Norm Peterson

That pass he made to Gary was an eye-opener. If he gets his body worked out, he has some feel for this game.

If you think back to what Derrick Walker looked like 2 years ago and compare that to what he looks like now, there's a lot of reason to be hopeful about what we end up getting out of Blaise Keita. And if you look at their stats, don't forget Walker was competing for playing time against Yvan back then, so ...

The three teams who have beaten us are ranked #27, #30 and #41 in the current Kenpom rankings. Two of those were neutral site games and the other was an away game. I don't feel a great sense of shame in those losses. FFS, we're not losing to Nevada at home for once. Thank God for that.

Top 100 baby! (Nebraska checking in at #97 this morning. Way to go, fellas.)

After it got to 33-28, I was like oh shit we're gonna lose. Their big guy is out there knocking down threes and we're having trouble finding the rim. Next thing you know, we're up like 20 and coasting. And it's like what in the hell just happened?

I think we'd have been happy to see that performance against Boston University let alone Boston College. But this convincing, 21-point win over the Kenpom #107 team doesn't feel like a fluke, particularly coming on the heals of the win over Florida State. I'm not saying we're a tournament team. At least not *that* tournament. But, I will say this team could be a lot better than I was expecting. Certainly better than I feared.

Three likes in no particular order. Defense. Hey, they're starting to click. They're *communicating.* They're talking, they're pointing, they're not leaving their feet on close-outs, they're switching screens better, they're not losing guys. There was ONE TIME in the second half they failed to get back on D after a really nice make (when they got up by 27) and it's like they were so shocked they forgot to go back and play D. That only happened once. I thought the defense, for the most part, looked really solid. Keisei. Hit some threes but he did a lot more than that. And he wasn't a defensive liability. Really good to see him have a solid game almost mistake free. Multiple touches on almost every possession. Only a couple times in the 2nd half did I really see a guy put his head down and decide to take it himself when there was an easy pass that was clearly a better option. Some of the passing was next level. Blaise Keita made a touch pass to Gary for a layup that was so quick, if you'd have blinked, you would have missed it.

I'm just sayin if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life never make a pretty woman your wife. So for my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you. Maybe you haven't been privy to it, but all the back channels of the internet for the last couple of weeks have been speculating that Mickey's chances of landing a spot on Rhule's staff were diminished because everybody in the athletic department thinks his wife's a bitch and nobody wants to deal with her. And then this happens.

We need to get Keith Richards trending on Twitter.

Being told I need to get my hearing checked.

If I heard right, I think it had something to do with getting nailed in the family jewels. Someone hit him in the dong, I guess. Too many dong hits. It's what I heard, anyway. Fortunately, there's protection for that.

yep, thanks

It was kind of interesting watching Danny Manning on the Louisville sidelines. He was the interim HC at Maryland last season after Turgeon was fired. Now, he's on the bench for winless Louisville while his former program is undefeated under a new coach. Speaking of which, does ANYONE have a quick link to the list of probably just conference programs and their off-season personnel changes? I'd be curious to know who returned for Maryland and who Willard brought in new this season. Maryland looked really good last night, particularly in the 2nd half. At one point, they were 6-9 on second half treys. Louisville looked more like us.

And when the game is over, they'll be 5-3. And so will we.

After this game, both teams will be 5–3.

And we showed him the door. Ironically, he may very well be the best high school recruit of the Hoiberg era other than Bryce McGowens.

Just looking at the two groups, it makes me think maybe you need to be patient with a kid and give him time to develop. Speaking of which, Kevin Cross is currently averaging 16.1 ppg, 6.0 bds, 4.1 assists while hitting 84.8% of his FTs and 55.3% from the floor. Now how deflated do you feel?

Active in-state guys we wanted but didn't get out of HS: Jr. Max Murrell, 4.9/3.0 in 14 min/game So. Hunter Sallis, 5.1/2.9, 33% from 3 So. Chucky Hepburn, 9.7/3.7/2.8, 39% from 3 Fr. Jasen Green redshirting Fr. Isaac Traudt redshirting Active in-state guys we said "eff it" out of HS: Sr. Baylor Schierman, 12.0/9.3, 44% from 3 Sr. Sam Griesel, 10.9/5.1/4.4 Sr. John Tonje, 15.1/6.3, 38% from 3 Sr. Josia Allick, 9.5/8.0 in 29 min/game Jr. Charlie Easley, 9.0/2.9/1.3, 42% from 3 So. Frankie Fidler, 11.0/5.5 in 31 min/game Fr. Luke Jungers, 7.3/3.1, 31% from 3 Not sure where to list the Arops or Donovan Williams because we didn't really blow them off coming out of HS. I'm including Easley in this group, though, because he was a walk-on who is now a scholarship D1 player. And we didn't offer him. But, anyway, who's having more of an impact: The guys we whiffed on or the guys we spurned?

