Norm Peterson

Here's your "highlight" vid for Kai Sotto. Let's just say I'm very whelmed by this. He's really got some natural height. And he's tall. And he seems like a very agreeable person. That's a very good trait to have in a roommate or the guy whose car you just bumped. So, there's a lot to like in this video. Maybe. I guess. Did someone say we were actually recruiting him? I will say this: He runs the floor like a gazelle. A tired sort of gazelle that isn't being chased by anything. Insane guard moves, though. Whatever those are.

Why do I put any faith in Siri to accurately transcribe my words? Posting when you're in too much of a hurry to proofread can be hazardous to your grammar.

Mid there any reason to believe we’re in the running for Sotto?

I pointed out that people on this board are identifying this kid as an NBA prospect for the reason that his mom came on here and, understandably, raised concerns about him getting bashed on social media, and I wanted to make clear there's also a lot of support for him on this and other websites. And if, from time to time, we seem critical, it's only because, for many of us, we know how good he could be. Keep working, Cam. You've got some of the best coaches on earth right here to help you realize your hoop dreams.

Tim had some surprisingly good recruits lined up. Way under the radar, but, yeah.

OK, so two of us, now, identifying Cam Mack as a potential NBA player. He has plenty of explosiveness and speed. He has to work on that shot, though. NBA guards can shoot the rock. I would love to see him get there, but that probably means leaving after next year. But he's got to get that shot down.

Yeah, I think you're probably right about that.

I'd say the best comparison to a recent former Husker is to Roby's classmate, Jeriah Horne. That's who Cross most resembles.

Is it just a coincidence that Donovan Williams decommitted literally within hours after I posted this?

Interestingly, in one thread, we're talking like we're going to dance next year. That would have been independent of signing or not signing Donovan Williams. I wish Donovan all the best, but we're going to have a good program going forward either way.

I think his skill set was actually pretty good for this program. What he said in a different quote was that we seem to be looking for older, more mature players like jucos and transfers, and he doesn't want to wait to get on the floor. Says he doesn't have time to wait. So, he wants to go somewhere to see the floor quickly. I guess. My take is Hoiberg flushed an entire roster almost. And, in order to be competitive now, he has to find experienced players. Then you can go get HS kids to fill in around them. I knew this was probably where things would head when he didn't sign his LOI. Getting a commit from Teddy Allen might have sealed it but it didn't cause it.

What I'd really like to see is development from Akol Arop. I want to see him getting in games; I want to see him learning and getting mistakes out of the way; and I want to see him improve as the season goes along. He has fantastic length and athleticism. And I've watched him stroking the ball in warmups. The kid has a pretty good shooting stroke. What's he lacking? Ballhandling? What's the reason he isn't seeing the floor?

I think we certainly have some quality players in certain spots. If Mack continues to progress, there's no doubt he's an impact player. In two conference games so far, he's averaging 13 pts and 11 assists while shooting 50% from 3-point range. He probably won't keep up that pace, but it's a sign that he's able to put up big numbers against good teams. After Mack, do we have much star power? I think that's yet to be seen. #FingersCrossed

I haven't seen enough of Walker to know. If Yvan improves like you'd expect, and Walker still beats him out, that'd be very good news for us. I will say, from what I've seen so far, you probably need to swap Allen and Stevenson. I think Stevenson's a good player, but Allen is a beast. They actually played against each other freshman year, but Teddy only played 4 minutes and didn't score, while Shamiel logged 38 minutes and scored 12 in a loss for Pitt. But, across the season, he averaged 8.5 and 4.4 for a Pitt team that wasn't very good, whereas Teddy put up 7.0 and 2.7 for a really good WVa team. They're very similar in terms of height, weight and skill set. I'm guessing Shamiel is less than the weight he's been listed at and Teddy is heavier. I'm guessing, again, probably similar height and weight. It'll be interesting to see which one comes out on top. My guess is one starts and the other backs him up.

Looks like this was kinda hashed a little bit on the Teddy Allen is N thread. Now, not only do I gotta read all of this thread, I gotta read all of another thread before I spout off ignorantly. This message board posting stuff is getting to be work. Where's my copy of "War and Peace"?

