Norm Peterson

I assumed that to be the case if we made the offer. Which kinda suggests that Pappa Chubick overreacted a bit about Miles wanted to send Aguek to a prep school.

Have we burned so many bridges with the Arops that this will be pointless? Or is there still enough good will there that he'll actually consider us?

This stuff goes in cycles and is obviously not permanent. There was a time not too long ago that the opposite view held sway. If Nebraska football returned to prominence, it would help. You can't help but be a Husker fan on football Saturdays in this state (unless you're trying hard not to be -- looking at you, Motz family) and that'll have some carryover to kids in all sports. And if we put it together, regardless where our current players hail from, you'll eventually get metro kids who'll want to come here. The pendulum swings. That's what pendulums do. It'll swing back this direction at some point. Just like it swung away.

I'll just tell you what I see in Karrington Davis. He's long at the guard spot, like a James Palmer. He can drive the ball. He has a lightening-quick release on his jumper and he has range. Now, granted, that's highlight video stuff where someone plucks the best moments and assembles them into a vid, so it's not necessarily a given that his skills will translate or that he's healthy or that he even qualifies. But, if he qualifies and if he's healthy, he's a kid who could really surprise some people. Some guys come in and are better than you thought they'd be. I think KD could be the Shavon Shields of 2018. Or he could flat out tank. Time will tell.

We'll check back in 14 years and see if all systems are go.

Trouble is, he's a wing. At least he thinks so.

It's such a cool venue, too. That's one thing that makes this stuff so disappointing. If they were just a bit more concerned about quality and less about volume ... It really ought to be a great place. If the bar fails (for reasons described above) I would REALLY love to see a high quality food joint go in there. It has a great location a very short walk from a parking garage or two, it has nice street appeal and there's a lot to be said for the interior as well.

Serious question: How many of those shot attempts would you allocate to Michael Jacobson and Ed Morrow if they had stuck around? I'm going to say "Rest of team - 7-10." Anyone disagree?

A few things on this discussion: 1. I agree with Huskerpapa saying it might have been less about Isaiah being underutilized and more a matter of Isaiah not having a selfish mentality, which is good. But I also think he needs to develop more of a scorer's mentality and I thought so last season and shared that observation with someone close to Isaiah who agreed with me. 2. If you look at Isaiah to close the season vs. Isaiah to open it, he was starting to be more assertive at looking for his offense. He'll have a ton more opportunities this coming season because some other players graduated and their leftovers will get spread around. I expect you're going to see a continuation of the Isaiah more in tune with the way he finished last season than the way he started it. And building from there. There will be plenty of looks to go around. 3. Isaiah might have been more efficient than Palmer, but part of that is each player might get a certain number of easy buckets. Isaiah probably gets more of those than James, to be honest. But after those easy ones, everything else you have to work a little harder for. So, if Isaiah increased his volume, the volume increase is probably going to come in the form of shots he'll have to work harder to get. Now, maybe he'll convert a good percentage of those. But will he do so driving into contact, getting fouled and going to the line like James Palmer? 4. Palmer shot 221 free throws last season. He hit 74% of those. There's probably a statistic somewhere for how many fouls he drew, but let's estimate it was probably about 1 1/2 free throws for every foul. If that estimate is close, then we can say he drew about 150 fouls, which is roughly 4.5 fouls/game. How many opposing players fouled out trying to guard JP? How many opposing players had to switch to guarding someone else or play defense more tentatively because they were in foul trouble? That doesn't happen if James doesn't have the ball in his hand. 5. James Palmer's assist numbers (2nd most on the team at 99) show he's not just hogging the ball but initiating offense and distributing. That doesn't happen without the ball in his hands. Edited to add: 6. Also, in the 6 games where James Palmer attempted 15 or more FGs, he finished with 24, 34, 18, 28, 26 and 13 points. How do you tell him to stop taking shots?

Sweet 16?

The following video explains in 5 minutes or less why Isaiah Roby is being looked at as a possible 1st round NBA draft pick after next season (oh, and for the people who think he can't post up …):

BINGO! Glynn, you need some arc on that shot. The rim gets bigger when the ball is coming in from a steeper angle of descent.

Congrats, Col. Let me know if you need me to start working on the dad. I'd hate to see a kid wind up at Misery and know that I could have done something to save him from it.

I think it goes hand-in-hand. Divincenzo's team did really well and so did he. Part of the team doing well was him doing well. A big part of it. His individual success brought about team success. Similarly, I'd say if Roby has a 17th-pick-in-the-draft kind of season, it's going to mean the Huskers did well. Very well. If he's playing like a near lottery pick, they're going to be going places as a team as well. Now, Roby has some work to do to make that happen, but I think he's capable of playing at that level.

He's my dark horse candidate to contribute this year.

Man, Gates is making his presence felt like right now.

