Jacob Padilla

Jace just wasn't able to be there for the team photo.

247 moved him up to 58 in their rankings. Rivals has him at 61. He's not ranked by ESPN. So how is he No. 49 in the 247 Composite?

Will be interesting to see how Mater Dei does this year. Devin Askew did like 85% of their ball-handling last year. He's gone and so is their starting SG and their 6th man. Breidenbach, Nick Davidson and Harrison Hornery are all D-I guys, but they all do some of the same things and are all about the same size. Not sure who's going to create off the bounce for them.

Traudt: “I grew up a fan of Oklahoma and it was really neat to get an offer from them,” he said. ”My mom's side of the family is all Oklahoma fans. My grandpa is a big OU fan and that is why I grew up a fan.” https://omaha.com/sports/high-school/recruiting/plus/isaac-traudts-recruitment-grows-with-six-power-conference-offers-in-one-week/article_5c7b9cbd-3e19-59bf-b48f-bf65ddc117f1.html

Going to have to wait until we see what next year's roster looks like before I feel good about making any sort of projections. Will be interesting to see what kind of senior year he has too, especially without Devin Askew on the team. Breidenbach's sophomore year was actually better than his junior year, so it's hard to project forward from now until I see more of him and more of what this year's Nebraska team will look like. He might be better served playing a smaller role early on even if he doesn't redshirt while he adjusts to the physicality and speed of the college game.

I've watched four of his games now on YouTube. Kevin Durant and Kevin Garnett are... lofty comparisons. He already does a lot of things for Mater Dei that Hoiberg likes to have his big men do – ball screens, hand-offs, initiating offense from the high post as a passer, playing on the perimeter, grab and go on rebounds if the opportunity is there. According to MaxPreps, he made 16 3s in 30 games last year (they don't chart misses). He was 2-10 in the four games I've watched. The shot is smooth but it seems like he still has a ways to go before he's a consistent shooter. Good footwork in the post, heavily favors the left hand around the basket despite shooting jumpers right-handed, good passer, good help defender, plays hard (tries to take charges and hits the floor for loose balls often, runs the floor hard). He's definitely going to have to hit the weights hard once he gets to Lincoln and needs to play more physically on the defensive glass (gave up position too easily at times), but he's active on the offensive glass when he's not floating out at the 3-point line.

Pohto was going to play for OSA this summer before the pandemic happened. Would have been interesting to see him play in person alongside Sallis and DeVries.

From what I understand, the cap is three games in an MTE. Anything more than that would be stand-alone nonconference games that also happen to be taking part in the same place as the MTE. So all these teams aren't ending up in a 16-team bracket.

Yeah, Hunter was playing hurt in the state title game and clearly wasn't himself.

Hoiberg apparently sees McGowens as a scoring point guard, and we've seen how much he struggled playing off the ball next to another non-shooting point guard (with no shooters around him) at Pitt. Webster had to play with the ball in his hands a lot at Western Illinois which led to high-volume, low-efficiency scoring. I think Nebraska wants to get him a lot more catch-and-shoot opportunities than he's had the last three years. Defensively, I doubt Banton guards point guards regardless of what he does on offense, so it's not like Webster would have to guard 2s when he's on the court.

If I was the coach I'd personally try to stagger Banton and McGowens as much as possible based on what we've seen from them to this point. When King was part of the picture, I actually thought a redshirt year for McGowens would have served him well, giving Hoiberg a year to work with him on his shot and polish his game. But that's off the table now. Hoiberg will get a chance to see how those two play together in practice, and perhaps both have improved enough to make it work.

I'd have to side with aphilso. Most of what he pointed out was definitely true — his production was more out of volume than effectiveness. He actively hurt Nebraska most of the time with the number of shots he took and missed, especially with the way teams were defending him. Almost every player in Division I basketball can put together a nice highlight reel if he plays enough minutes. But if you're supposed to make your impact on offense and you shoot 40.5% from 2, 27.6% from 3 and 68.2% from the free-throw line with a 1-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to be good at. Cross is undersized as a big and not quick or athletic enough to play on the wing. Though he appears to have a baseline level of skills to build upon, he's got a long way to go before he's even an average shooter, let alone a plus one. I think he has a much better chance of having a successful career at a lower level than he would have in the Big Ten.

Asked someone who would have a good idea and it doesn't sound like UNO will be a part of it.

If anybody here happens to subscribe to Hail Varsity, I wrote a breakdown of McGowens' first two seasons using his Synergy numbers back in May. Granted, he was in as bad of a situation as a player of his skill set could probably find, but his efficiency needs to make a massive step forward this season for Nebraska to succeed. Will be curious to see how Nebraska uses him alongside other creators like Banton and Teddy and Webster after he struggled so much playing next to Xavier Johnson. Highlights: – He was very good in transition as a freshman; he got a lot fewer opportunities in the open floor and was much less effective as a sophomore, though. Nebraska is going to play a lot faster than Pitt did so he should have a chance to get back to where he was as a freshman. – He showed a lot of improvement as a pick-and-roll creator as a sophomore after struggling as a freshman. – Small sample size, but he shot a lot better on his catch-and-shoot opportunities (especially the open ones) as a sophomore than he did as a freshman. Negatives: – His overall efficiency in the halfcourt was very poor. – He really struggled to be effective spotting up, whether it was on catch-and-shoot looks or attacking closeouts for pull-ups or shots at the rim. – He was just average in isolation as a sophomore after not doing it really at all as a freshman.

