Norm Peterson

It's like 2 days, 23 hours and 18 minutes away from the exhibition against Doane and the first game of the Rienk Mast era.

Speaking of Matej Kavas ... he's in the pros now.

I should have said P5 athletic instead of D1 athletic. He doesn't jump out of the gym. He's not cat-quick. If he was, his height wouldn't be an issue.

The stats guys, the analytics guys, have a way of measuring luck. Arnold Palmer once said something like "I've hit a lot of lucky shots in my day and the more I practice, the luckier I get." Sam Hoiberg often finds himself at the right place at the right time because he has intuition for the game. That's something you cannot teach or coach. It might appear like it's luck, but like Arnold Palmer, he's creating his own luck. He's not basketball tall. He's not D1 athletic. But, for a guy who's neither tall nor athletic, he makes hustle plays in spades. Knowing they're both walk-ons and minutes will be exceedingly limited for them regardless, I'd pick Sam for my hypothetical open spot in the rotation. We're not going to rely on either of them to shoulder a scoring load. But Sam has a demonstrated propensity to create that one opportunity that swings a close game in our favor.

but cj over gary is not.

I'm not sure this is a reflection on the program. Like this isn't a reflection on our strength guy or the athletic trainer or that practices are too hard or that there's anything intrinsically the matter with the program. I think there might be one *real* injury there and it might not be hoops-related. Keita is just not durable and that's who he is. I doubt he'll ever regain the form he had on his juco championship team. Since his injury early on his 2nd year of juco, he's just never been the same since. And it's not looking like he ever will be. Gary came to us with a bum shoulder that we tried to manage last year, and he got off-season surgery that sounds like it went well. Allick came to us with a problem that appears to have been repaired as well. Bandoumel blew out his knee as sometimes happens with athletes doing athletic things. It's ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that guys being held out last week were being held out in a precautionary manner because we have ample depth and don't need, at this point, to push things.

Nice first post, my man.

OUCH

Shavon Shields came in here unranked as a recruit and stepped right into the starting lineup. Granted, wasn't much of a starting lineup. But he was legit 4-star talent who totally snuck under the radar.

My ten-deep: 1. Keisei 2. Mast 3. Williams 4. Lawrence/Coleman 5. CJ 6. Coleman/Lawrence 7. Gary/Allick 8. Allick/Gary 9. Rice 10. Diop Others: Lloyd Keita Ulis Walk-ons I think early in the season, we'll probably go ten deep. Later in the season, Hoiberg typically tightens the rotations. But, by then, Eli Rice could sneak into the top 8. And let me go on record saying "I really like the Rice kid." Also, "I really like the Diop kid." I think those two represent the biggest recruiting steals since Shavon Shields.

5. Eli Rice most; Matar Diop 2nd. 6. Yes.

The Husker team on the floor at the above moment was Sam H, Boogie, Eli, Josiah and Matar. Matar was under the rim when Sam H got the rebound at about the FT line. Sam sprints down the floor with the ball and the camera focusses on him bringing the ball up the floor. He then does a crossover and drives to the mid-line of the floor and Matar comes back into view and you can see that Matar has already gotten down under the OTHER basket, 94 feet away from where he's first shown, and is boxing out for Sam. When was the last time we had a big man who could beat a guard to the other end of the floor? And, yeah, Sam wasn't going full throttle and didn't go in a straight line. But, still. Matar went about 94 feet in the same amount of time that Sam went about 74 feet. Matar beat EVERYONE to the other end of the floor.

Slap me for saying this if you wish, but those look like mid-season numbers. 14 assists, 8 turnovers? Not bad against a roughly top-50 team.

Everyone on my block: Man, the Huskers could make a bowl game this year! Me: Man, the Huskers could make the NCAA tournament this year!

Wasn't sure whether to like or laugh

Can anyone read the stats on the ribbon board in the background of the photo of Boogie?

I should have made clear barring unforeseen circumstances on the low end, and no "magical" runs that are one-off events on the other end. I mean, basically I'm asking what people think are our realistic best- and worst-case scenarios.

I think we'll know a lot more about how good we could be after we play Team Voldemort from just east of here. Until then, it's primarily cupcakes we should have our way with.

KenPom projects us going 17-14. I'm curious what you all think. What's the floor for this team? What's the FEWEST number of wins you think is realistically possible (in other words, we'll win at LEAST how many)? What's the ceiling? What's the MOST number of games you think they're realistically capable of winning. Explain in the comments. Go!

Fair.

For comparison purposes: 2023-24 NW Wildcats #40 Pre-season KenPom Projected Starters: PG Boo Bouie 6-2 Gr. SG Ty Berry 6-3 Sr. SG Ryan Langborg 6-4 Gr. SG Brooks Barnhizer 6-6 Jr. C Matthew Nicholson 7-0 Sr. Projected Bench: PG Jordan Clayton 6-2 Fr. SG Justin Mullins 6-4 So. SF Nick Martinelli 6-7 So. PF Blake Preston 6-9 Gr. Bouie and Berry make a really solid backcourt. But, honestly? I'd take our guys 100%.

You have a keen eye.

The lesson of the end of that season might instead be that you could take just about anyone and plug them in around Roby, Palmer and Watson, and have a pretty decent go of things. And Tim Miles did just about the best coaching job of his life in that last couple of weeks of the season.

I remember Tim Miles saying of that group, “I have four guys that anyone else in the league would gladly take“ or words to that effect. The problem with his team was the rest of the roster was mid-majorish. Talent dropped off precipitously after those first four.

One problem with the '18-19 team was they had no bench. You can argue about which group of starters would be better between these two teams, but I'd take this year's bench over that one every day that ends in Y.