KZRider

Assistant coaches really began to kick in from the middle of last year.
Don't think you can over state the impact of Mast and Allick on and off the floor.

Since I offered "Love Rollercoaster" by the Ohio Players for our LAST game against OSU (which worked out well), I will offer this example of finely crafted lyrics by the same group. You would never want to mistake them for world class talent but they did what the did well and they wore fun costumes.
 

Norm, I think your PTSD is kicking in.

Norm, I think your PTSD is kicking in.

Good point by FH that a double digit win over MN given how well they were playing was quite an accomplishment. We have ourselves a really good team!

Listening to analysts on BTN talk about us as a great place to recruit to was cool.

Listening to analysts on BTN talk about us as a great place to recruit to was cool.

Listening to analysts on BTN talk about us as a great place to recruit to was cool.

On a night when neither KT nor CJ are doing much, Huskers are still killing the rodents! Gary and Allick have been tremendous. 

On a night when neither KT nor CJ are doing much, Huskers are still killing the rodents! Gary and Allick have been tremendous. 

On a night when neither KT nor CJ are doing much, Huskers are still killing the rodents! Gary and Allick have been tremendous. 

On a night when neither KT nor CJ are doing much, Huskers are still killing the rodents! Gary and Allick have been tremendous. 

At least the song starts in Minnesota and there is a bunch of crying involved.

At least the song starts in Minnesota and there is a bunch of crying involved.

I have cheered doggedly for the Huskers all of my life. Still, by any measurable standard Nebraska HAS BEEN a basketball failure with a few outlier seasons along the way. MOST Nebraskans desperately want to cheer for the Huskers as opposed to Creighton but decades of disappointment has made MANY timid about it. Everyone knows the issues. Alas!!!
- Nebraska has not won a regular season conference title since 1950. 1950!!!! That means not in my lifetime! We would be giddy about finishing as a double bye team!
- Nebraska has only made the NCAA tournament 7 times and is the ONLY P5 conference team that has never won a game. This state would come unglued if the Huskers changed that this year. If Creighton won the NCAA title and Nebraska just won a first round game FEW in this state would be talking about Creighton. Almost everyone would be talking about the Huskers!
- Despite playing every year, Nebraska has only beaten Creighton 6 times in this century (one of the wins was an NIT match). It SICKENS me to eat crow instead of Bluejay every year!
 
There is not systemic reason why Nebraska has done so poorly. I don't think we have to be a Final 4 team. But this whole state is a spring wound tight ready to rally around the Huskers. It could be like no other program in the country. We just need some hope!If If Hoiberg can get this train rolling and Sam G/Derrick Walker are the hinges on which the gate of success swings then I say bless 'em and put up some statues!
 
GBR!!!!

Still living in east central Nebraska, I strongly disagree.  No one out here gives two squats about either one of them.  It would have been a different story had they went to Nebraska.  I don't fault them for their decisions.  It's their lives. Good for them.  Maybe they can get pats on the back in downtown Omaha.  I'm sure you know people in Aurora and Grand Island who care.  No one else does. I guarantee it.

I have cheered doggedly for the Huskers all of my life. Still, by any measurable standard Nebraska HAS BEEN a basketball failure with a few outlier seasons along the way. MOST Nebraskans desperately want to cheer for the Huskers as opposed to Creighton but decades of disappointment has made MANY timid about it. Everyone knows the issues. Alas!!!
- Nebraska has not won a regular season conference title since 1950. 1950!!!! That means not in my lifetime! We would be giddy about finishing as a double bye team!
- Nebraska has only made the NCAA tournament 7 times and is the ONLY P5 conference team that has never won a game. This state would come unglued if the Huskers changed that this year. If Creighton won the NCAA title and Nebraska just won a first round game FEW in this state would be talking about Creighton. Almost everyone would be talking about the Huskers!
- Despite playing every year, Nebraska has only beaten Creighton 6 times in this century (one of the wins was an NIT match). It SICKENS me to eat crow instead of Bluejay every year!
 
There is not systemic reason why Nebraska has done so poorly. I don't think we have to be a Final 4 team. But this whole state is a spring wound tight ready to rally around the Huskers. It could be like no other program in the country. We just need some hope!If If Hoiberg can get this train rolling and Sam G/Derrick Walker are the hinges on which the gate of success swings then I say bless 'em and put up some statues!
 
GBR!!!!

