Norm Peterson

Take it when you can get it, I always say.

Some of those guys had choices and we weren't it. Others of those guys would have loved to have a Nebraska offer and would have jumped at the chance. If we had offered Baylor Scheierman out of HS, he'd be a Husker today. Same with Sam G. Don't know about Tonje or Allick. But I can say, of the guys we had a legit shot to land, I would have loved for Chucky to be a Husker rn. I think we could build a pretty damned good team around just those guys we were close to getting or could have gotten if we'd have offered. Chucky, Baylor, Sam, John Tonje and one of the big guys would be a team that would be competitive in the Big Ten.

That is very good news. I'll go on record saying I really like this kid. He is VERY impressive getting off his feet. Very quick leaper. He rebounds as well as anyone we've had here in a long time.

I guarantee most of those were put-backs of his own misses. At least last night. He was 5-15 from the floor. And, for a guy taking his shots so close to the rim, that's abysmal. BUT ... he snagged 8 offensive rebounds. I think all but one of his made shots was off an offensive rebound. And there were possessions where that made shot happened after he missed twice and grabbed his own rebound. So, he's racking up a bunch of rebounds and missed shots but generally, he's eventually converting. I only remember one time where he kind of forced the action on trying to take a shot. Most of it was very opportunistic. And if you just counted all those missed-shot-offensive rebound-missed-shot-offensive rebound-score situations as just a single event, his usage rate would actually look a lot lower. Ideally, you'd like to see him make the first shot and not have to get his own put-back. But suffice it to say he wasn't as much of a ball-hog as his number of attempts in the box score would lead you to believe.

I've said the portal and NIL are the great equalizers that would allow us to build talent quickly. Potentially. We were close to landing this kid. Imagine if we had. We have some BIG shoes to fill after this season and we'll have another shot at the portal starting in March. And maybe, just maybe, we land next year's version.

Let me say this about that: Watching warmups last year, there were plenty of times Keisei attempted a dunk and got stuffed by the rim. Last night he had a couple of throwdowns during warmups that were legitimately impressive. It appears he has spent some time in the weight room working on his explosiveness. We might have seen that play out in a couple of drives to the rim. Speaking of warmups, it's refreshing to see a Hoiberg team appear to take warmups seriously. Finally. There was none of that horsing around bullshit we saw in prior years. They even came out after half and ran drills instead of just an unstructured shoot-around after half. That was one of my big complaints last year. They did not have a businesslike approach to their pre-game preparation and that would carry over to their game performance. This year definitely looks like more getting down to business. That was good to see.

If I'm not mistaken, they cut it to 1 and then had a chance to take the lead on a layup that was blocked magnificently by Bando and we recovered our mojo from there and they never threatened again.

A lot more energy. A lot greater sense of urgency than last year. Gary is clumsy with the ball and doesn't have a deft touch around the rim. But he's an amazingly quick leaper with long arms and can snag offensive rebounds. It's almost as though he's using his first shot as an opportunity to pass the ball to himself off the rim so he can go back and get it and put it in. I like the Griesel kid. I'm glad he's a Husker. I think we'd have been better off as a program if he'd been here all along. Better late than never. We won't win many games without him. Defense is troubling. Like very troubling. We're collapsing inside and lowly Maine is kicking it out and reversing it and finding open shooters and we're either not closing out fast enough or biting on pump fakes, leaving our feet, and flying by the shooter to give them a 5 on 4 advantage. What's going to happen when we play someone good? There's not really anyone on this team who is a bucket. No kid who's just going to go get you points. But we have unselfish players who are willing to run the system and wait for their shots rather than force the action so they make sure they get theirs. I will probably forever resent Verge and McGowens for their selfish play. I look at this group and think, man, if we just had a lightning-quick PG who could make seeing-eye passes and a long, smooth shooting guard who could get to the rim and shoot from outside, we'd be competitive. Well, we had those guys last year but they were soooo focused on trying to make sure they got theirs that they sacrificed the team. We'll be a better *team* this year without them. If only they had bought in. Character flaws. Keisei had a night. Happy for him. Quit trying to draw fouls on three-point attempts and just go play.

Just said I wouldn't rule it out. And, yep, still wouldn't rule it out. But a lot of sh!t needs to get fixed quick.

Talent level drops off real far real fast.

50-48 five minutes into the second half.

Say what?

Ok, it’s still early but I’m not gonna entirely rule out a Hoiberg year five.

Is Rammell Lloyd redshirting?

Sense of urgency and team play. Big improvements.

It's like winter in Nebraska. The howling winds and frigid temps make me appreciate late spring so so much.

I'd ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record of this committee that everyone agrees we suck this year, so that we can automatically infer that every discussion on this board this season about how we did in any particular game will always begin with the underlying understanding that we suck this year. Would save people the hassle of saying in every post-game chatter "but we suck this year" and, therefore, also save everyone else from having to respond, "no, I realize that, but I still think Oleg showed some promise."

This is my fault. I caused this. Nobody was talking about this until I opened my damn yapper and asked if anyone had any idea what was going on with Walker's injury. Glad to hear it's a day-to-day thing. That will evidently clear up after six games.

"Hoiberg's Goose is Cooked because Walker was out Getting Baked" is a hell of a headline.

There was a bunch of twitter traffic that speculated it was Mickey Joseph who would be named HC. I laughed.

So, did I find Ron's source?

I really, truly hope it happens. I hope he can get things going. I have my doubts, but it is certainly my hope that he succeeds. I wish he'd have figured out some of where the bad juju was after year 1 or year 1, version 2.0. Or year 1, version 3.0. But I'm certainly hoping he's got it figured out now AND if he does ... One of the great equalizers that now exists that didn't exist before is that players are not simply looking at, oh, which school maybe provides them with the highest level of status ("I got an offer from DUKE!") or which one has the best journalism school (that you're going to change majors from anyway). Now, NIL factors into things and so I think programs will be able to get a foot in the door with recruits they might not otherwise have had a shot at if it was like the year 2015 and you had a coach who was languishing and a program that was struggling. With the transfer portal and the NIL money, a school could theoretically upgrade their roster in short order. Stability is probably the best long-term strategy, using the portal just to add that last missing piece. But a program such as ours could use the portal to make some more drastic changes, provided we can show some progress this year and can sell transfers on the idea that they aren't just going somewhere to suck. Of course, transfer portal and NIL money also apply if we have a coaching change, so ...

Maybe it's his glaucoma acting up.

Well, I hope your pure speculation is wrong and that it's something more like a nagging hamstring or something like that. Because: 1) this dude got PAID to play this year; 2) his coach is CLEARLY on the hot seat; 3) he is one of the most important players on the team who we need to have do well if there's any hope for this season and, frankly, any hope for this staff. If your speculation turns out right, then this guy didn't just let down his team. His absence could result in losses that become the nail in the coffin of the Hoiberg tenure. If he jeopardized the coach's job for THAT, I would be righteously pissed if I was a member of this staff. There's a lot at stake for a lot of people so I sure hope he wasn't ... y'know ... doing what you said.

OK, speaking of cryptic ...