HB

Molinari was saying Gill was specifically more suited to defend the 3 than some of our other guys. And Miles has commented that our athleticism suffered when Gill went down (thus the 1-3-1 rather than zones which require more athleticism than we'll get with, say, Horne).

I thought the radio show last night was interesting, and recommend a listen to those with time. Molinari appeared for Miles, and was pretty direct and candid. Two items of interest among many covered: He mentioned that losing Gill hurt our 3 point defense a lot. We only have 3 true guards without him, Tai, Glynn and Evan. Gill could fight through picks and close out with his athleticism, and we are considerably more limited defensively without him. We only gave up six 3s a game before he went out. It didn't come off to me as an excuse; just as analysis. As my editorial, it's interesting how at least 90% of the posts about Gill had to do with offense. Typical of message boards and fans. Secondly, Greg was asking if the team would be able to keep coming back from the close losses. Coach said he had no doubt it would. First of all it takes on the persona of Coach Miles, and this team just plays hard. The fans seem to like this team for its effort and character, despite the record, and its easy to see that. Finally, Greg and he jousted about the proposed rule changes, for which we have a separate thread. I would have just said "Change is bad".

Stan "Lionel Ritchie" Cloudy references are always welcome. Standhardinger couldn't hold a candle to some of the things Stan was able to accomplish while he was here.....

CHANGE IS BAD, CHANGE IS BAD!!! ?????

Man, U got that right! An abject failure. Which is a good thing.

Could be 50 years. Or never. Blowing up a strong program with a proven coach and starting over from the cellar is an unbelievably risky play. And if it doesn't work us fans for life are stuck with it, and the instigators are long gone with golden parachutes. See Pedersen, Steve, and Perlman, Harvey.

Norm on a roll with the Socratic method!

Given the lack of post depth I have been surprised we haven't heard of any efforts made to get a juco or spring high school signee. We need players, and need them asap.

If past history shows anything, SE doesn't have a hire lined up which would justify blowing things up. He was brought in to fire Bo, had plenty of time to have someone lined up, and he hires an old guy about to get fired, who has an inadequate staff with no experience in the league and recruiting radius, and a system which didn't exactly fit our existing talent or the league. In women's basketball, he was conducting his witch hunt on Yori for months, and despite having time to search for an impact hire, and a much more successful program to hire to, goes for a low D 1 coach who brings her entire staff here, despite not having a coach on it who had ever coached one game for a power conference team, or recruited to a level above South Dakota. No, I wouldn't exactly count on our current AD being able to find an upgrade to what we have.

Cip, you are so tired you couldn't even muster up a Standhardinger reference in that historical summary.....

Reported this morning that he still doesn't have the required test score. Just retook the ACT. Purportedly has offers from several Summitt league teams and D1 programs in a Texas. Plus jucos.

Does Wingett even have any D1 offers? Unless I am missing recruiting interest in this guy, it doesn't look like we're setting ourselves up for major regret.

Chode, I didn't intend to start a whole rehash of the whole Yori demise, but just a couple of comments in response: This was a firing. You don't pay people 90% of their remaining multi-year contract if they walk in and say they are resigning due to personal issues. In addition to that common sense observation, and knowledge of many details of the 9 month witch hunt that the department conducted, I have read the entire divorce file. I'm pretty comfortable that this wasn't a situation of the stark choice between coaching and the kid. As for JulieTuttle, she left the department for a brief period of time to work at Creighton, and then quickly returned to the UNL athletic department, where I believe she was assigned to the concussion protocol team. Anyway, the transfers should help next year since we really need help at the guard position. But we'll need much more than that to get back to upper division finishes. Time will tell and I'll hope for the best, but it's hard to fathom how we could have gotten to this place with the program.

Steve, to answer your question: Yes. We are really lacking in overall talent. We have just a handful of upper D 1 players. Lots of marginal players for this level. It's not about effort or fire or organization or inexperience. If we ever dig out of this hole Eichorst put our formerly strong program in, it will take recruiting, recruiting, and some more recruiting. And that has been slowed while the staff makes contacts and adjusts to this level, since none of them, not one assistant ever coached at a power conference level. So we take transfers (good move) and 1 player who we had before this staff got here. I see no effort for jucos or spring signings. Very surprising to me. With our overall talent level, I think its too early to judge the coaching, game preparation and player development of the staff (although I had hoped for better off-season development from Simon, Washington and Shepherd). Certainly nothing jumps out as saying they are doing "more with less", but they are hindered by having some D2 players get substantial minutes, and can't publicly say that. Time will tell on both the recruiting and coaching fronts. But if the first part of that doesn't quick into gear quickly, we may never know about the second.

Wiscy 70 NU 61

Reminding me of that howler makes me feel a lot better about the situation.....

Even if Dirk is right, and our talent, while better than it has been from a ratings standpoint over the past 15 years, is still not at a high level compared to or Big 10 peers: Do we have confidence that our AD can find someone who will get better talent than what we have been recruiting the past 2 years? I do not. I'm also not confident we can get a better group of assistants than the current ones from a recruiting standpoint. A change to get Dirk better talent is not without considerable risk. I hope next year we aren't cursed with injuries and can get over the hump, and let the current staff see if they can up the talent level even more. Regardless, I hope we can wait until Eichorst/Behm aren't doing the hiring.

I would think we would have come to that consensus long ago.

Agree; much respect to Allie, playing hurt and showing leadership. And she is more vocal this year. Getting a T was frankly awesome.

I'm a member, for sure.

Luck. It was a closer game than that. Didn't deserve to be right on the score.

Iowa 81 NU 70

Glad to know that, Cip! I will order one for sure. Would have had lunch at Conlee's today......if you were open!

Place was Austin's, then Charlies, then the Chinese place (I think Jade Palace or something like that), and now Misty's. What should be a good location hasn't worked out so well.

NU 70 MSU 67