Norm Peterson

Sure, and I'm definitely cool with that if he does (figuring he'll be high-30s, minimum). But it'd be even better if 3 more guys can put together a solid resume of 75 or more attempts at .375 or better.

Do we need to bump that to 4 x 100 attempts at .375 or better?

On the high end in the Big Ten last year, you had PSU attempting about 27 threes per game. We were middle-of-the-pack at about 20 1/2 three attempts per game. Keisei accounted for fully 1/4 of our 3-point attempts last year. That's a lot. Rather than him taking more shots, I'd rather see some more guys step up and be more accurate. PSU had 4 guys with at least 118 trey attempts and each was over 38% from deep. They were far and away the best in the league and that's probably too much to hope for. I'd be satisfied if we had four guys with at least 75 attempts and each at .375 or better. Last year, we only had 1 guy who would meet those criteria.

I'm looking at last year's basically opening day starters and what they did the year before. And I'm forecasting this year's starters with preference for anyone who was a starter here the year before. Increase in competition level appears to correlate with reduced 3-point proficiency. Therefore, probably exercise caution in expectations for what Boogie, Rienk and Brice do this year from downtown. We were among the worst 3-point shooting teams in the Big Ten a year ago. We were 9th by percentage, but a fraction of a percent separated 8th from 13th. We were tied with Maryland at 10th/11th in made treys per game. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict we'll improve our overall team 3-point accuracy. And we'll probably have a corresponding bump in made treys per game. I'm also going to predict that we won't have anyone with 30 or more 3-point attempts who shoots under 30% from that range. If that happens, that alone will move the needle a bunch.

'21-22 3-pt numbers vs. '22-23 output: PG: Sam G: 22-58 = 37.9%; 20-62 = 32.3% SG: Bando: 70-199 = 35.2%; 17-76 = 22.4% SG: CJ: 52-128 = 40.6%; 42-134 = 31.3% PF: Juwan: 9-41 = 22%; 15-57 = 26.3% PF: Derrick: 0-1 = 0%; 1-2 = 50% SG: Keisei: 36-109 = 33%; 66-165 = 40% PF: Wilhelm: 3-20 = 15%; 11-47 = 23.4% '22-23 3-pt numbers: PG: Boogie: 68-193 = 35.2% SG: Keisei: 66-165 = 40% SG: Jamarques: 28-75 = 37.3% PF: Juwan: 15-57 = 26.3% PF: Rienk: 24-68 = 35.3% SG: CJ: 42-134 = 31.3% SG: Brice: 58-146 = 39.7% PF: Josiah: 6-38 = 15.8%

Correct. Wed, Nov 28, 1990. Coming off an 18-loss season. Right after beating St. Louis and Illinois in the San Juan Shootout. And then we beat a top-5 Michigan St team at home and Vitale calls it a fluke. Didn't take long after that for him to realize we were legit that year.

We beat Michigan St early in the season and Dick Vitale called it a fluke.

Here's a lineup for ya: PG Jarron Coleman, 6'5", 213# SG CJ Wilcher, 6'5", 214# SG Brice Williams, 6'7", 213# SG Eli Rice, 6'8", 213# C Matar Diop, 6'10", 213# I mean, CJ could probably spit in a cup before weigh-in is all I'm saying.

Funny thing is, you could go to Huskers dot com and display the roster in two column format and pick a starting lineup from each column and basically come up with a squad from either side that could very well beat any of Hoiberg's first three teams in a best-of-five. So ... Coleman, Tominaga, Wilcher, Gary, and either Diop or Rice on the left-hand side. Uhlis, Lawrence, Williams, Allick, Mast from the right-hand side.

Using ONLY our current roster (assuming all players will be eligible), construct two unique* starting lineups that you believe would have won a best of 5 series against each of Hoiberg's first three Husker teams. Go! * "unique" means a player from the current roster can only be on one or the other of your fictional starting lineups but not both.

Two of those three leaders from last year were only on the team 1 season each. And one of those three leaders was lost to injury halfway through. It'd be hard for me to believe their leadership can't be replaced by someone just as new this year.

If you look at Torvik, there are 2 teams on top that are above everyone else and 2 teams at the bottom that are beneath everyone else and 10 teams in the middle that are close enough, they could about finish in any order. We're within striking distance of the pre-season 3rd ranked team in the conference. I mean, just sayin.