Typo?

This is too good not to post. Kid helping his mom clean out a turkey and wonders what the turkey's sex was. Lo and behold, he finds ...

So, if my tea-leaf-reading skills are on point (usually they aren't, so take that for what it's worth) ... 20-21 starting lineup: PG Cam Mack (sharpie) Wing Delano Banton (pen -- blue ink) Wing Teddy Allen (pencil) Wing Big Options for last two starting spots (as things stand now): Remaining Wing spot: Dachon Burke Jervay Green Thor Thorbjarnarson Shamiel Stevenson Big: Kevin Cross Yvan Ouedraogo Derrick Walker Outside chance: Donovan Williams Charlie Easley Akol Arop Scholarship recruit to be named later That's a lot of competition. Question: Is that a sufficient talent upgrade to make us competitive in the Big Ten race?

Trigger warning: For those who don't like "next year" threads, that's what this one is, so you can check out now and go on to something else if you don't like talking about stuff down the road. OK, so Fred got his first 2020 commit, and the kid is a player. Has an interesting life story (some might say tragic) and he's taken an unusual path to get here, but there's no doubting he's a dude who can put the ball in the hoop. His first team, WVU, is ranked. His second team, WSU, is 4th in others receiving votes. And my understanding is he was projected to start for WSU this year. So, good enough to start for a team that's on the cusp of being ranked. That says quite a bit right there. His stats from WVU are misleading. He didn't shoot the 3 much while there, and when he did, it didn't go in for him very often (12% 3-ptFG%), but he must have really worked on his shot in his redshirt year at WSU, because he's lighting it up from beyond the arc now (42.5% 3-ptFG%). So, given that he was a projected starter on a virtually top-25 team at WSU, and given what he's doing in juco, it's probably reasonable to pencil him in as a starter for us next year. Cam Mack, from the looks of things, will be the starter at point at Nebraska as long as he wants to be. So, you can probably sharpie him into the starting lineup (barring catastrophic injury or transfer.) That leaves 3 starting spots to be claimed. We have only 2 seniors on this team, one of whom starts. So, only 1 current starting spot will be vacated by graduation. We also have 3 guys sitting out as transfers, and at least 1 more scholarship to fill (depending on whether Donovan signs his LOI in the spring.) Based on everything I'm hearing, I'm going to guess Banton jumps into the starting lineup right off the bat next year. So, that leaves 2 starting spots left to claim. You starting to see the direction this is heading? The players on the team know who's performing in practices.

I skipped the thread re-read and went with “War and Peace” instead. That Tolstoy dude, man, he cracks me up.

Dayum! @basketballjones gonna be excited.

I hope he said the visit couldn't have gone much better. For what it's worth.

I’d take him in a heartbeat.

This year, he's averaging over 42% from 3-point range so far. A couple of days ago, he dropped 26 pts on Syracuse. I'm still comfortable saying he should have been a Rivals 4-star top 50 kinda guy. There's a reason he wasn't ranked more highly than he was, and it's because the recruiting services missed on him.

I'm not much of a physics guy -- and I'm clearly technologically impaired and don't know how to post stills from a video -- but I'm just going to go back to Isaac Newton's laws of motion. When Easley makes his slash toward the bucket, Haarms has one foot well outside the paint, and both feet outside the charge arc in the mid-post area. When he lands, he's on the near side of the lane, low post. Which indicates to me that his direction was diagonal, high to low, across the lane. And he must have had quite a bit of momentum because, even after ramming into Easley, he continues on the same basic vector, Victor. The video indicates Easley was headed in basically a perpendicular trajectory and the contact with Haarms is pretty firm because it clearly disrupts Easley's path of travel, sending him roughly 45* from his path of travel at the time of impact. Haarms comes jumping in like he's going to do one of those chest-bump things. Or a guy in a Velcro suit trying to jump onto a felt wall. And it looks pretty unmistakable to me that he's planning on making body contact with Easley as he's jumping across the lane in Easley's direction, on a collision course with Easley's path of travel. It's clear to me as I watch the video, which captures elements the still shots can't, that Haarms far from trying to *avoid* contact with Easley, was actually intending to initiate it.