I have cheered doggedly for the Huskers all of my life. Still, by any measurable standard Nebraska HAS BEEN a basketball failure with a few outlier seasons along the way. MOST Nebraskans desperately want to cheer for the Huskers as opposed to Creighton but decades of disappointment has made MANY timid about it. Everyone knows the issues. Alas!!!
- Nebraska has not won a regular season conference title since 1950. 1950!!!! That means not in my lifetime! We would be giddy about finishing as a double bye team!
- Nebraska has only made the NCAA tournament 7 times and is the ONLY P5 conference team that has never won a game. This state would come unglued if the Huskers changed that this year. If Creighton won the NCAA title and Nebraska just won a first round game FEW in this state would be talking about Creighton. Almost everyone would be talking about the Huskers!
- Despite playing every year, Nebraska has only beaten Creighton 6 times in this century (one of the wins was an NIT match). It SICKENS me to eat crow instead of Bluejay every year!
 
There is not systemic reason why Nebraska has done so poorly. I don't think we have to be a Final 4 team. But this whole state is a spring wound tight ready to rally around the Huskers. It could be like no other program in the country. We just need some hope!If If Hoiberg can get this train rolling and Sam G/Derrick Walker are the hinges on which the gate of success swings then I say bless 'em and put up some statues!
 
GBR!!!!

It is a bit of a head scratcher whether we can cite just a single player as the pivot point to possible success. I would be content to credit Sam G as the soul of the transformation but Derrick Walker as the heart of it. If we had just one of the two, last year would have been VERY different and FH would be gone IMO.

We'll have our program's first NCAA tourney win.
 
That's it. That's the post.

It is a bit of a head scratcher whether we can cite just a single player as the pivot point to possible success. I would be content to credit Sam G as the soul of the transformation but Derrick Walker as the heart of it. If we had just one of the two, last year would have been VERY different and FH would be gone IMO.

It is a bit of a head scratcher whether we can cite just a single player as the pivot point to possible success. I would be content to credit Sam G as the soul of the transformation but Derrick Walker as the heart of it. If we had just one of the two, last year would have been VERY different and FH would be gone IMO.

It is a bit of a head scratcher whether we can cite just a single player as the pivot point to possible success. I would be content to credit Sam G as the soul of the transformation but Derrick Walker as the heart of it. If we had just one of the two, last year would have been VERY different and FH would be gone IMO.

Two years ago, we were coming off the worst three-year run in the modern history of the program. Maybe ever, but I'm not going to go back to the beginning to verify. Twenty-four wins combined in his first three seasons here and I'm of the understanding Fred thought he was done, which was why he didn't schedule a youth basketball camp that summer after his third season.
 
The only thing that probably saved his job was a potential need to keep our powder dry in order to fire Scott Frost at the helm of the flagship football program.
 
That spring, we picked up a portal commit from a Lincoln kid who wanted to come home and play his last season of college basketball in front of the hometown crowd. Turns out, that pickup was transformational, as Fred recently acknowledged in comments about Sam coming back to watch our game against Penn State. Sam Griesel, according to Fred, changed the culture of the team. It was unselfish ball, and it allowed people (including potential recruits) to see what the finished product was supposed to look like when we ran our system instead of running hero-ball.
 
There was another Summit League standout who was looking for a new home that same spring. A kid who grew up just west of here. We tried to get him to Lincoln. And he was gracious in turning us down. He observed that, while we're starting to build a culture here at Nebraska (which was a nice way of saying we didn't have one), another team just east of us already had one established. Hard to hold that against him. After three of the worst years in program history, it would have been a tall ask to get anyone to believe we were on the cusp of turning things around. You could get a local Lincoln kid to spend his last season of college ball here because it's literally his home. But drawing a kid with more extended eligibility was obviously not as easy.
 
Last season, though, we, as fans, could get a better glimpse of how the pieces fit together when the system was run the way it was intended. And so could recruits. Big men and backcourt players alike could watch our film and envision what their role would be in a Husker uniform. We have a system. We have a culture. We finally have an identity.
 
So, a little more than a year ago, I suggested the following:
 
 
Fred has said the way things played out last year and the success on the floor that we had at the end put us in position to land guys like Rienk Mast and Brice Williams. And, frankly, Ahron Ulis, but that's a different matter. We got everything from the portal that we needed -- a skilled post to replace Walker, a solid point guard to replace Griesel, and an athletic wing to provide some scoring punch -- we just didn't plan on the extracurriculars that would keep Ulis from participating this year.
 
And now, this year, it's hard to argue the trajectory of the program. And, again, potential recruits can watch our film and -- IMPORTANTLY -- they can easily see how they would fit within our system. I think that's huge when it comes to recruiting. It's like sales. You want the buyer to envision driving that car or drinking that beer. And I think kids will be able to imagine how they would fit in our program and how they could contribute.
 
And the doors we're unlocking with the way this season is playing out ... the NET might not factor in the story lines, but kids hitting the portal sure will.
 
All of this is just to say I think we'll enjoy our portal experience this spring. We have a FAR better chance of landing the kinds of players we were just missing out on a year or two ago.