Norm Peterson

That L next to Rutgers really sucks. Have a feeling we'll lay the hurt on them when they come to Lincoln. Good news is we don't have an L next to any team outside the Kenpom top 100. And so we don't have to look back and wonder what our ranking might have been if we hadn't lost to Rider.

According to Verbal Commits, he's committed to St. Thomas, the #138 team in Kenpom. So, yeah.

There's been talk about CJ being conference 6th man of the year. Deservedly so. With 60% of the conference season complete, there are others under consideration: Fred Hoiberg, Coach of the Year: We were picked ~11th to 14th. We're currently all alone in 6th with wins over 4 of the teams ahead of us and an OT loss on the road against the 5th. Brad Underwood repeated last night what other coaches have said: "These guys (Nebraska) are good." Rienk Mast, All Big Ten 2nd Team: His current standings, conference games only: 21st in scoring; 5th in rebounding; 16th in assists. Wisconsin's PG, for comparison purposes, is 11th in assists. Show me another player who's basically top 20 in all three major statistical categories and I'll show you a 1st team All-Conference selection. He's also among the leaders in 3-pointers made, blocks, FG% ... Keisei Tominaga, All Big Ten 2nd or 3rd team (media) or honorable mention: He draws the top defensive assignment from every team we play, they grab him and hold him throughout every game (it's called "strategy" if the refs don't call it), and he's still averaging 14.3 ppg even with a hand in his face on every shot. Coaches who know how they have to game plan around him will probably rank him more highly than the media. Brice Williams, All Big Ten honorable mention: Currently top-25 in the following statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals, free throw percent. Juwan Gary, All Big Ten honorable mention, all-defensive team: Currently top-25 in the following statistical categories: blocks, steals. In addition, he's a utility defender who draws our most difficult defensive assignments game after game. CJ Wilcher, 6th man of the year: Easily in the discussion if not the runaway choice. In conference games alone, he and Keisei are tied for 6th in the league for 3-pointers made per game. His merit has been detailed in another thread, so I won't go into it further here.

Just did.

Losing to Rutgers really sucks, but isn't it great that we look back and think the bad loss of the season was an overtime loss on the road to a conference foe ranked in the top 100 rather than some mid-major 200 level Incarnate Word kind of squad?

We're 6-5 in conference games right now. Our 4 remaining home games are against teams ALL in the bottom half of current league standings (2 of the bottom 3) and a COMBINED 15 conference wins among them. We SHOULD not and we CANNOT lose any of those games at home. And I've been saying for awhile now, I have our last game of the regular season at Chrysler Arena circled in RED. That would get us to 21 wins overall even if we lose the rest of the road games (not saying we will) and it virtually guarantees that we'll have a first-round bye in the conference tournament with a good chance to pick up another dub before Selection Sunday.

Don't know if anyone noticed, but in watching the highlights of the Wisconsin game, I heard Kevin Kugler say that CJ is the leading candidate for conference 6th man of the year. So, for what it's worth, someone in media is putting it out there.

Yeah, but I think we'd have won it if Juwan hadn't gotten injured.

In addition, without casting aspersions at anyone, I have to imagine there will be one or two portal departures. I'm not going off of inside information, just logic and intuition. The list of needs is shorter and more manageable than it was a year ago when I said the list was short and manageable.

And it's not just that. Some people might call it a "junk" defense, but it's a hard nosed defense that most teams wouldn't be used to seeing. Take a day to scout it, a day to come up with a game plan, and you basically get one walk-through before it's go time. If you don't have a plethora of shooters who are on fire, it's gonna be a long night for you. Against our offense, it's exactly as you say. There's not one guy who you could say, well, try to shut him down and see if anyone else can beat you. Because right now we have six guys shooting at least 35% from deep. Who ya gonna stop? And we can go inside with Mast or Allick. And we have 3 or 4 little guys who can hit those mid-range shots and floaters. We just don't have that guy who can attack the rim off the dribble and finish. Jamarques can attack and he can get there, he just hasn't shown the ability to finish at the rim. But if he somehow got that down in the last dozen games or so, whoa.

The social media intern and I must have been having some of the same thoughts. This was posted 10 minutes ago:

