Norm Peterson

I don't want to get too snarky about the guys in West Council Bluffs, but they got snarky about what lousy leftovers the Mo Valley would add to replace them when they left, so all's fair. I think it's funny that the lowly Loyola Chicago team that was BENEATH them in all things basketball related and were mere scraps laying around when the Mo Valley was scrambling to replace WSU and, y'know, those guys, has achieved a level of success in the NCAA tournament that WCBU (West Council Bluffs University) hasn't seen in the modern history of the game. Haha. LOL.

If my math is correct, no matter what happens between KSU and Loyola Chicago, the lower seeded team in the South Region this year will have won more than half of the games in the entire regional. Lower seed won half the first round, half the second round, and both Sweet 16 games. That has to be some kind of record.

Oh, joy. Has this person who's never posted here before ever claimed personal knowledge of the home décor in the basement of the house of a certain family in South Sioux City?

Personally, I oppose down arrows for people like Shower Cap who are just posting a genuine opinion that appears to be free of deliberate trolling or personal invective. If a poster says something you disagree with but he's not being an asshole about it, why not click the "Submit Reply" button rather than the red down arrow? I don't agree with him that it's time to cut ties with Miles but I'm giving a green arrow to balance out reds that I personally don't believe are warranted.

There's a .01% chance that the winner of the Michigan State game has no opponent in the semis.

How many bubble teams are implicated? Maybe just enough that the committee gives the benefit of the doubt to a clean team with no NCAA tourney wins just because NCAA hoops needs a feel-good story about now?

So, years past, when we weren't doing so well, I might start a thread talking about next year and I'd get jumped on about it. "It's always 'next year' with Nebraska basketball; it's never 'this year.' Why can't we ever talk about this year? I don't wanna talk about next year" blah blah blah. So, this year we're actually having that year that everybody always wanted to talk about and some people want to talk about next year? Whatsamatter with you? Did you give happiness up for Lent?

That seems like what I learned in Econ. The best measure of the value of a good or service is what a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller, where neither party is being coerced. Or something like that.

Mississippi State was an eye-opener for sure. He showed a lot of what he could do right off the bat. That's the only game I can remember clearly where he started hot and cooled off. Otherwise, it seems like he's hit stride more in the second half of games. He puts up a lot of points that you just don't notice because he's not calling for the ball all the time. Now, second half, holding a lead, we usually run a little weave until we get it into his hands and let him create, but I'm just talking in the timeframe of the normal flow of a game where he seems to get harder to stop later in the action. Or he just rises to the occasion and starts making things happen when we get closer to crunch time.

I got that impression too after Palmer scored 17 and the next highest scoring player in the scrimmage had 10. Of course, prior to that, he also had 17 against Mississippi State and our next highest scoring player had 11.

"Nebraska sucks and the Big Ten is down." Well, but how do you know Nebraska sucks? "Because the Big Ten is down; they only went through there like a hot knife through butter because the Big Ten sucks." Well, but how do you know the Big Ten sucks this year? "Because a sucky team like Nebraska was able to go 13-5 in conference." So, because Nebraska did well against the conference, it's proof the conference is down and because the conference is down, it proves Nebraska sucks? "Pretty much, yes." OK, thanks Stewie.

But would any of those Huskers even start for UNO?

Robin Washut tweeted that Palmer would be our leading scorer.

I thought it was synced with the game clock so that they hit zero the same way. Perhaps you're right.

23.9 minutes; 40.6 FG%; 39.3 3pt%; 54.8 eFG%; 82.1 FT%; 1.8 bds/gm; 1.1 apg. Whose prediction turned out to be more accurate?

WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

Exactly. The people who have to game-plan for us aren't discounting us.

