Nebrasketball1979

The decision to fire Tubby Smith was bizarre, at least from afar, at the time. Seems like they were always chasing someone bigger and better, ended up going after the Pitino name and getting someone worse, and now have likely been set back several years once Pitino is canned at the end of the season. On another note, Minnesota has opened up as a 1.5 point favorite. Given how slow Vegas and the betting public has taken to react to Nebrasketball, this isn't surprising. Nebraska hasn't been road warriors by any means as they haven't played nearly as well away from the Vault, even in their recent wins. However, give me Nebraska all day long with this line. We proved we can beat them at full strength and I really like our chances against a depleted team that has lost 8 of 9 and also lost in OT just two days ago. I'm not saying Minnesota has quit because they didn't play like they had against Michigan (who had an awful game in their own right) but if we punch this team in the mouth early, I don't think we are going to get much fight back. Husker cover and win outright by 7 points, with or without Coffey playing for Minnesota.

Yes, completely agree...they are a much different and better team with Reaves. The last game against them at the end of the season will not be easy but fortunately it's at the Vault, which should be rocking in anticipation of locking up a tournament bid! Also, all 4 "votes", which are really points, came from 1 writer in Indiana. If you're ranked 25th on 1 ballot, you get 1 vote. If you're ranked 24th on another ballot that counts as two "votes" and you get a total of 3 votes overall for the 2 ballots you were on. So, we had one guy vote us 22nd, which equals 4 "votes". We were not on 4 different ballots. So....by my math, this guy needs to move us up another 73 spots in his rankings for us to check in at #25 next week. Otherwise, we need a few more people to hop on the bandwagon, but at least there is one person covering basketball that understands what they are seeing .

Palmer was quoted as saying that Miles gave him "direct orders" to not get sick. I would say the team has it's priorities in order!

To be fair, Nebraska basketball has been around since the early 1900's so I think the conversation extends a little farther back than Collier and Sadler . Also, we haven't won a regular season conference title since 1950 - Wikipedia told me this so it must be true but I'm not old enough to vouch for the accuracy!

Ha - I can't disagree with the general concept but keep in mind that Nebrasketball has struck out over and over and over again. We've struck out so much, we've had perfect games thrown against this program with 27 strikeouts. So I, myself, am not confident we can get another extra base hit, let alone a homerun hire. To keep the baseball analogy, I think Miles has been a "double" type hire with the potential to be a homerun with a little more time. I just like how the program is trending but can understand while others may not be as optimistic.

I am very new to this site but this is, without a doubt, the best thing I have read on a message board. If I could rec this a million times, I would! I also agree wholeheartedly as I vividly remember the end of the Nee years and then the following years of basketball purgatory. I never liked Collier, loved Sadler the man - not the coach, and now really, really hope we give Miles time to continue to build this thing. It's no accident the roster is as talented as it is - Miles did not luck into this. And I'll continue to argue that transfers are the way of the world now in college basketball - again I'll cite that they are up 54% over the last six seasons. Give Miles credit for exploiting this market and picking out quality talent, even when they don't always stay as long as we want. He's also had an influx of talent from the traditional recruiting path (Roby, Watson, Tshimanga, etc). Very well said Norm and I hope to god we don't go through another six year coaching cycle because I won't be too far behind you in haunting this message board from the grave

Well, the good news here is that a neutral site tier 1 win is anyone with an RPI between 1-50 so Michigan would count in the tourney as Tier 1.

I was scouring twitter and saw that Jerry Palm again made another reference about Nebraska's chances of getting in the dance. He brought up the much maligned quadrants that we frequently discuss. He quoted that three bubble teams have zero quadrant 1 wins. Boise St. and Syracuse are 0-3 while Nebraska is 0-5. Michigan is currently #32 in RPI. I agree with royalfan sentiment that there is zero difference between a team with an RPI of #30 (which would qualify Michigan as a Tier 1 Home win) and #32; however I believe the optics of not having a goose-egg under Tier 1 wins is important. So, I have waffled on this for a few weeks, but I do believe it is important that Michigan moves up a few more spots in RPI to get rid of that zero we have under quadrant 1 wins. And, if we continue to take care of business and go 5-1 or better to finish, I can't fathom Michigan running the table themselves to overtake us for the 4th seed.