The impetus for the OP was thinking about the different feel this team has to us fans this year. I hate to say "team of destiny" because lots could happen yet, but it does have a different feel. I was really worried about Ohio St, for example, when we're down 22-13 and not getting stops, but then we settled in and took over. Then pulled away and won the game. That might not have happened a year ago, and it almost certainly would not have happened Fred's first three years. So why does this team have a different feel? We're not particularly athletic. We're not especially long. Hell, we don't even have a real point guard getting minutes out there. And, yet, we're as "front of the bubble" in actual reality as we've been in maybe a decade. And, it occurs to me we have an interesting and perhaps unusual combination of pieces this season that just fit together. And each of those parts is kicking in something sort of unique that adds value. And probably the best example of this is Sam Hoiberg. He's not long even for a guard. He's certainly not going to blow you away with his athleticism. But he anticipates where the ball is going to bounce better than any Husker player I can think of maybe going back to Cookie Belcher. While other players are standing around looking, Sam is sprinting to where he knows the ball is going to land. He gets rebounds that way. He gets steals that way. He picks his spots on the offensive end. He pesters opposing guards on the defensive end. And his very quick hands cause opponents problems. He's very opportunistic and he impacts the game when he's on the floor. But you might not really see it in the stat sheet. Where you see it is the W/L record and our Kenpom ranking. Not Sam alone, but he helps nudge things the right direction in the metrics that do count. And then you've got Rienk Mast. He's not as quick or agile or explosive as Derrick Walker. He's not overly tall. He's crafty, for sure. Very skilled. Good footwork. He's not a shot blocker or a rim runner. There's a lot of things he ain't. But he's just damn solid. He doesn't hurt you. He doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't try to be anything he's not. He knows what tools he has and he's really effective at using those tools. Solid. Each of these guys possesses a trait or characteristic that is helping to make the team better this year. It's like the best potluck you've ever been to where not everyone insisted on bringing a main dish. Where the guy who said he'd make a salad made a really good salad. And when you have all of these individual parts, each of which kicks in something of value, and when they act in unison towards the same goal, you have a squad that probably should have been 13th or 14th in the league somehow knocking on the door of the top third. And there's a word for that. When the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts, you have what's called synergy. And that's what we have this year. That's how this team feels to me. One word: Synergy.

Here's a thought about that. We would -- for a variety of reasons -- be a tough team for a non-conference opponent to prepare for in 2 days.

Rienk -- solid Brice -- dangerous Keisei -- Kasai (Japanese for "fire") JLaw -- fast CJ -- confident Juwan -- dawg Sam -- opportunistic Josiah -- fighter Eli -- fearless Fred -- calm Nate -- fierce Adam -- steady Ernie -- teacher '23-'24 Huskers -- synergy

That looks like a Big Dance resume to me.

Boy, I thought the deal was we'd have to close in the north end of PBA in order to have the seating capacity to be a host venue. Was I wrong or has that changed, too?

I just seem to remember one of the last times we got snubbed, a lot of the talk was that it was because we didn't have enough road wins. Right now, we have one true road win. And we're running out of winnable road games. So it'd be really nice if we could take care of business at Maryland.

We gotta prove it on the road. We lost a huge opportunity at Rutgers so we're going to have to dig deep the rest of the way. Best opportunity is coming up at Maryland. They're talented and athletic but don't play as a team when I've seen them. Gotta get that one.

Prayin' for ya, buddy. And there's a little self-interest in there as well. But mostly altruistic. Just hoping you see that Big Dance win.

I think we can beat Maryland at Maryland. I think we can sweep Michigan. I think if I had to rank the remaining road games from best chance for a W to worst chance, it'd go like this: Michigan, Maryland, Indiana, Northwestern, Ohio St, Illinois. So, we darn well better win the next one (against Maryland.)

Won 3 of the first 5 conference games. In order to win 3 of the 2nd 5, we have to win @Maryland Three wins in the third 5 are most likely the three home games against Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State. To get to three wins in the final 5, we probably have to pick up a road win in Ann Arbor with probable home wins against Rutgers and Minnesota and a probable road loss at tOSU. But winning in Assembly Hall is not out of the question either. Just don't lose bad to anyone. Don't lose more than 1 at home. And if you do lose 1 at home, find 2 road wins. There ya go. Easy-peasy.

Can you believe we did that without Gary and with an off night from Keisei? People talking about Jamarques Lawrence having a sophomore slump but did you see his defense?

With that win, Kenpom bumps us ahead of tOSU and into the top 45. At exactly 45th. We need to hold serve at home. For sure don't get beat bad by anyone and win out at home. And then just pick up a road win, or if we drop one at home, two road games. We should not have lost to Rutgers. That one hurts. So we're going to have to find another road opportunity somewhere else like College Park. And I've got Ann Arbor circled in red. 1st round bye in the conference tournament. Hopefully pick up a conference tourney win over a bottom 4 team and then a Quad 1 game following that. If, perchance, we do hold serve at home and find 2 road wins, then there's a good chance we'd have a top 4 conference seed. At 11-9, we're probably a 5-7 seed in the conference tourney. 10-10 and we might fall to the 8-9 game. But, are there six more regular season wins on our schedule? If so, I gotta think we get to 22 overall and a spot in the dance.

To be even more fair, I don't think there's anything irrational about getting angry while watching Nebraska basketball. And I'm living proof that age has nothing to do with it.

I'd love for us to be a 5-seed in the same region where they're a 4-seed. Would LOVE to have another shot at them.