Kobe Webster said he thinks shooting will be a strength of the team. Outside of himself, he mentioned Lat, Teddy and Thorir as the best shooters on the team. All three have posted good percentages on decent volume (though for the first two, that was at the JUCO level). Webster shot 37%, 41% and 33% in his three years at Western Illinois. I'm guessing Hoiberg's going to be able to generate easier looks for him than he got at WIU so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to at least get back to that freshman year percentage. Stevenson shot 39% at Pittsburgh on a small sample size (just over one attempt per game). That gives you five guys that you can reasonably hope to see shoot in the 35-40% range. Banton and McGowens will probably be poor shooters while the three bigs will likely be non-shooters. Last year, Thorbjarnarson was the only one in that range with everybody else right around that break-even point (33%) or worse. Nebraska probably won't be one of the best shooting teams in the Big Ten, and there's been enough variance with al of these guys to have some doubt, but I think you can reasonably be optimistic about the team having enough shooting to be competitive this season.

Sautter being invested one way or another is bad for business. He has good relationships with all three D-I schools in the state. I can guarantee you he isn't "someone who clearly wants to see Traudt as a bluebird." His job is to gather info, interview recruits and paint the picture of kids' recruitment.

He makes a lot of good points, but I disagree with his central premise of there being two AAUs. Just like most other things, grassroots basketball has a wide spectrum and a lot of the various levels interact with each other. First of all, summer basketball isn't just for the shoe circuit leagues and the 4- and 5-star prospects. High-, mid- and low-major coaches as well as coaches at the D-II, D-III and NAIA levels all go to (or this summer, watch the streams from) the same tournaments. There are a lot of good programs and coaches that compete directly against the ones that give AAU its bad reputation. Summer basketball is primarily for exposure and there are plenty of people at the top that try to profit off kids and steer recruitment. But even among the shoe circuits there are some really good programs that focus on both development and exposure. Take OSA for instance. They have their Adidas teams that compete on that circuit - D-I, D-II and NAIA level recruits. The next level is the national teams, and how many they have depend on the amount of talent in that particular class. The first national team is mostly recruitable guys for NAIA programs. Personally, I'm coaching at the second national team level. Last summer, I had four players that went on to college to play at the NAIA or JUCO level, two that played their senior year and three that called it quits after the summer (just to give you an idea of the mix). Below that is the regional teams that are mostly for kids that won't play for their high school teams and just want to have fun and get better.

Even better: his name is actually St. Cyr Thomas. He goes by Saint.

I know Rivals and 247 keep calling him one, but Hunter isn't a natural point guard. You want that guy focusing on getting buckets, and he's grown enough to be just fine at the two. I'd be surprised if Wisconsin was a significant threat to land him, but they'd have no problems playing Chucky and Hunter together, and Chucky certainly isn't going to stop recruiting him (heck, he used some of his post-championship press conference to try to recruit Hunter to play with him this summer).

Kevin sent me his list and I did a bit of a deeper dive into it last month if anybody here happens to subscribe to Hail Varsity. https://hailvarsity.com/s/9422/history-of-division-ii-to-division-i-transfers-at-the-high-major-level

Jack Dotzler is Josiah Dotzler's cousin, not brother (they don't even pronounce their names the same way; funny story there). He's headed to Morningside to play basketball. Josiah is one of the top few prospects in the state in 2023 along with Brennon Clemmons Jr., Tate Odvody (was Elkhorn South, now at Omaha Westside) and Rylan Smith (Lincoln Southwest), though he's also old for his grade.

If we're talking pure run-jump athleticism, Stevenson is probably the only one who can compete with Akol. Banton is more skilled and longer, but I think Akol is probably more explosive. That was the least meaningful part of he comment, though, and it wasn't meant to speak to his spot on the depth chart at all. Obviously the coaches aren't going to publicly say he's not good enough and has a terrible attitude, but Gates spoke highly of how Arop is handling this season and what he's bringing to the locker room. Anybody who watched him play before signing knew he was going to be a project to play at that level, especially in Hoiberg's system. Fred saw enough to accept his commitment, however, whereas he pushed almost everybody out like Penitent pointed out. There's a decent chance Akol doesn't finish his career at Nebraska like there is with any player these days, but I don't think him failing to crack the top 8-9 right now means he'll never be able to play.

When Armon Gates filled in on the Husker Hoops Show, he said Akol is the only forward they've got eligible that has elite Big Ten athleticism. Gates said he wasn't worried at all about Akol's attitude. He said he's a great glue and locker room guy and that he's buying into his role.

Wal's always been talented but it never translated to consistent, efficient production. It looks like he's finally turned a corner this season. He's got a D-II offer but that's all right now. I'm guessing he's headed for the junior college route. Oh, and Tim Miles still likes him.