#1 is a no-brainer in my opinion. You gotta start with making the dance in year 2. Terran Petteway was the single biggest factor in us making the dance. Without him, we don't make the dance. Period. And, if we don't make the dance, we don't land transfers Andrew White, Anton Gill, Isaac Copeland, or James Palmer; nor do we land Glynn Watson, Isaiah Roby, etc. Given how significant a factor I believe making the dance was in subsequent recruiting, I'd say the 2nd most important player in the Miles era was Shavon. He started as a freshman and would have been a day-1 starter had he not injured his elbow, but his emergence as a sophomore was critical to that run to the dance, and he was just a solid kid and solid player all the way around. If Shavon had been the player we all thought we were getting coming out of high school, Miles is probably coaching somewhere else right now. But Shavon turned out to be a 4-star caliber player in a marginal 3-star's body. Shavon is definitely my #2. James Palmer is 3rd. The reason we were even in the hunt for a return trip to the NCAA tournament is because we had a guy like Palmer who could get us buckets when we needed them. The reason we'll be in the hunt again this year is because opposing Ds will have to line up to stop him and it'll make other players on the team better. He scores, he dishes assists, he's deceptively quick, and he's really long at the guard spot. He's been ranked by whatshisname as one of the top 15 returning players in the nation. That's not for nothin. The fact that he returned for his senior year is HUGE for this program. So, that's my top three and the whys and wherefores.

I don't agree that they folded last year. They won 7 of their last 10. Yes, they got curbstomped by Michigan in the BTT, but turns out that was a red-hot Michigan team. Then they lost AT MissSt in the NIT. Turns out MissSt was pretty good, too. The year before that, they folded. Lost 8 of their last 10, including a 5-game losing streak to wrap things up. That team was very young and had a player or two who quit. And I'm talking before they officially transferred. We're going into this season with some seasoned veterans. Not only is this one of our most talented teams, it's also one of our most experienced.

This reminds me of some interesting observations shared by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, "Outliers." I don't remember all the specifics and so I'm kind of making some of this up on the fly just so that you get the gist of it, but if you look at NHL rosters, most of the guys who hail from Canada in the NHL were born in the first three months of the year. Vast majority. Very few born in the last 3 months of the year. Why is that? Well, Gladwell's hypothesis was that, when you're playing junior hockey, the classification year for your age group starts on January 1. When you're playing a sport like hockey, size matters, and the older 10-year-olds tend to be a lot bigger and stronger than younger ten-year-olds. So, when select teams are chosen, kids born in January and February have a distinct advantage over kids born in November and December. And the kids chosen for those select teams receive advantages over their peers in terms of experience, coaching, and the rest of it. Now, this is me extrapolating from Gladwell's premise: In basketball, kids blossom at different ages. Some kids max out and reach their ceiling at a younger age (think leg hair.) But you still have those U10 teams and U11 teams. So, in larger cities, a kid that might have eventually blossomed gets lost in the crowd while a kid who is closer to his ceiling is getting those opportunities. The kid lost in the crowd at a younger age might never have the opportunity to evolve and develop. But, in smaller towns or cities, where there are fewer kids fighting for limited spots on school teams or select teams, a kid who might have gotten lost in the crowd if in Chicago still has an opportunity to play in Omaha and grow and develop. Think of Michael Jordan getting cut from his 10th grade basketball team. He grew up in Wilmington, NC, with a population of around 100,000. If he was living in Chicago and trying to get on with an AAU team back then, he probably wouldn't have made it. And the GOAT might have been Lebron James instead.

The context was a discussion about how he's aware he needs to get bigger and the running joke is about him eating seconds at meals, which is evidently not an issue.

Interesting

That's an excellent point. Kinda says something about the perspective of where some people are coming from. "I'm a real Miles fan and support him completely, but unless he reels off the best season in program history, I'm done." That kind of thinking baffles me. But if you remind some of these guys that we don't exactly have a blue blood history and hiring a new coach hasn't proven to be a panacea in the past, they tell you that's a losers mentality and you're just satisfied with losing. Sigh.

Mmm. Not sure Copeland's form is better. They both have a little odd delivery. Palmer's is mostly in his windup. He actually has a nice, high release when the ball leaves his hands. Copeland sort of throws it at the basket. From what I've seen, Copeland's misses were worse. But Palmer went dead cold to end the season and Copeland heated up. Palmer finished 17.5% from 3 over his last 9 games while Copeland was a red hot 50% over the last 12. Having said all that, I agree with you that they both need to work on their perimeter jumper if they want to sniff the NBA. Palmer would also benefit from improving his left hand dribble drive. If we could have Palmer, Copeland, Roby, Watson, and whoever replaces Gill/Taylor AVERAGE 40% from 3 (which I think is possible) this will be a very tough team to outscore. (Roby shot over 40% from 3 last season; Glynn Watson was 40% the year before; Copeland was 50% his last 12 games; Palmer was 36% until his late-season swoon. I mean, if they can get it all together -- and sometimes synergy drives the train, so if one or two guys get hot, it tends to rub off on the other players as well.)

Good advice. Except for the 12 hours of sleep part.

This is the most talented team we've had in a generation. If this team doesn't make the dance and win at least one game ...