Jacob Padilla

The effort by Palmer, Watson and Allen was particularly disappointing. Not bothering to box out, miscommunication and/or lack of effort on defense, lack of rotations, bad shots on offense. All kinds of signs that the team either wasn't prepared or didn't care. At least Amir Harris played hard.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'd be surprised if Easley chose to walk on. Much less so for Piatkowski.

Hard to do that without any shooters. Teams don't respect the guys they're trying to space the floor with. That backfired on Creighton, but not really for anybody else.

Where did you see that? That lineup had one good stretch in the first half (+2 in 3:53, 5-3) but was -6 (6-12) in 5:47 in the second half. The starting 5 was the best lineup tonight. It outscored Wisconsin 18-14 in 10:07. Allen, Palmer, Thorbjarnarson, Harris, Roby was also +4 (5-1) in 1:16. I tallied all this myself for a story. (FWIW, if a lineup was changed after a shooting foul I still charged those FT points to the previous lineup).

Akol was measured at 6'5.25" in shoes this past summer.

I shared five thoughts on the game over at Hail Varsity, and I posted my round-up from last week's games today. North Star has zero spacing, and Donovan struggles to find a way to be successful within that. A lot of times he just barrels into guys trying to draw fouls, or settles for way too many 3s. Talent is there, but he's got a lot to learn.

The SDSU staff absolutely loves him and think he's an immediate impact player for them. He doesn't quite have the explosiveness you'd like to see from a high-major player but the kid has unlimited range and great court vision, and he's gotten better at getting to the rim and finishing over the past year.

Washut RT.

Two years ago I thought Shiloh Robinson (the Kearney kid) might have had a chance to make it to the high-major ranks if he had continued his skill development and grown another couple of inches, but then he broke his wrist and missed a whole year of development and he didn't grow any. I think he's found a good spot for himself at Liberty, and I think he might have signed already anyway. I'm guessing you're thinking of Mayuom Buom at Lincoln Southwest; Southeast doesn't have any good bigs. He's definitely a late bloomer and JUCO probably is the path he will take. He's really long and really athletic, but he's really thin as well and doesn't quite know how to consistently use his physical tools and skills (he's got some shooting potential) to impact a game. He's only averaging like 11 points as a 6'9" kid in Nebraska. His feel for the game really has to improve.

Yeah, that definitely sounds like her. He's actually about the same age as Akol; he's old for his class.

He's shooting 28.8 percent on the season on 4.9 attempts per game. He's averaging 13.2 points on a .475 eFG% He's got a 102.4 offensive rating and he's not a good defender. He's taken more than 2 free throws in just 6 of his 15 games (and he hasn't gotten there in 7 of them). He's incredibly streaky from 3: 0-14 (4 games), 6-15 (4 games), 3-16 (3 games), 10-21 (3 games), and 2-7 against Creighton. 8 bad games, 7 decent to good ones, and still shooting just under 29% overall. Here are his numbers against high major teams (seven games; he's only played three Big East games so far - two good ones and one bad one against that defensive stalwart Creighton): 14.3 ppg, 45% FG (30.8% 3FG), 72.2% FT, 2.4 rpg, 1.6 apg, 2.1 tpg, 0.6 spg He doesn't do much else besides score, and he's not a terribly efficient scorer. He's a terrific athlete for sure and can do some special things, and he could be pretty good down the line. But he's not a great player now. RE your question about freshmen, here are the guys averaging double figures in a high-major conference who were outside of 247's top-150: Xavier Johnson (Pittsburgh, No. 232), CJ Elleby (Washington State, NR), Isaiah Joe (Arkansas, No. 171), Rasir Bolton (Penn State, No. 206), Wynston Tabbs (Boston College, No. 287), Giorgi Bezhanishvili (Illinois, No. 370). It's as much about opportunity as anything else.

Posted this in the in-state thread: RE John Tonje: He's having a great year. Very good 3-point shooter, has really improved his ball-handling and ability to attack the basket, and he's very explosive (yes, he dunks effortlessly, Norm). Solid frame at 6'5". From talking to coaches (and my own observations) the question mark is his lateral quickness and ability to guard on the perimeter at the next level. The high majors in the area don't see him as a high major player, but LM/MM coaches are starting to take a look. He wasn't a full qualifier during the summer, which hurt his recruitment, but he is now. As for why UNO hasn't snatched him up yet, beats me. I've talked to them about it. They've been recruiting and monitoring him for a long time. An assistant was just at the last Prep-Central game on Saturday. They just haven't offered yet. RE the first Prep-Central game, Akol definitely shut John down. Akol's length bothered him tremendously. Blocked him a couple times and forced some wild shots. In round two, John was much more aggressive and less hesitant. He still didn't play all that well (5-14 on 2s, 1-8 on 3s) but he did score 21 points and the buckets he did get were impressive.