Here's something I'd like to know: If you went back and replayed the season but started with the rankings we finished with, would the numbers come back the same? In other words, at the beginning of the season, he predicted we'd lose to #42 Creighton. And, by playing a highly-rated team, it moved us up a bit because I guess we did slightly better than he predicted we would. But, it turns out Creighton was really the #29 team. If they had been #29 when we played them and we were #54, then what does the computer think of us? Second question: Does his computer think you're the same team in February that you were in November? In other words, does it think you now are really what you've been all season long? Because the teams that are beating Minnesota now, for instance, aren't playing the same team that they would have played in the first part of December when we first beat them. Does his computer adjust for the fact that a team might be playing better at one point in the season when you lost to them (or beat them) than they were playing later in the season when their ranking went down (or up as the case may be)? Third question: Are wins and losses all graded by margin of victory/defeat? If we had beaten Delaware St. by 27 instead of 17, would that win drag us down? Should a 17-point win ever really drag your rating down?

Yeah. What Tim said. So Pomeroy's computer thought we were the 97th best team in November and predicted we'd win only 13 games overall and were likely to win only 3 in conference. Fast forward to the end of February and we won 22 games including 13 in conference. And, that moved the needle from 97th best to 54th best. I don't mind him picking us to be 97th to begin the season; no one outside the program and diehards among the fans had any reason to believe we'd be any better than that. That part I get. The part I don't get is when we actually go out and kill it, his computer keeps telling him "but you're still Nebraska."

Did you see the shot clock? Just curious if it was shown on the TV. Human reaction time starts with the point of perception and moves through mental processing time to physical movement time and mechanical/device response time. So, it takes time for the official to decide to blow the whistle, then to raise his hand and blow it and then for the clock operator to realize the official raised his hand and blew his whistle, then react to the official raising and blowing, and then for the device itself to respond to the clock operator stopping the clock. This all takes some amount of time; it does not happen instantly. The shot clock itself starts at :30 but as soon as the clock is started, it switches to :29 for exactly a second. If they had 10ths of a sec showing up, the clock would turn from 30 to 29.9 the moment the shot clock is started. So, if the clock still shows 20, that means there are at LEAST 20 seconds remaining on the clock and possibly as much as 20.9 seconds remaining. Which means less than 10 seconds ran off the clock as of the moment the infraction was registered on the clock. And, of course, because it took some amount of time (normal human reaction time would suggest around half a second between the official and the clock operator) for the call to go from the official's decision to call the infraction through to the point where it shows up on the clock, well, let's just say PSU received a gift on that one. Just like the 2 points from the technical foul on Palmer.

One other official call I forgot to complain about: The 10 second violation in the 2nd half. When the clock operator STOPPED the clock AFTER the ref whistled the violation, the shot clock showed 20 seconds. Do the math for me.

So, there's this interesting clip of a reporter asking Fran McCaffery if he should be on the hot seat after this season. Interesting exchange. McCaffery says the reporter shouldn't even be bringing it up and the report responds with, "Why shouldn't I bring it up? You're in last place." See video below. OK, always fun having some fun at Psycho's expense. Selfishly, I'd hate to lose the opportunity to yell "Lighten up Francis!" when Iowa comes to town. But, putting that aside, I think Fran has a point. Here are the conference win totals of the two prior coaches going back 11 years: 6, 7, 5, 7, 9, 7, 11, 9, 6, 5, 4. In that group are 3 NCAA tourney appearances and once in the round of 32. Now, McCaffery: 4, 8, 9, 9, 12, 12, 10, 4. In that group are 3 NCAA tourney appearance and twice in the round of 32. Their top 4 players (all averaging double figures) consist of 3 sophomores and a freshman. They have a decent recruiting class signed for next year including a 4-star guy and a player who chose them over us. So, a better question might be for Psycho to respond, "Why the hell would I be on the hotseat? Do you want to go back to the days of Todd Lickliter?"

Do they clean up those errors in the subscription version?

It was a very fast T, too. Ref didn't spend any time even thinking about it. Palmer dunks, looks in the direction of the guy he posterized, and the ref instantly T'd him. That was clear in the replay they showed in the arena. (They replayed it half a dozen times at least, from various angles.) Showed the ref making a "T" immediately after the dunk as soon as Palmer sort of angled his head back in the direction of the guy he dunked on. At least Copeland's T in the Purdue game you could kinda see; this one was just uncalled for, like the ref anticipated something that didn't actually happen. Also, for those who watched on TV, how much less contact was involved in the "steals" they were getting in their press versus the ticky-tack fouls called on Glynn and Isaiah?

This post didn't age well.