Norm Peterson

It'll be interesting to see how he turns out. I think I kept pretty quiet about my thought on Rice. I liked his shooting. I thought he was the kind of guy who didn't seem to be phased at all if others on the team were struggling. But what jason said about him above has been my take, too. He just lacks that fluid athleticism. He might be straight-line fast, but he's not change-of-direction quick. I don't see him doing spin dribbles into the lane to get to the rack like some of the aTm players did against us. But he's a good shooter. I think he's solid. I think he could have had a role here. But I think he has a ceiling that isn't much higher than CJ Wilcher's of it's higher at all.

That was my take, too.

Honestly, if I had my choice -- and it's probably a good thing I don't -- I'd take the 3 kids from Bellevue West and the James kid from Louisville.

Former 4-star Louisville transfer guard, 6'5, athletic, can attack the rim off the dribble and hits ~35% from deep.

I went through the play-by-play. It surprised me, too. I thought it was only 4. But 3 of them were uncontested, point-blank misses. And I'm not blaming Josiah for the loss. I'm only pointing it out to make the point that the teams were a little more evenly balanced than the score. The hit a bunch of shots they ordinarily miss and we missed a few that should have been near 100% makes.

For the sake of completeness, I present the On3 #268-ranked portal transfer. Carter Whitt - Furman Paladins - Point Guard (on3.com)

Lefty. Just sayin.

We need to find a way to attack zones better than to try to have Juwan Gary dribble between closing defenders. We need a freak athlete rebounder to take Josiah Allick's spot in the rotation. I like Rienk Mast's assist numbers but it would be nice to have a starting PG who can lead us in assists so that Brice can move back to his more natural 2-guard spot. And he'd probably appreciate the opportunity to take C&S threes. And I'd like another 6'6 athletic wing who can play lock-down D, attack the rim off the dribble, and shoot at least adequately from deep.

It would be quite remarkable if we had a roster next year that included 3 Bellevue West grads.

This is Eli Rice: This is Braden Frager:

I'm going to be very specific. The comment was that "I also thought from the minutes he got in close games that rice would be a dude for us in coming years though." The response to that was "YA no way Frager is better than rice." And my reaction was, actually, yes, there is a way Frager could be better than Rice. I don't think it's anywhere near a foregone conclusion that Rice, long-term, would be better than Frager. And I don't think it's necessarily a foregone conclusion that Rice would be a rotation piece next year, either. But we won't know because, for whatever reason, he's chosen to leave.

OK, guys, hear me out here: I know that you can't do the "what if" stuff and it works both ways, BUT ... In the first half, they waived off a Keisei bucket and clearly incorrectly called him for travelling. Count that basket. Now, we're only down 12 at half. In addition, Josiah Allick missed 5 layups in the first half. Point blank. If he makes just 3 of those, now we're only down six. For the game, they shot an unbelievable 13 of 23 (56.5%) from beyond the arc. Let's say they just shoot a torrid 40%, which is still 12% better than their average and 5% better than they shot against Houston. That's 9 of 23. That's 12 points difference. Maybe they get a couple of offensive rebounds off those misses and get 2-point put-backs. That's still 8 fewer points on their end. So, instead of losing 83-98, that puts it at 91-90, good guys on top. My point is we weren't as bad as the final score made us look AND the game really came down to them being way uncharacteristically hot from deep. And to add to this point, that same team, shooting a more ordinary 35% from deep, just took a #1 seed to OT. That's who we lost to.

Way.

I would add Jamarques Lawrence to that list.

William Kyle is an NBA player if he can develop a 3-point shot. His FT% isn't suggestive of that happening, but hard work could get the job done.

Meh. If he was as good as we needed him to be, he would have been in the rotation commanding minutes all season long. We'll see what kind of offers he gets, but I'd bet he's moving down a level.

You'll be happy to know Houston barely held aTm to a lower score than we did. I think that was the closest any 1-seed came to losing so far. I think momentum should carry more weight on selection Sunday than it seems to carry. No way Wisconsin should have been a 5. They were on a downward trend but boosted up by early season success. aTm was the opposite. They were surging and their seed did not reflect it.

Still the most wins in a season for this program since before many of you were born. I'm disappointed. Demoralized. It was embarrassing. The aTm fans were jerks. All of those things. But the sun came up this morning. I have a tee time. And my guys were still the best team we've put out there in close to 3 decades. So, I'm keeping my season tickets and I'll see you all at the vault next fall. Best regards, Norm

They just dropped his blocks to zero for some reason. The scorekeeper is in midseason form.

I can’t even begin to describe how low rent the New Mexico dance and cheer squads look.

With 16 minutes left in the New Mexico game, Clemson’s Shefflin has 11 points, seven rebounds, seven blocks and two man boobs.

Get the word out: we need to do the Husker power thing for introductions.

I’ve heard of peanut butter whiskey, cinnamon whiskey, apple whiskey. Pizza whiskey is a new one.

I made it. Checked into the hotel. Going up the elevator with some people from Longwood and they commented about all the Nebraska fans that are here. They said the university reached out to their athletic department to pick up any unused allotment of tickets as soon as they were available. Then, some kid, another elevator was telling his dad how many Husker fans were here.