Norm Peterson

Rick Pitino had an assistant hire hookers for recruits, banged his equipment manager's wife at a local restaurant, got her pregnant, paid for her abortion, and he took Iona to the NIT last year. And those aren't even the reasons he got fired. He got fired for something Greg McDermott tried to do and wasn't fired for.

I don't understand why this post got down arrows. I mean, disagree if you want, but down arrows?

You also forgot Louis Truscott.

If I'm not mistaken, that kid should be in college by now.

Well, that and the fact we’ve only been over .500 in conference twice this century, both times by Miles.

I think I've used up all my "both teams will walk off the floor with the same record" for the rest of the season. Sorry guys.

Please tell me no. We don't have enough of a season to salvage to justify yanking his redshirt. I think he is a talented kid and I would love to see him on the same roster with the Rice kid next year. Both as freshmen.

Not revisionist history.

I think his actual quote was "If Fred Hoiberg wants this job, he can probably have it." And I think the context was people were questioning his job security, and I think he was aware of the back-channel discussions. It wasn't a huge secret. I think his point was, "They're not going to keep me around if Fred Hoiberg wants the job."

In our case 3 elderly mares and a mule.

I thought it was a REALLY bad sign last night when Illinois' 270# 6'9 guy skied above Derrick on the opening tip. I mean, substantially out-jumped him. And, sure enough, Derrick couldn't move him, couldn't back him down, couldn't get around him, and couldn't go over the top of him. All night long.

That's what I'm afraid of. And if we lose Gary -- which, I mean, given what we saw last night, could happen -- it could be cataclysmic. Apocalyptic, even. I've been thinking a strong year, culminating in any kind of post-season bid, might give us the momentum we needed to be able to sell portal transfers on the idea of coming here to play for a program on the upswing. If we crap the bed again, that will be a difficult concept to sell to anyone. Fred might have earned an extra year, given the clear improvements made within the program. However, I *fear* that an extra year would just be delaying the inevitable because, unless we hit the jackpot in the portal, we once again just won't have the horses to compete.

I was on record being opposed to firing Tim Miles. Who wins an NCAA tourney game first: Nebraska?; or whichever team Tim Miles is coaching?

I think reality slapped some fans in the face last night like a drunk sorority girl with an attitude. We don't have the talent. If you're starting Denim Dawson in place of an injured Juwan Gary, you're not going to win in this league. Denim Dawson might be a very good kid. He might have a lot of down-the-road potential. He would either not have a roster spot or would be riding the pine at any other legit Power 5 program. Our talent level is not very good and, if we lose Juwan Gary, it just got a lot worse.

This is a guy I like. If he picks someone else, you won’t be hearing sour grapes from me. I will be congratulating them on a good get.

Well, if it's any consolation, the San Jose St. coach is looking pretty good.

Think of this as well. If there are 200 fewer available spots every season for freshman athletes to play D1 basketball, it means 200 guys that would have played on crappy teams for the Presbyterian Blue Hose are now playing on successful D2 teams. And you've suddenly upgraded the talent for the Presbyterian Blue Hose substantially because they jump up in the pecking order by 200 kids. You've eliminated the bottom 5% of recruits. You've eliminated from D1 basketball all players who were worse than 2 standard deviations below the mean. Talent will be more broadly distributed. The talent level on the Kenpom #200 team won't be substantially worse than the talent level of the Kenpom #100 team. Parity. And all you had to do was give everyone an extra season of playing eligibility, which is like no sacrifice at all. This is a good idea and we should adopt it. Someone call Kevin Warren and get him working on it.

Let's try it this way: 1 is 25% of 4. If you add 1 extra season of eligibility to the current 4 to make 5 seasons, you have increased 4 by 25%. Now then, if you increase eligibility by 25% without increasing roster size, you will necessarily spread the talent further. By a lot. Because there will be fewer spots for the same number of players. Let's take the Rivals 150 as an illustration. Let's say there are typically 60 schools on average that land players on the Rivals 150. If you increase eligibility without increasing roster size, you NECESSARILY DECREASE the number of players any given team can add to their roster each season. Which means talent gets spread further down the pecking order. So, instead of only 60 teams landing Rivals 150 players, it'd be more like 75. And the trickle-down would reverberate throughout the entire college basketball landscape.

If you increase the eligibility by 25% but keep the roster size at 13, it's going to mean that talented players wind up further downstream from the basketball blue bloods. Maybe @HuskerActuary can check the math for me, but 350 D1 programs times 13 players each equals 4,550 players to fill the rosters of all the D1 programs in the country. Now, there's not going to be an even distribution across all 4 years of eligibility. Some kids will drop out and quit the game or turn pro or what have you. So, the senior class is probably going to be smaller than the freshman class. But let's just assume a fairly even distribution from freshmen to seniors. That would mean each class would have an average of about 1,140 players. If there were FIVE years of playing eligibility, however, that would mean each class would have an average of only 910 players. 910 spots. Across the country at the D1 level. There's still the same amount of talent coming into the system, but each school is taking about 1 player fewer per recruiting class, which means they don't add as many new players every year to fill a roster, which means the talent gets distributed further down the system, which means a greater degree of parity across the entirety of the spectrum, which means, I think, the NIL dollars would NOT have to change significantly because the good players will necessarily have to broaden their search to find a program with an open spot.

If a guy gets to play 5 seasons in 6 years, I'm good with getting the last 3 years of a kid rather than the first 3 years. They wouldn't necessarily have to stay with the same school the whole time, but look at Walker, for example. He's in his 6th year due to Covid. He had 5 years of playing time. And this 6th season, he's come of age. Can you imagine if good players we've had in the past had just one more year? In terms of roster stability, you'd have more, not less. A 4-year player who transfers might get, say, 2 years with each school. Allowing players to play 5 seasons would mean that kid would play 3 full seasons with his 2nd school. Like Walker.

You might not get the kid's 1st, 2nd or 3rd years. You aim for his 4th, 5th and 6th. The NIL money (and a chance to get a graduate degree) might keep some talented kids from turning pro in something other than sports for at least one extra season.

Thought just popped into my head. Thought I'd throw it out there and see what people think. The NCAA should want parity. There are only so many guys with pro potential running around and they wind up attending the same 20-30 schools. We can't compete with that. But Covid did something that maybe levels the playing field just a tiny bit: a 5th season of playing eligibility. Let's change the damn rules. Even for non-athletes, college tends to be more of a 5 year affair these days anyway. Let's just give athletes 6 years to play 5. And then the teams that aren't landing 5-star, early draftees in their recruiting classes can maybe offset things by having some older, more experienced guys. Yeah, Duke, you may have 2 lottery picks, but we have 4 guys in their mid- to late-20s. Would that be a bad idea?

And they continue to show it's not a fluke. After beating #107 CSU on the road, they followed it up with a 3 point loss at #64 Boise St. And San Jose is now about where we started out the season.

In a nutshell, they're just way more talented than we are. I didn't think we played that poorly. Especially the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half. But their guys were hitting shots our guys just can't hit. They exposed where we're weak. Only a couple of guys of ours that you even have to guard on the perimeter. Hat's off to MSU. I definitely think this game was more about them being good than us being bad. Disagree if you want but that's my view.

No, dammit, I want this kid. To be a Husker. Just so there's no ambiguity.