Haven't had time to stop by in a while, but I've been covering a lot of high school basketball over at Hail Varsity for those here that are interested. Every Monday I'm recapping how the previous week went for Akol, Donovan, Chunky and Hunter and I'm writing at least one story a week on a high school game, some involving the Husker recruits and some not. RE John Tonje: He's having a great year. Very good 3-point shooter, has really improved his ball-handling and ability to attack the basket, and he's very explosive (yes, he dunks effortlessly, Norm). Solid frame at 6'5". From talking to coaches (and my own observations) the question mark is his lateral quickness and ability to guard on the perimeter at the next level. The high majors in the area don't see him as a high major player, but LM/MM coaches are starting to take a look. He wasn't a full qualifier during the summer, which hurt his recruitment, but he is now. RE Lök Wur, he can score a little bit in the post and has a soft touch, but his slight frame makes it tough for him to anchor in the post and finish through contact. For instance, he struggled mightily against Shiloh Robinson from Kearney. He'll probably be a JUCO kid. Javen Udofia is probably a JUCO kid as well. Right now, he only has a couple of NAIA offers. Good athlete, but doesn't shoot well. Donovan had a really bad start to the season but has really caught fire from 3 over his last several games and is close to 40% now. Akol, on the other hand, has really struggled with his shot. He hit 7 of his first 17 3s, but has missed 8 straight (depending on what happened in Monday's game against Millard North; box score hasn't been posted yet). Prep as a team has struggled mightily from 3 lately which has allowed teams to collapse the paint and make things tough on Akol. Let me know if there are questions about anybody else.

As you well know, there's more to basketball than highlight dunks. He's 1-17 from 3 this season and has more turnovers than assists. Great athlete, but there's a reason he wasn't ranked more highly than he was. 247 had him at 245.

That argument would hold more weight if so many of his fouls weren't moving screens or silly reach-ins. That's just stuff he has to clean up no matter what position he's playing.

He still played the post for OSA and did a pretty good job of holding his own against bigger guys, sometimes much bigger. Aurora's Baylor Scheierman, who signed with South Dakota State, was the tallest player on that team at 6'6" or so and he's a point guard. Akol got really hot in the last few weeks of July and his 3-point percentage spiked form that stretch.

I wrote about Jervay for my Friday column. I'm going to disagree about 67% being respectable, especially for a guard who gets to the line as often as he can. Free-throw shooting is often an indication of true shooting ability and it's something a lot of NBA Draft analysts look at when evaluating prospects because of the sometimes small sample size of college basketball. The free throw struggles plus his 3-point percentage as a freshman give me pause about how real this hot start is, but it's on such high volume and he's doing it both off the catch and off the dribble, so that is certainly a good sign about it being sustainable improvement.

I went to Akol's signing today and talked with him and Josh Luedtke. Here's my story in case anyone is interested.

*32

The student part of "student-athlete" still matters.

He looked good but let's just say it wasn't his best performance. Elevating to finish is something that he just can't do and his lack of length hurts him while trying to finish as well. But he moved around pretty well. Just have him set screens for the scorers and let them do their thing and he should be fine.

Looking at his career splits, Nebraska has actually done about as good of a job on him as anyone in the conference. He's shooting under 44% for his career in 5 games against the Huskers and his assist total is down as well (just 13 of them in those games to 15 turnovers). The area Nebraska struggles the most is keeping him off the free-throw line as he's taken more shots from there against Nebraska than against anyone else. Fortunately for the Huskers, he's under 50% on those shots. Also fun fact: Happ has made one career 3-pointer and it was against Nebraska. Regardless of what he's done against Nebraska, though, he's unquestionably one of the best players in the country and I'd say you can argue he's the best in the conference ahead of Edwards because of all the ways he impacts the game. He's a double-double threat in any gven game and is one of the best passing big men in the country, not to mention he is such a disruptive force on defense with blocks and steals and his overall mobility.

Indeed, and Patton's progress was remarkable and he ended up at 7'. Shanklin is 6'7" and his feel for the game is a significant obstacle. Go actually watch him play a game and you'll see where I'm coming from. Shanklin's frame is better but if you're looking for 2020 bigs with upside Max Murrell at Millard North is much farther along (and even he is pretty raw). Murrell has an offer from UMKC right now and has been to Purdue and Iowa. What was the point of that comment, AuroranHusker? I have watched him play many, many times. I was simply saying he's got a lot of work to do before he's anything more than an NAIA/D-II prospect (which is what he currently is).

Donovan was court side for the preview on Wednesday night. I included a comment from him in my run down of the event.

He's got a looooong way to go.