Norm Peterson

Bad day beyond the arc, but look at the FT%. That's a sign of what his touch really could be. The pros look at that if they are wondering whether a guy could develop into a shooter or not.

Thanks for the update @Swan88. Keep these rolling.

He is now. That's not the reason he originally was missing games, though.

Damn those Husker fans for showing up by the thousands to watch a terrible product on the floor. I haven't mentioned this before but I'm going to take the opportunity now and say some things of which I am RELIABLY informed: Matt is a terrible dude. He undermined the coaches. All of them. Even Hoiberg. All of those great recruits he's so proud of for bringing in? He basically sheltered them from consequences for crappy behavior. If your last name was McGowens and you didn't want to show up for conditioning, Matt would fix it for you. If you were one of Matt's guys and the coaches got on you in practice, Matt would take you aside and tell you you didn't have to do what they said. Matt was the cause of rifts among the assistants. Matt tried to get good people fired. Matt is an awful dude and the night-and-day difference you see in effort and team play this year is directly attributable to him not being here anymore.

Likes in no particular order: Griesel was dropping dimes today. Some no-look seeing-eye passes. He doesn't have the best handles ever (and that was evident against St. John's pressure) but he has a *feel* for the game that you just can't teach. Blaise Keita was playing like the Blaise Keita we were hoping we were getting. Speaking of Griesel dropping dimes, it was Keita on the receiving end of most of Griesel's generosity, and isn't it cool to see a big man with soft enough hands to catch a pass. Remember our starting C a couple of years ago? Also spoke French? Wilhelm. His line: 11 minutes, 10 points on 4-5 from the field, 3 boards, 2 turnovers, 1 foul. Hardly played in the 2nd half after hitting 4 baskets in the first frame, which was curious. But we were making our comeback with Keita, so I guess you don't mess with what's working? Anyway, he showed some nifty scoring moves today. Knee looks like it's holding up well.

How's North Texas doing this year?

For all those people bagging on Wilhelm Breidenbach, I'd just like to remind you that Adrian Martinez has 6 TD passes to only 1 INT this year. And he's the starting QB for a top 20 FB team. Sometimes the way the tools perform is the result of the carpenter using them. I'd also like to remind y'all that, in terms of game experience, he's essentially a first-semester freshman. I don't know about top 50 recruits. But I'd say he was certainly worthy of Rivals 150 inclusion. Go easy on my man.

She sounds hideous.

Not the thread I wanted. The thread I needed.

Pretty sure yes. It's a health issue where the recovery time is measured not in terms of days or weeks but in terms of games. Six to be precise.

I was listening to a podcast with a Stanford neuroscientist who studies dopamine. I can't think of his name. I'll find it if anyone's really interested. Anyway, the subject came up of the production of testosterone as a result of repeated "wins" versus suppression of testosterone when you're on a losing streak. Made me wonder if that's why winners tend to continue to win and losers tend to continue to lose. And maybe lends some scientific support to the approach of scheduling a soft non-con so that your team learns to win. You could call it the Doc Sadler approach. As opposed to the Tim Miles approach, which was to schedule aggressively in a season in which we had a bunch of talented freshmen who were still just learning the college game and who were almost totally demoralized by the end of the buzzsaw year they went through. Anyone with a sciency background want to take a stab at this and give us an explainer? Anyone know of any research? #toolazytogoogle

I wonder if there would be some usefulness in giving partial weight to the score differential with 2 minutes to play in addition to final MOV. Seems like final scores frequently look closer or like more of a blowout than the games really were because of scoring in the last couple of minutes. Like when a key player fouls out or when the trailing team starts fouling to stop the clock.

Fair enough. I can live with that. He played good D and we'd have offensive firepower at other spots, so ...

These guys were actually on our roster, though. And, had they not jumped to the NBA, would still have college eligibility right now and could theoretically have been on the team this year together.

F Derrick Walker 6'9 Sr G Sam Griesel 6'7 Sr G Bryce McGowens 6'6 So G CJ Wilcher 6'5 So P Dalano Banton 6'9 Sr Can you even imagine?

By the Associative Property of Sports, Grambling should be primed to make a deep NCAA tourney run.

Omaha has a nice little team there. If they all stick together, they could be pretty good in a year or two. They're very young and they have some nice pieces. Even that Jungers kid. He's a freshman and he's 6'9 and he's out there stroking three pointers. Fidler, a sophomore, maybe had an off night but he's clearly a talented player. I think they had one junior getting minutes and the rest were freshmen and sophomores. Good job to their coaching staff.

Maybe he had several of those small beers they sell at the concession stand. And when I say small beers, think frat party kegger small red solo cup small. Just the cup is clear not red.

A guy the row ahead of me got a beer. And let's just say unless UNO guy laid down a Benjamin on his beer purchases, that's probably not the reason why.

If I were to tell you that three of our guys who scored 42 of our 79 points against Maine would go scoreless against UNO, you'd probably think we didn't win.

Likes, in no particular order: Denim Dawson's defense. Watching him in warm-ups last year I was thinking all this "he dives on the floor for loose balls" was just because they had to try to find something positive to say about someone on the team. This kid has a great motor and great energy. He's a ++ athlete. On the defensive end, he uses that athleticism and motor to make himself really pretty effective even though he's still just learning the college game. He played a big role on the defensive end during our big run in the first half. His offense needs a lot of work, however. Bandoumel's unselfishness. Oh, man. So many times in these two games I've seen him start to do that shake-n-bake stuff where, if his name was Alonzo Verge or Bryce McGowens or Cam Mack, you're thinking to yourself "oh no, he's going to put his head down and try to take it all the way himself, 1 on 5." But then he stops and passes the ball and it's like "I was NOT expecting that." He gets his points when those points are there to be gotten. He really does a good job of letting the game come to him. Sam Griesel's command. Favorite player of the Hoiberg era? Yeah, quite possibly. He doesn't have the best handles ever for a PG. He's not the best shooter ever. He isn't going to overwhelm you with athleticism. But he's making good decisions. Like all the time. He plays within himself and seems to know just how to take advantage of what the defense is giving him. Witness those several possessions in a row tonight where he drew fouls driving to the basket. Drive after drive. Eventually, the fouls piled up and they had to let him just go. He positions himself for rebounds. He boxes out. He just doesn't hurt you. Like ever.

I hope these guys watch some film of their ineffective attempts to drive to the rim and really, critically evaluate why the sort of off-balance, weak-to-the-hoop stuff doesn't work very well. Have the film guy make a clip of every drive that got stuffed and compare them to every drive that succeeded.

Our strings of empty possessions seem to revolve around guys not running offense, putting their heads down and trying to drive the lane too many possessions in a row. It's like some of you guys think you can put the ball on the floor cough cough Breidenbach cough cough and you're honestly not that good at it yet.

Without question my favorite Hoiberg Husker team and it's not even close.

Gary is back out on the bench