Norm Peterson

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."

What was it last year?

I gotta think if we win the next two, we're a lock regardless of what happens after that.

I'm actually impressed that roughly 2/3 of the people on this board who voted in this poll thought our ceiling was over 20 wins.

Bump for some perspective. I'm thinking we all have a little Husker hoops PTSD.

Age/experience Depth Quality bench Buy-in More shooters Maybe a little more athleticism Lack of injuries Partial list

I'm not going to go back and cut and paste comments from old threads. I just remember there seemed to be a consistent complaint earlier in the season that we didn't have anyone on this roster who had lateral quickness and explosiveness and that was going to affect our ability to play good defense, and probably also score on the offensive end. I think we've done better than the vast majority of people on this board would have expected. So what happened? What is different about this team that allowed us to go from a .500 squad a year ago to a probable NCAA tourney entrant this year?

Hunter made a mistake going to Gonzaga and having to be a role player there. One of the articles posted indicated he got to the point where he wasn't even going to try to score in games and would just settle into a defensive role because he didn't want to get yanked and chewed out by Mark Few. He would have been better served to come here and develop with a lot of playing time where he had a greater chance of being a focal point of our offense instead of thinking he had to just pass the ball to everyone else. But he's having a good time at Wake now, so I guess good for him.