Norm Peterson

No. Not true. I haven't seen any speculation whatsoever from @hahahaha or @Carl Spackler. If they speculated, I missed it.

This is probably not the right thread, but when was the last time we had an early signing period with no signees? Been awhile, I'd say.

So you already did the math, huh? You is way ahead of me.

I think Hoppen's career scoring record is safe. If Kevin's in the running for that career scoring mark, he'll turn pro long before he gets there. Hoppen averaged almost 20 ppg as a sophomore and over 20 ppg as a junior and senior.

Ouch. Some players have to hate that there's a place out there that rates that stuff.

If we're going to suck regardless, it'd be kind of funny for us to be the quad 4 loss that keeps them from making the dance.

nfm

Go Purple Aces! Now, people will forget that we crapped our pants at work because Kentucky did it more recently and, whereas nobody saw us do it, Kentucky did it in the main lobby where everyone saw it. Thanks Kentucky. We appreciate it.

I have been thinking but just hadn't gotten around to posting (there are a few threads that cover a similar point of view) that it's a bit hard to envision what a Hoiberg offense would really look like when it's very reliant on the 3-point shot yet our starters the other night were a combined 3 for 18. But, fine, people, go ahead and question whether Hoiberg can get it done here or what have you. Two games into the season.

Super small sample size. Cam Mack was 40% in the first game (2/5) and then was like 0/6 in game #2.

Our two biggest issues right now are shooting and rebounding. We were outrebounded by 20 in the first game and by 14 in the second. The 15 offensive rebounds we gave up to Southern equal 15 additional possessions. The 13 offensive rebounds for Riverside are similarly 13 additional possessions. Each possession is an opportunity to score a basket, right? Offensive rebounds surrendered to your opponent are like turnovers. So that's a biggish deal. Right now, our team 3-point percentage is 21.2%. That's historically bad. I don't even want to try to go back into the record books to see what the current record is for team 3-point % for a season. I'm sure it's a lot higher than 21.2%. Let's wonder for a moment what the impact of not having Shamiel Stevenson might be. As a freshman at Pitt, he averaged 37.5% from 3-point range and 4.4 rebounds. As a true freshman. Right now, I'd love to see a lineup with Yvan and Kevin Cross both playing at the same time to see how that might help our rebounding situation. Rebounds on the defensive end help us get out into transition where we're currently the most effect, per the stats @hhcmatt posted. But then the question is who spells Yvan? And who spells Kevin? But if Shamiel were eligible, he might be the answer. We wouldn't need to start both Kevin and Yvan because we'd have a 6'6, 245# dude out there with long arms and an explosive vertical who has some demonstrated ability at the upper D1 level at cleaning the glass. If Shamiel was eligible from the start of the season, do we lose either of those first 2 games?

How do you determine in what way it was sub-par though? Was it sub-par scheme? Sub-par execution? A squad that lacks the talent to execute the scheme? Or a squad that's young and inexperienced and is still on the early side of the learning curve? Or maybe those teams we played were actually better than we thought they were? I remember being distressed at how we got man-handled in the 2nd half against Texas Tech last year. We didn't know how good they were at the time, but it turns out Texas Tech was pretty damned good.

I think people underestimate the value of experience. Unless you have 1-and-done players (we're not Kentucky) then there's no substitute for experience. I learned my lesson once when I made a bet with @NUdiehard that we would have at least a 2-game improvement in our record with the addition of size from Jorge Brian Diaz after the year where Ryan Anderson and Ade Daguduro were our starting frontcourt. Guess what, we were worse. Even though we had a very talented 6'11 center who could score. You just can't substitute for experience. So, while things are going poorly right now, give it time. Our record isn't an indictment on the talent of our players or the skill of our coaching staff or anything other than our youth and inexperience. It's gonna take some time. I'm not even interested in what our final record will be this year.

Correct. I think it's highly likely that neither Kavas nor Cheatham will be back next year. I should add: this is not based on inside information; just an educated guess.

He didn’t have any assists. None. And no steals, either. So, you were saying? I keed, I keed!

Thomas Allen was gone no matter what happened with Miles. Our roster if Miles had been retained would have challenged this one for guys who can't shoot.

This might not be fair to entirely pin on Kavas, but since he played 25 minutes against UC-Riverside, that means ... They scored 52 points in the 25 minutes he was on the floor (2 pts/min) and only scored 14 points in the 15 minutes he was not on the floor (1 pt/min). That's a pretty dramatic stat, actually.

Might be?

Not a good sign if you're into reading tea leaves.

I get that, but ... A complete list of all the Husker players who'd played a D1 game before last night: Haanif Cheatham Matej Kavas Dachon Burke Thorir Thorbjarnarson Which of them are too good for Riverside?

A point very much worth remembering as people look for window ledges to jump from as the season goes along.

After these last 2 games, I think it's pretty clear Jervay is the backup at point. Don't know who's minutes get adjusted to get Shamiel in the game, but Kavas doesn't start anyway. This is all yet to be seen. We're going to have to watch at least a couple more games to get a sense of this group. Hopefully the shooting last night was just a one-off event.

Yvan has tremendous upside. This season could be brutal, but he's going to come back next year an entirely different player, and potentially a difference maker. That drop-step (some people might call it something else) move he did to score is something few bigs on past teams could have executed. Have some patience. We have some really young contributors seeing their first college action. They're going to get better. One guy not to sleep on: Akol Arop. No, I'm not kidding. He's learning the game right now but he has athleticism in spades and he has really excellent length. Was watching him shooting in warmups and the kid has a pretty decent jump shot. If he gets that jumper down to the point where he can reliably hit 40% from deep (which I think is doable) he can be a 3-and-D guy for us because he can guard so many different positions. He's learning the game. Give him time. That jumper could get him on the floor.

Having said all of that above, there were definitely bright spots last night. Yvan is a load on the defensive end. Opposing bigs, so far, aren't getting deep in the paint. I've seen them lower their shoulders and try to back him in and he doesn't budge. Which is really good to see. And he scored 9 points last night on 4-6 shooting. He'll eventually learn how to use his body to create some space to make those shots inside happen. Cam Mack is looking really solid so far. Not the best shooting night last night, missed a couple at the rim, but was 40% from 3-point range, scored 11 and grabbed 9 boards. He'd have had more assists but his teammates weren't making a lot of shots. Except for the shooting last night, the jucos are playing better than typical for a transition-to-D1 season. I think the shooting will eventually come around and we'll regress to the mean. This was just a really off night offensively. But those two have a lot of talent, and you could see it. The first ten minutes, they looked like a team. As the season goes on and they settle in, I think we'll see more of those stretches and less of the trying-to-force-stuff-because-we're-behind-and-I'm-trying-to-catch-up-all-at-once stuff.

I mentioned in the HHCC thread that I have very low expectations for this season. So, it won't take much for me to be happy with what I see. Some reasons to be a little chill about last night's debacle: Hoiberg built an entire roster from scratch in a roughly 30-day stretch ... in the spring ... when things were pretty well picked-over These guys have never played together before They don't ideally have the types of skillsets HCFH would recruit if he had more time to build a team So you had to figure there would be bumps in the road We start a 17-year-old center who is younger than half of the high school seniors playing basketball in this country right now We have three true-freshmen in our regular rotation all of whom played in their first official college games last night Our starting PG is a only a sophomore, and a juco to boot, and it generally takes jucos at least a semester to adjust We only have two seniors on the entire roster So, we're young, inexperienced, and undersized this season. What were you expecting?