Norm Peterson

I love it when I'm on record being skeptical of a recruit before we get eliminated so no one can accuse me of sour grapes.

Yeah, those stupid Nebraska football fans showing up at a basketball game. Surprised they weren't all wearing their Eric Crouch Jerseys. oops, wrong trope.

And he's a lefty. Fred likes lefties.

Nice little lunch hour project. You want to compare last year's roster to this one coming up? Well ... There were some fluctuations. Game 1 starters vs. Maine: PG Griesel 2G Bandoumel 3G Wilcher 4F Gary 5C Keita Keita played 10 minutes; Denim played 24, scored no points, grabbed 1 board, committed 2 TOs. Game 6 starters vs. Memphis: PG Griesel 2G Bandoumel 3G Wilcher 4F Gary 5C Walker The return of Walker. Blaise takes a seat. Game 14 starters vs. Iowa: PG Griesel 2G Bandoumel 3G Wilcher 4F Gary 5C Walker Keisei logged 13 minutes, scored just 2 points. We still won. Game 18 starters vs. Purdue: PG Bandoumel 2G Wilcher 3G Dawson 4F Breidenbach 5C Walker Keisei came off the bench to score 16 in a blowout loss. Game 19 starters vs. tOSU: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Bandoumel 4F Dawson 5C Walker CJ falls out of the starting lineup, hits 2 buckets in 20 minutes. Huskers win with only Keisei and Sam in double figures. Game 21 starters vs. Northwestern: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Lawrence 4G Dawson 5C Walker Are you kidding me? Starting lineup the game after second starter lost for the season? This ain't even funny anymore. Dawson still starting. What choice do we have? Denim stays in the starting lineup until ... Game 26 starters vs. Wisconsin: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Lawrence 4F Breidenbach 5C Walker Trying to find a way to not have Dawson in the starting lineup. Wilhelm comes in and lays a goose egg in the scoring column. Keita with 2 points in 23 minutes. Did I mention we won anyway? Game 27 starters vs. Rutgers: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Lawrence 4G Wilcher 5C Walker Winning formula? Finally found the combo? Road win against a top-half team. This is your starting lineup for the rest of the season. OK, comparing last year to this coming year: So, you want to judge last year's *record* and assess next year's *prospects* by comparing rosters with the team that barely just broke even? Don't forget to factor in that Denim Dawson, who was essentially a true freshman, started 8 games last year, during which span we lost 6. He played 393 minutes, put up 47 points, turned the ball over 20 times, and committed 38 fouls. He was 35% from the floor and 40% from the line. And, especially after Gary went down, we had really no choice but to play him. And Wilhelm Breidenbach. Good kid. Great effort. High motor. But ADHD. He had more minutes than Denim but averaged fewer minutes per game. Scored 116 points against 25 turnovers and 62 personal fouls. Only shot 38.5% from the floor and barely 60% from the stripe. Wilhelm was whistled for more fouls than any other player on the team except Derrick Walker (by 3) despite Walker playing more than twice as many minutes. Now, you can say, well, those two were bit players. Bottom end of the roster. Comparing apples to apples means you only look at the likely rotation guys. Well, but Wilhelm and Denim combined for more minutes than Keisei and nearly as many as Derrick Walker. We played 32 games this last season. Four OT games means we had 6500 minutes on the season to spread around, and 12.3% of those minutes, and 10 starts, went to two guys who would not likely see the floor for this next year's team if they had stuck around. The top end of the lineup might not be quite as good (yet to be seen), but we're not going to be running ANY players out there next year who basically don't belong in a P6 rotation. The bottom and middle of the roster are going to be a lot better. We're going to field more guys who can score at more positions than any Hoiberg team to date. Just for some perspective, CJ Wilcher started 24 games for us last year. He's going to be lucky to be in the rotation next year. Doesn't that tell you something? Just some perspective.

OK, let's take bets: Sam says last year's starting PF who shoots about 25% from beyond the arc will shift to the wing/2-guard spot alongside Lawrence, that Keisei will drop from the starting lineup, that Ulis will run the point, and that Allick and Mast will man the front court side-by-side. I say, yeah, Ulis probably runs point, we're not dropping our best shooter from the starting lineup so Keisei starts as one of the 2-guard/wing spots, the better of Williams or Lawrence will start at the other 2-guard/wing spot, Gary *maybe* returns to start as a Hoiberg 4, and Mast anchors the post. To begin the season, I'm going to go with Ulis, Tominaga, Lawrence, Gary, Mast. If Fred wants to go with a shooter lineup, he goes Ulis, Tominaga, Lawrence, Williams, Mast If he wants to go big, he might go Ulis (or Lloyd, once he's up to speed), Tominaga, Williams, Allick, Mast. But there ain't no way in hell he's starting Ulis, Lawrence, Gary, Allick, Mast. So, place yer bets.

No way. You sure he didn't say Ulis Lawrence KEISEI Allick Mast?

Answering the question posed in the OP: Players Expected to be Marginally Improved Based Simply on Added Year of Experience: Tominaga (although his cohesion with Walker will be difficult to replicate) Lawrence (big beneficiary of injury to Bandoumel, but beware sophomore slump) Gary (fingers crossed for healthy shoulder) Wilcher (less mental interference might mean big step forward) Lloyd (will have benefited from just physical development as well as practices but won't have game experience to build from) Keita (if healthy, could take a big jump forward, but needs reps to understand his role) New Players Replacing Departures: Graduates: Walker => Mast (huge shoes to fill; Walker's assist numbers vs. Mast's perimeter shooting) Griesel => Ulis (Griesel ended up better than we had any reason to expect; no idea what to expect from a guy who started for an NCAA tourney team) Bandoumel => Williams (probably a downgrade on defensive ability; quite a bit of an upgrade as a shooter) Portal Transfers: Breidenbach => Allick (I'd say this is an upgrade, but time will tell. Allick needs to get back to the 3-pt accuracy he displayed at UMKC) Dawson => Rice (No natural corresponding spot other than both freshman guards; just like what I've seen of Rice better than Denim) Kojenets => Open spot McPherson => Open spot Bottom line: I think we'll be OK but big question marks for Walker's and Griesel's replacements. This looks to me like a post-season team.