Based on Michigan's schedule, we could go 4-2 to finish the year and still finish with the #4 seed. Based on the unbalanced league schedule, our lack of quality non-conference wins, and only 1 high quality in conference win, I'd bet a lot of fake money we are far on the outside looking in under this scenario - thinking 10-20 teams would be ahead of us at this point . Now, if we rattle off a win against Michigan and Purdue in the BIG tournament, that's a different story. But, to assume we are in solely on getting the #4 slot in the Big Standings is fools gold. If you look at the committee data sheets, conference record or rank is not shown anywhere because it doesn't matter.

Well, some good news is that Lunardi finally has Nebraska among the next 4 out and officially 8 spots away. I think this is encouraging for one primary reason - it at least gets Nebraska on more radars. It would be hard to convince me that these selection committee members don't at least peak at these bacteriology projections. And, at least seeing them included is a start for more discussion amongst the broader national media and it should help get more selection committee eyeballs on upcoming games as well. In any event, we can speculate all we want on how many games we need to win to get in. The bottom line is keep winning and we should continue to inch up all of these projections.

And they have - great bubble bursting night for the Huskers!!! See, sometimes it helps not to play to let all these mediocre teams pile up losses to bad teams.

Doc Sadler would be proud of the game plan and execution of the yellow jackets!

Syracuse with a big loss tonight to lowly Ga. Tech. Boeheim gets everything coming to him, which hopefully is a top seed in the NIT before being put on indefinite probation next year.

I don't think the whole "Transfer U" label is all that fair. That's the way of the world now in college basketball. Below is a list of the number of transfers by year since 2012 and this comes from www.verbalcommits.com: 2012 - 572 2013 - 672 2014 - 753 2015 - 829 2016 - 801 2017 - 882 Over the course of 6 years, transfers are up 54% across college basketball. With the volume of transfers, I give Miles a ton of credit for being able to pick out the Petteway's, Pitchford's, Palmer's and Copeland's. I think it shows that Nebraska does their homework on the transfer market. I agree wholeheartedly that traditional recruiting needs to keep pace to keep success sustainable as we've seen there are no guarantees these transfers stick around more than a year (cough, cough AFW III - you can guess the F). And, to this point, Miles deserves recent credit for the likes of Watson, Roby, and Allen, and Jordy (hopefully he sticks around). And, I'm also very high on Xavier Johnson being an impact player. So, I think Miles has done a very good job constructing the current roster and have faith in him going forward. Knowing that roster attrition is inevitable in just about every program, would we be better off this year with Morrow, Jacobson, and Horne or Palmer and Copeland? I think that is pretty easy but I do realize this doesn't have to be an either/or type of question. However, that's just the direction college basketball has been heading for a long time. Given the way of the world with transfers and Miles knack for pulling out quality kids off the transfer market, I'll roll the dice with Tim and the fact that he can manage the inevitable roster attrition when it strikes.

Jerry Palm is starting to take notice and rightfully so (hell, it's nice national media was actually watching us play because of us!!!)...I suspect he's not the only national talking head that will have to start taking a closer look at NU

We are not only kicking some serious ass on the court right now but we are crushing Vegas with another line they missed by 15 points. I believe 17-6 ATS, which is crazy good. Hopefully there is a degenerate gambler on the selection committee and can argue this point on our behalf!

Yes, caught that...the leadership on this team is crazy good. That attitude is contagious and is something the last several Nebraska teams has sorely missed. To have Jordy quit and then the leaders step in to to not only get him back but welcome him back, that old me all I need to know about this team and its leadership/chemistry.

Ha, sure, maybe I am a prisoner of the moment and forgot about that semi-impressive ?Michigan beatdown...BUT...to be down 11 on the road with 10 minutes left and your potential tourney hopes on the line and rally to win by 11...WOW

I would say the guys earned a few days off this week...super impressed how they closed out the final of 4 games in 8 days. Such grit.

Well, nothing like the easy, garden variety 11 point road win ?

YES, YES, YES....GO CRY IN YOUR CHEERIOS WISCONSIN!!! What a gutty, gutty win. This won't budge the computer rankings much but you could argue this was the most impressive win of the year.

Was Happ granted immunity from all fouls before the game????

Whatever button Tim pushed, push it over and over!

Tim has to preach 8 minutes to ball out then you get 8 days off!!!

Please, please, please just foul Happ when he is within five feet of the basket