Norm Peterson

OK, well, we better drop the hammer on Strongberrywhatever State tonight.

We double the post and chase shooters off the 3-point line. All that adds up to being one of the nation's leaders in 2pt% defense. Yay us. Maybe Wisconsin should follow suit.

Hey, they got the Dub. That's all the counts. Depending on whom you listen to.

Big Ten appears down this year. The committee will obviously only take all the teams that finish ahead of us and 1 team that finishes behind us.

Huskers are 3-0 baby!

Maryland has already lost to UAB and Davidson and has Villanova up next with Rider on the horizon. Tenuous grasp on top 50. Bet neither of their fans are happy.

So, is Wisconsin going to drop at all after this? They were 25th going in.

Wisconsin taken to the woodshed. If only Gus had not gotten himself suspended. Mighta been the difference.

All 14 Big Ten teams in the Kenpom top 100. Purdue is #1. Michigan is next at #23. We're 10th in the league at #55 but within striking distance of 6th and #39 Iowa. But we've got a lot of stuff we've got to get right before we play anyone good.

At pains of using a football analogy, I thought this game had Maryland vibes. Defense played well for the most part but couldn't deliver a knockout punch. Offense was just out of sync. All three QBs fumbled or threw picks. We had just enough gas in the tank to finish these guys off, but they made us sweat. And we weren't getting much done at the rim on offense. At one point, we had 9 made three-pointers, 15 FTs and only 7 two-pt FGs (= 56 pts). Seemed like Fred was really trying to focus more on getting into the paint from about that point, so I don't know how many made two-pointers we ended up with. After their one guy fouled out on a technical (I thought the blocking call for his 4th was a good call; we got those called on us too; and then he argued) they went on a bit of a run and tied it up at 47 and I was like, oh no, here comes Nevada all over again. I thought we out-skilled them; I thought they out-athleted us. They have a good team. I was surprised to see them low-200s in Kenpom. I thought they were better than that. But it tells me we better gird our loins for Duquesne.

The reason he can splash it with a hand in his face falling backwards is because, when that happens, he doesn't have time to think about it, so it's pure, unconscious muscle memory. The more you think, generally the worse your athletic performance. You have to shut off the conscious mind and let the unconscious take over. It's why football teams ice the kicker. It's why icing the kicker works. When you just have time to react and don't have time to think, you're often more accurate or precise with your shot or your stroke or your kick or your throw or whatever you're doing athletically.

So, we might need to win by more than 16 points in order to improve our post-season chances. Or, on the other hand, that might not matter at all. Just win baby.

Redshirt, shmedshirt. I'm back to my suggestion that we should basically just give everyone 5 years to play. You want parity? There's basically no better equalizer than to allow North Dakota State a bunch of 5th year seniors who will never play in the NBA to go up against Kentucky's freshman first-round NBA draft picks.

I blame Robin Washut for starting that rumor.

My thought watching it last night was that we were really challenging their posts to pass out of the double team and they weren’t doing a very good job of it so it didn’t really hurt us.

I get that, but last night, Matar was screening like the guy at the bar trying to hold his mouthy friend back from getting his ass kicked. No, Matar, this isn't football and you're not an offensive lineman. You can't just push a defender out of the way when you're setting a screen.

Second half, I was shocked they let Josiah Allick get away with the craziest, most obvious clear-out to allow JL a lane to the hoop. It was like he was trying to hold back the paparazzi from getting to the red carpet at the Oscars or something. He probably had his arms and body on three different FAMU players at the same time pushing them away from the bucket. But it worked. And they didn't call it so it must have been OK.

Not sure who moves to the bench when Keisei and Gary return. I'm not so sure Gary beats out Allick to start. But whoever sits -- probably between Brice or CJ -- it means, along with Eli, we have some offensive firepower coming off the bench. So, we shouldn't stall when the starters are getting a blow. Also, the 4 fouls on Matar? Three of those were 8th grade moving screens. Matar, you can't do that. "Oh, OK, my bad." Problem solved.

But we made it past the Thursday threshold, so we can officially say this is the best Kenpom ranking of the Hoiberg era.

We shot up to #54 after that win last night. If memory serves me, I think Kenpom projected us winning 82-58. We won 81-54, so we did slightly better MOV-wise than expected. I don't know if that's why we jumped a spot, but I'm guessing it didn't hurt, so ... @49r can you post a graphic of Kenpom's season predictions for us so we know how we're supposed to do MOV-wise? Thx

As fun as the first game was to watch, this one was frustrating. Sloppy, sloppy passes; too many guys failing to communicate, getting lost on defense, and leaving shooters wide open; certain guys getting caught up in trying to create their own shots off the dribble rather than running the offense. I've started calling it "running our sh!t." We're better when we do it; we're a lot worse when we don't. And even an unsophisticated consumer can see when it breaks down and a guy starts to freelance. Problem is the "getting mine" attitude rubs off. After watching one guy do it last night, then another more veteran player started doing it. Run the damn offense, guys. There's plenty of season left for you to get yours. You don't have to get all your touches in one night. It's not as bad, yet, as the Alonzo Verge-Bryce McGowens show. But, then again, I trust the assistant coaches this year a lot more than the staff two years ago to get this corrected. It'd also be nice if we stopped jacking around during warmups and started approaching things with a little more businesslike attitude the moment they hit the floor. And that might be a symptom of a lack of discipline that carries over into their approach to the game itself that we kind of saw a bit of last night. Have a couple of games to get this right before we face a P5 foe in Sioux Falls. Good news is I do believe we're 2-0 against the spread, but hopefully someone else more knowledgeable in that area can confirm.

That's what she said.

What do you suppose they like? What's the draw here?

In two years, when he's old enough to vote, he'll be going into his second college season. It might not qualify as age, but it will certainly qualify as experience.

HHC circa 2018: "Man, we never get any Nebraska kids." HHC circa 2021: "Man, we can't survive on just the transfer portal. We've got to get some high school recruits." HHC circa 2024: "Man, we'll have to recruit some right-handed shooters eventually, right?" OK, I'm stoked for this season, too. Don't get me wrong. But the news of the day is signing two high-ranking high school shooters. Both left-handed. One from Nebraska, who upclassified from a '25 recruit to a '24 recruit. Janowski has recently been upgraded to a Rivals 4-star. Frager is listed as the #147 prospect in the '25 class by 24/7. That's star power. It's high school recruiting. It's getting a local kid. There's a lot to love in the news of today.