To nearly quote the nearly famous Navin Johnson: I'm actually a little excited about the roster for this year's team. That is my problem. Every year I think we got something going. So these are the reasons why we have a chance at a good season. Hope these happen, but I need to temper my excitement. Damn near everyone you would have wanted to keep off of last year's roster decided to stay. The only guys we lost to the portal were guys who would not likely have made the rotation this year. In addition ... Rienk Mast. We had to hit a homer in the transfer market to replace Derrick Walker because we didn't really have anyone in-house who could fill those shoes. We got the best player from the best team in the Missouri Valley. Word is we got the kid Iowa really wanted. He's strong. He's long. And he's efficient. Even from beyond the arc. Keisei decided to stay. He could have a Cary Cochran kind of season. He's that good of a shooter. And he's just so damn crafty. Plays with joy and a joy to watch play. Brice Williams. Frickin A. Call him pennies from heaven because, on paper, he was maybe one of the best shooters in the portal. Really wasn't expecting a wing. Not a great position of need. But nice to add an efficient scorer regardless. He could have AWIII kind of impact. With him and Keisei, opposing Ds could have to pick their poison. Matar Diop. Very late add. Usually not a good sign. But, in this case, he might have just snuck under the radar. He's REALLY long with a 7'3 wingspan. He's really bouncy. He's probably really raw, but he has some tools. But the thing I LOVE about him is his mindset. I love big men who have a little bit of that dawg in them. Before he was a known recruit and only had offers from places like Sam Houston State, I became high on Bruno Fernando for just that reason. He just had that dawg in him. Matar is like that. High motor competitor. And the biggest thing is it looked like we were going to be really iffy around the rim and lacking in depth down low. Blaise still having ankle problems and who knows if he'll contribute. I think Matar just took that spot. Jamarques Lawrence. Freshman stud who took advantage of our injury situation to get some serious, real minutes. And he rose to the occasion. Could he have a sophomore slump? Sure. But that doesn't seem likely from a guy who rose to the challenge of stepping into the starting rotation as a true freshman when we got hit with injuries. Josiah Allick. Another Lincoln kid who wants to do the home crowd proud. And he's merely a 32 min/game starter from a top roughly 60 team out of New Mex. Stop and think about that for a sec. He STARTED and played 32 min/game for a roughly top 60 team last year. We POACHED a starter from a team that was sniffing the bubble a year ago and it's possible he won't even start on this year's Husker squad. Mind blown. If you don't think THAT is a positive sign, I don't know what to tell you. Jarron Coleman. Let me set the scene: Our starting PG graduates. We recruit the starting PG from one of last year's conference rivals. He has some ... trouble. Trouble that could affect his eligibility. And, right about that time, a 6'5 PG with roughly 4 years of starting experience, including 1 at a P5 school, materializes in the portal. And he picks us. Color me crazy, but it seems like the stars are maybe kind of starting to align. I mean, I don't want to get too carried away, but I feel like we really did OK in the portal, y'know? We got what we had to get at every position. We kept the guys we needed to keep and landed at the very least serviceable players at every position we needed to find someone. We bolstered our bench. You'd have to think we're in pretty good shape going into the season. Now talk me down off the ledge.

He shoots treys in games. And made at least one of them.

Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveaux examined her magic crystal ball and concludes the girlfriend in Lincoln accepts that he might have a sidepiece in Charlotte, but the *GIRLFRIEND* in Charlotte has no idea about the sidepiece in Lincoln. "Oh, baby, I'm just going to Lincoln to make an appearance at the football game. Y'know, former Husker great. Catch up with Keisei. See how he's doing. You know how it goes."

Unable to verify. Must have been some static on the line.

nfm

I'm trying to verify the rumor that he committed to us.

I don't know how good his shooting touch is, but it looks like his mechanics are solid, so at least there are no big red flags that he's going to be a terrible FT shooter like our old friend Yvan.

Here ya go ...

Did you see they missed a layup?

Actually, it was usually contagious. You see people start to stand up and shout and you join them. Nowadays, nobody stands up. There's no point. People can't see you stand so no one follows suit. So, you remain seated. And that's also contagious.

I have made this point before somewhere on this board. The problem is not the crowd per se. The problem is the architecture of PBA. Back in Devaney, it was basically one continuous plane from floor all the way up to the nosebleeds. The guy in the row farthest from the floor could see the entire audience arrayed below him all the way to the courtside seats. At PBA, there are four layers: the lower bowl; the luxury box level; the 200 level; and the 300 level. And here's why that's a problem: All those levels are structural barriers between the crowd and the game. When you're up in the 200s or 300s, you feel separated from the event. It's almost like you're watching it on TV or something. It's hard to get into the cheering thing when you feel like nobody is going to hear you except the crotchety geezer who's going to complain you're standing in his way. At Devaney, I could stand up and exhort the rest of the crowd to stand by waiving my arms upwards, and half the crowd could see me. Now, the only people who would see me would be the people in the three rows behind me in my section. The architecture of PBA is not conducive to crowd involvement. We could mitigate that architecture somewhat if our CHEERLEADERS would, y'know, like lead CHEERS or something. Instead, what we get is that infernal "GOOOOO BIIIIIIIIG REEEE'ED --- GO! BIG! RED!" cheer. By itself, that's not a bad cheer necessarily, but it doesn't lend itself to a crowd sustaining the cheer like the cheers we used to have at Devaney. Y'know, the "DEE-FENSE (clap clap) DEE-FENSE (clap clap)" cheer OR the "GO BIG RED! (clap) GO BIG RED! (clap)" cheer. These were cheers the cheerleaders could lead and the audience could repeat and it could be sustained for lengthy periods of time. But, not only do we have an architecture of PBA that literally stratifies the fanbase into levels that separate half the audience from the action, we ALSO no longer employ cheers that the audience can sustain. That's the problem.

He couldn't walk at 241#. I'm sure the extra weight isn't going to help things.

Well, I was kinda iffy on Mast when he was only 6'8", but now that he's 6'10" ... (j/k)