unprecedented for a guy to pick some school that wasn't among his top 3. Having other top-shelf recruits is more of a draw than a turnoff to someone who wouldn't want to be the only good player on a mediocre team. I still think that'd be a helluva backcourt. For us. Not Kentucky. (It'd be a helluva backcourt for Kentucky, too.)

Bryce could commit to Nebraska (or anywhere else) anytime if he wanted to. I'm not going to allow my hopes to get dashed over this one. Having said that, wouldn't he look great in a backcourt with Hunter Sallis?