Norm Peterson

Up to #34. A Hoiberg Husker high.

That's gonna leave a mark.

More doors are opening.

After we beat Ohio State, it'll be 5.

I'm glad there's an asterisk by the Rutgers loss. Yeah, it means OT, but still. It deserves an asterisk for more reasons than that.

I think it's a reflection of their head coach. The pernicious assholery among members of that fanbase is pervasive. And he eggs it on.

I'm guessing Cinci kept the score closer in their 11 losses, including two in Quad 3, than we did in our 8. 43 43 Nebraska Big Ten 19-8 2-7 1-0 16-1 4-7 3-1 5-0 7-0 44 45 Cincinnati Big 12 16-11 4-5 0-1 12-5 4-7 1-2 2-2 9-0

KSU gets a bump into the top 75, now at #73. Now another Quad 1 win for us.

Kansas State's win over BYU has bumped them up into a Quad 1 win for us. Now at #73.

NET #77 KSU wins by 10 over NET #11 BYU for a Quad 1 win for them, which should vault them back into being a Quad 1 win for us.

Decidedly, emphatically NOT the best fans in the country. https://www.ctinsider.com/sports/uconn-mens-basketball/article/dan-hurley-big-east-creighton-fans-18685199.php

Of course it’s not just the Purdue win that makes us strong contenders for a spot in the dance. It is that we have zero bad losses. None. And the only risk of a quad three loss remaining on our schedule is Rutgers at home where we will be out for blood. I mean how many years in the past did we look back at something like an Incarnate Word loss, and think to ourselves “if only…”

I'm surprised we don't rank better in shot selection. Of course, back when we were super high in shot selection, we used to lose a lot, so ...

Don't have much experience with this kinda thing (who on here does, right?), had thought I would try to be there in person for when this awesome event occurs, but how does one plan for an event like this when you don't know where it's going to be or even exactly when?

"This might sting a lot."

Remember how they called Reggie Jackson "Mr. October"? Well ... maybe we should call him Ja "March" us Lawrence.

As is demonstrated by the fact that, suddenly, all of our remaining home games are sold out.

Regardless of exactly how the rest of the season plays out or how deep of a run we make, if we reach the dance and the following players return, we should expect to be ranked at the beginning of next year: 1. Rienk Mast 2. Juwan Gary 3. Brice Williams 4. CJ Wilcher 5. Jamarques Lawrence 6. Sam Hoiberg

I think this is also true.

Friendly rivalry? Chat GPT not much more accurate than Gemini.

Two years ago, we were coming off the worst three-year run in the modern history of the program. Maybe ever, but I'm not going to go back to the beginning to verify. Twenty-four wins combined in his first three seasons here and I'm of the understanding Fred thought he was done, which was why he didn't schedule a youth basketball camp that summer after his third season. The only thing that probably saved his job was a potential need to keep our powder dry in order to fire Scott Frost at the helm of the flagship football program. That spring, we picked up a portal commit from a Lincoln kid who wanted to come home and play his last season of college basketball in front of the hometown crowd. Turns out, that pickup was transformational, as Fred recently acknowledged in comments about Sam coming back to watch our game against Penn State. Sam Griesel, according to Fred, changed the culture of the team. It was unselfish ball, and it allowed people (including potential recruits) to see what the finished product was supposed to look like when we ran our system instead of running hero-ball. There was another Summit League standout who was looking for a new home that same spring. A kid who grew up just west of here. We tried to get him to Lincoln. And he was gracious in turning us down. He observed that, while we're starting to build a culture here at Nebraska (which was a nice way of saying we didn't have one), another team just east of us already had one established. Hard to hold that against him. After three of the worst years in program history, it would have been a tall ask to get anyone to believe we were on the cusp of turning things around. You could get a local Lincoln kid to spend his last season of college ball here because it's literally his home. But drawing a kid with more extended eligibility was obviously not as easy. Last season, though, we, as fans, could get a better glimpse of how the pieces fit together when the system was run the way it was intended. And so could recruits. Big men and backcourt players alike could watch our film and envision what their role would be in a Husker uniform. We have a system. We have a culture. We finally have an identity. So, a little more than a year ago, I suggested the following: Fred has said the way things played out last year and the success on the floor that we had at the end put us in position to land guys like Rienk Mast and Brice Williams. And, frankly, Ahron Ulis, but that's a different matter. We got everything from the portal that we needed -- a skilled post to replace Walker, a solid point guard to replace Griesel, and an athletic wing to provide some scoring punch -- we just didn't plan on the extracurriculars that would keep Ulis from participating this year. And now, this year, it's hard to argue the trajectory of the program. And, again, potential recruits can watch our film and -- IMPORTANTLY -- they can easily see how they would fit within our system. I think that's huge when it comes to recruiting. It's like sales. You want the buyer to envision driving that car or drinking that beer. And I think kids will be able to imagine how they would fit in our program and how they could contribute. And the doors we're unlocking with the way this season is playing out ... the NET might not factor in the story lines, but kids hitting the portal sure will. All of this is just to say I think we'll enjoy our portal experience this spring. We have a FAR better chance of landing the kinds of players we were just missing out on a year or two ago.

We'll have our program's first NCAA tourney win. That's it. That's the post.

Who knew that "G-Force" was a harbinger of our future doom?

Also a possibility. And maybe even more likely. But they did rise to the occasion to beat Purdue, so do they have that kind of bounce-back left in them? We'll see.

As to the regular season ... There's only one remaining chance of a Quad 3 loss and that is Rutgers on senior night, so that's not happening. There's only one remaining opportunity for a Quad 1 win and that is at Ohio State on Thursday, 2/29 after they finish a two-game road swing through Minneapolis and East Lansing. So, they could be fighting to avoid a 3-game losing skid.