So who are the best up-and-coming in-state kids? Who has a shot to be B1G caliber? Not play at the level we're currently at, but be a program improver who can get us to the level we need to be at? Is there anyone, or were the last few years a flash in the pan?

Ramel's daddy and Cam Mack's mommy should get together.

OMG yes. Great point. We almost turned the entire roster over, so it's not inconceivable that he could have built a roster in year 1 much like the one we're fielding this year. As much as any of us might criticize Keisei for being a defensive liability, is there anyone who would prefer Matty Kavas? Yeah, me neither. I wouldn't even take Jervay over Keisei. And I would definitely take Sam Griesel over Cam Mack even though Cam was more of a natural PG. The biggest apples-to-oranges critique is that Banton would have been immediately eligible if he was entering the program now. But, I mean, generally speaking, this is more like what I would have thought we'd be building on.

The last two games there was a lot of anxiousness and stressing about getting beat, and my thought had been, well, neither Memphis nor Oklahoma really "manhandled" us. And I saw some things that I thought were good. Both of the teams we faced previously in this tournament were top 30ish type teams and we didn't get just blown out. Now, FSU isn't great but they aren't exactly chopped liver either. They might be 1-7 but if they were not a Power 5 team but were instead a solid mid-major coming in to face us at PBA, it'd be the kind of match-up where we'd be a little concerned even with our best of teams. It's a Kenpom top 150ish team. Those kinds of teams have given us fits at home in the non-con. And we handled them easily in this neutral floor game. Everything about this team is eminently more watchable than they were a year ago. No hero ball. No me ball. No bullshit of certain players wanting to make sure they get their shots in to the detriment of the team. I mean, yeah, we lack talent. But I'm going to rejoice in the improved execution by players who are more concerned with team goals than individual stats. That said, here are my three likes, in no particular order: After a rocky start, we got things under control. We had 4 TOs in the first 4 minutes of the game and only 10 TOs the rest of the way. We made some adjustments to the way they were pressing and it worked. Sam Griesel almost had a double-double with points and assists. He would have been well over 10 assists if Bandoumel had had a better shooting night from the corner. But Sam is showing some solid court vision and awareness. He's making the passes that set his teammates up for success. The return of Walker. What can you say? I mean, second game back and he puts up 20 points and grabs 13 boards on 10 shots from the field? He even had 4 assists. The man really showed up tonight. I don't think his presence would have flipped any of the games we lost, but it probably would have made them closer contests. But we probably win some going forward that we would have lost without him. Glad he's recovered from his health issues. He was probably the biggest difference in the game tonight. He's giving up 8 inches to McLeod, but he out-muscled him. And can we also give it up for @hhcmatt? His game day essentials pegged it. FSU is the second-tallest roster in the nation (behind only Oregon IIRC) and yet he predicted we'd out-rebound them. And we did. Good work on the essentials, Matt.

UNO is going to kick our ass in hockey probably forever. #BigRedProblems

That Westside-Gretna game was one for the ages. I've conferred with a fellow board member, and we agree it was maybe the best HS football game we've ever seen. I'm still just marveling at it. Gretna down 13 pts in the 4th quarter and they score two TDs, the last one coming with under 2 minutes left in the game, on the strength of their really tremendous QB who is a Okie State commit. Then, Westside just needs to basically cross midfield because they have probably the best HS kicker to ever come out of Nebraska. The kid had already made kicks of like 26, 42, 46 and 50 yards. The 50 yarder would have been good from 70th and A. I mean it hit high up on the net behind the goal posts, so easy 60 yard range. With 4 seconds left, he has a 45 yard attempt from right between the hashmarks. Never had a doubt. You knew it was good the moment it left his foot. Westside wins 43-41. Mickey called the Westside kicker after the game (which ended at like 10:30 p.m.) and offered him a full ride.