That's what I've been told. So, I went over to his tweet and called him an a-hole.

Here, watch Ramel Lloyd. And tell me what you've seen Brice do that makes you think he's more capable of getting buckets in crunch time than what you see here ...

Oh. Glad we cleared that up.

No "if"

I'm good with that.

I would think so. 10 pts/5 assists? 37% from three and 77% from the line? Yeah, we'd take that.

I don't want to put too much on the kid -- especially for someone we've never seen play at this level -- but it's possible Ramel could be that guy. I think it was the Husker basketball official Twitter account that posted a video of clips of Ramel portraying the other team's best player. He was getting shots off against our best defenders. He's able to drive to the rim, pull-up from mid-range, and shoot the long ball. Three-level scorer. Plus he's long. I think he could be that guy.

Another lefty. And he's 190# as a HS sophomore? Whoa.

We replace Walker by committee. I don't know that we'll ever find the assists he produced. He and Keisei just had a thing going. They knew how to read each other. That will be difficult for anyone to replicate. But Walker wasn't knocking down treys and Mast can do that. Walker wasn't perfect, though. He had his flaws. You'd like to see him a little longer. He's maybe a bit more of a below-the-rim kind of player, for example. He managed to get stuffed a bunch by players like Dain Dainja. He also reverted back to being a bad freethrow shooter this last year. And he wasn't a perimeter threat. Griesel, too, had his limitations. As good as he was at the things he was good at, he also had some aspects of his game that weren't first rate. His handles weren't the best. His 3-pt accuracy was pedestrian. And he maybe turned the ball over more than you'd want to see. But he played really good defense and he had the unique ability to post up on smaller guards. You make a really good point about going the Griesel route and picking up guys who were veteran stars on mid-major teams as opposed to young guys who didn't crack the rotation at elite programs. But, all in all, as I said above, I think the coaches did about as good as we had any reason to hope in terms of finding the pieces we needed to find in order to build a roster that could climb further up the conference ladder next season. Maybe we'll climb further up the ladder; maybe we'll fall. But the roster moves at least put us in position to have a chance. And that's as much as we could ask.

So, just for some perspective, we have a veteran player who started 24 games for us last year and averaged almost 27 minutes. I haven't seen anyone project him into next year's starting lineup. Some people, including me, have questioned whether he even makes the rotation. Now, he *could* make the rotation. He might even start. But, for him to do that, I'm quite confident he'll need to take a massive step forward and up his game by a lot. Otherwise, we've got some other players on this roster who didn't log a minute for us last season, at least one of whom I'm confident will represent an upgrade. Maybe even a substantial upgrade. Also, I'll take Gary/Allick over just Gary by a lot. Allick, of course, started on and averaged 32 minutes for a team that was ~65 KenPom. He *could* bump Gary from the starting lineup. At the very least, he represents quality front court depth that we lacked last season. On the other side of the ledger, losing Walker is tough. Those are big shoes to fill. But Mast has a lot to recommend him. I don't think he'll do everything Derrick did, but he'll do some things Derrick did not. Like shoot treys at an above-average rate. The biggest concern I have is over who replaces Griesel. I don't know quite what to think about Ulis. A change of scenery might be just what he needs. Does he have all the right tools? Yeah, I don't know. He's an unknown for me at this point. But he did start for an Iowa team that reached the NCAA Tournament. Y'know, ~40 KenPom or thereabouts. Our portal departures this year were from the bottom end of the roster; our portal adds plug in at or near the top. We grabbed a couple of the best players from teams that were certainly no worse than we were and we grabbed a couple of role-player starters from teams that were a lot better, KenPom-wise. Griesel and Walker are big losses, to be sure, but *everywhere else* across our roster, we're at least as good as we were, and in some spots, much better. So, I feel like we have a shot to climb the ladder a bit. The coaches should be applauded. The off-season roster moves at least give us a chance.

I haven't seen other Big Ten teams mentioned in terms of "winning the portal." Sure, all teams try to improve over the prior year. But, to use a golf analogy, it's a lot easier to go from shooting in the 90s to shooting in the 80s than it is to go from shooting in the 80s to shooting in the 70s. And, if you're a scratch golfer, it's not necessarily *easy* to stay there. The effort it took you to get there is pretty much the effort it'll take to stay there. Teams at the bottom sometimes have opportunities to take bigger strides than the teams above them who, a lot of the times, are just fighting to not backslide. Our problem is we have to not only replace Derrick Walker and Sam Griesel, but we also have to upgrade the talent across the lineup. I am very excited about the first two players we landed from the portal. I'm not sure yet what to think about our PG transfer. But, if he pans out, I feel pretty good about our chances to improve compared to our league foes.

When are we getting a visit? He's got to make a school choice like soon. Summer workouts are probably less than 4 weeks away.

Is now an appropriate time to remind everyone of my idea to give ALL players 5 years of eligibility?

In an ironic twist, when you're a penis-shaped iceberg near Dildo Canada, the *warmer* you get, the more you shrink.

Thank goodness.

The only thing that would make this story more perfect is if the iceberg had been struck by a Virgin Atlantic cruise ship.

I like him.