Norm Peterson

Last time I checked, 32 plus 68 is 100, but, again, my math isn't very good. Of course, if we get to 17-17, we'll be well into the 80s, probably. But don't trust my math.

Rutgers is a Quad 1 game for us. As is the road game at Iowa. The only Quad 1 game at home left on our schedule is Maryland. Mich St is a Quad 2 and Minnesota is a Quad 4. So, of our 5 remaining regular season games, three of them are Quad 1, one is a Quad 2, and one is a Quad 4. From what I've seen, I think we have a shot at winning out at home; I do not think we have a shot at picking up a road game. In order for us to get to .500, therefore, we would need to win out at home AND pick up two wins in the conference tourney. And I think that would get us to 17-17. If my math is right. Which it usually isn't.

Nice thought but I don't see us beating Rutgers. I'm just hoping we can win out at home.

OMG yes.

As of this morning, Nebraska is #102 and San Jose St is #99 in Kenpom's rankings.

Does she know?

Keisei is not an NBA player. It's got to suck working your ass off and not getting any NIL dough while everyone else, including a walk-on who never plays, is getting some cash. Would it surprise anyone if Keisei chose to walk at the end of this season? I'll be disappointed, for sure, if he does. But I can do math, and I get that $500,000 is $500,000 more than zero.

Fortunately, it's not his shooting arm. And whatever it ends up like, it's almost certainly going to be better than tweaking it every other game and having to run off the floor to get it iced.

So, in our last five regular season games, we have three on the road and a home game against a top 5 team before we finish out at home against Northwestern. How many more regular season wins does this team have in them? What's your best guess?

It makes no difference who the next coach is if we don't have an NIL program that can pony up the money for competitive offers to recruits compared to what they can get from other schools. I don't know if we do or don't. Can anyone speak to this?

You mean because he was hurt?

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that. It's both those guys. It's real chemistry. It really is a mini version of Stockton to Malone. They just have like a 6th sense about each other. If you watch closely, Keisei waits to make his cuts until he sees Derrick is ready to make the pass. And as soon as Derrick shows he's ready, Keisei launches. Derrick draws just enough attention away from the lane, has good timing on his passes (in terms of like leading the receiver the way a QB would throw a slant route), and TRUSTS that Keisei will handle the pass AND get off a shot that has a reasonable chance of going in. Keisei will still have those attributes next year. The question is whether we'll have anyone who can do what Derrick does and get him the ball.

Gone: Griesel, Bandoumel, Walker Back: Keisei, Gary Important cogs. Neither is perfect, but Keisei has really elevated his game and Juwan does some important things well. Lawrence Has taken advantage of the injury situation to get needed reps and has shown flashes. Denim Great athleticism. Superb intangibles. Lacks talent and skill but high-level motor. Stepped up after Gary went down. CJ, Wilhelm Trending down. Both have lost minutes rather than gained since the injuries to two starters. Roles have been reduced. Oleg Still a project Blaise, Q Injuries preventing us from assessing, but they haven't shown us much yet. At this point, can't assume they'll be contributors next season. Adds: Ramel, Rice I like both of these guys but we need a PG to replace Sam G., and probably another big, and then the best available scorer if we have an extra spot, which we almost always do. And THAT is the state of our current roster.

Shoot. Forgot about the guy who's hurt. Yeah, him too. In my defense, I hadn't had any coffee yet. AND while I think he's a *good* returning player, he's not our *best* returning player.

This made me think about what the roster looks like for next year. Assuming Fred comes back and everyone who can stay does, our best returning player is a crafty but undersized sharpshooter from Japan. Our second best returning player, right now, is a true freshman sort of combo guard who didn’t really see any minutes until Juwan Gary went down. Two other potentially returning players have actually seen their minutes decrease since the injuries to our starters. Finally, we have a big man who’s gone AWOL with a nagging ankle injury, and a kid who has absolutely everything you’d want in a major college basketball player except for talent and skill. Fred doesn’t simply need a home run in the portal, he needs a game-winning walk off grand slam in the portal.

Oh, man, don't do this to me. You're setting me up for huge disappointment because you're all right. Traudt would be amazing.

That's why we're going with his Kenpom rankings. Sons' haircuts is also advantage Fred as is WAGs.

I made the comment in the game thread, who knew "Walker to Tominaga" would be our version this year of "Stockton to Malone." You can borrow that line.

I don't think that's accurate. I purposely watched him the last two games and he's been on fire at halftime. He doesn't hit them all, but he hits a lot of them. I can tell you for sure that he hit three in a row this last game and those weren't the only three he hit.

I would say he looks like he's on a lot more stable ground now than he did a year ago. A year ago, they didn't even plan for a summer basketball camp. This year, they've already put out the info. I'm no poker expert, but in poker parlance, I think that's what they call a "tell."

Correct. He is not coaching. Or should I say "coaching."

Hindsight is 20/20, as everyone knows. If we keep him and he has another moribund season, we can fire him after next year and everyone can say, "yep, we knew it." If we keep him and he knocks it out of the park, we can all say "hey, I saw it coming based on how much better the product on the floor looked last year." It's not like any of us are going anywhere, so I'm not sure how it hurts to run it back another year. I'm staying put. Y'know, to create what is probably a bad analogy, it's like playing poker and everyone calls. Why fold at that point? You're not risking anything by seeing what happens after that. I don't know that we're risking anything by keeping Fred another season. I do think we'd be risking something by switching coaches again. And what we're risking is that we would basically be going back to absolute square one on a 3-4 or 5 year rebuild. Having said all that, I also want to add that your computer stuff doesn't resonate with me for two reasons: 1. Some of you guys like your stats; I like relying on what my eyes tell me, and my eyes tell me this is a better scheme than we've had over the course of the last several coaches, and we just need some luck in getting a bit of a talent upgrade through the portal; and 2. I said back in December that the computers had not yet caught up with how much better we were this year. They still assumed we were the bad team we were the last few years. Go back and look if you want to. I still believe that. I still believe we were ahead of the computers. That's why our ranking continued to climb until Gary got hurt. Anyway, as I've said before, I'm firmly in the camp of giving this one more go before we scrap everything and start over. There's just enough there to make me think it could work and has a better chance than picking whatever coach is behind Door #3.

In the immortal words of @49r and others: "This would not suck."

I had to go back and watch highlights of last year's tOSU game just to confirm whether my memory is accurate or my mind is just playing games with me. Nope, it was pretty accurate. Sure, there was one point in the game where the announcers commented that Verge had 7 assists. And that's a good number. But there were three possessions in a row at the end of the game where we were nursing a small lead with around 2 minutes to play and he took it 1-on-5 every single time and failed to score all three possessions. And you have Matt A in the background telling him to ignore what the other coaches are saying and to play the game his way. Speaking of Matt, is he coaching anywhere else now? Has any other program picked him up? No one? Not a single team? Color me shocked.

How do you know this? What have you seen? I can't find any highlight videos from his games in HS. He hasn't posted anything on Hudl. It's almost like he only exists as a virtual player on our roster. What have you seen and where have you seen it that it would lead you to this conclusion?