Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty

Agree, that is another reason. I just wholeheartedly disagree with that being a factor in a ranking, at least to the extent that two teams with extremely similar wins and losses are ranked 50 spots apart. What happens in the final minutes of a game that’s already essentially over should have no bearing on how a team is assessed. But these predictive metrics that care so much about efficiency ratings assign meaning to meaningless basketball. Heck, we could see how hesitant Fred was last night to put in the scrubs. He only did it after Howard opted to do it, because he knew it was important for our metrics to make sure a 20 point lead didn’t dwindle to 12. Absurdity.

The biggest knock against us right now is our miserable road performance. If our lone win is vs. #55 rather than #85, that likely pushes us ahead of multiple teams in the pecking order. A fine tradeoff if that means K-State jumps us.

BYU is such a prime example of how bad all the predictive metrics are. Here’s a snapshot of their resume with our resume in parentheses. Q1: 3-5 (3-5) Q2: 2-1 (3-3) Q3: 2-0 (4-0) Q4: 9-0 (7-0) Road: 2-4 (1-7) NET SOS: 45 (42) Results metrics: KPI: 38 (35) SOR: 26 (37) Getting away from the numbers, if you subjectively compare their best wins to ours, ours are better. And their better road record is thanks to playing a Q3 road game, a luxury we don’t have. So… very similar resumes. I think ours is better, but I wouldn’t complain if BYU was ahead of us by a seed line. But nope… thanks to their insane predictive metrics (NET 8, KenPom 11, BPI 15) they are a 5 seed in most brackets! So why are their predictive metrics so good? The answer is simple, and the answer is stupid. They inflated their efficiency ratings by winning a handful of Q4 games by 40-50 points. That’s right. They’re a 5 seed and we’re a bubble team because they blew out the worst D-1 teams by more than we did. Absurd.

We want K-State to win as much as possible. The boost it gives to our resume is well worth the tradeoff of them getting into the bubble picture. If we end up without another road win, it would be huge if K-State could somehow find their way into the 50s in NET.

Not gonna lie, I’m surprised so many in here are big enough Nebrasketball fans to post on message boards yet sit in the nosebleeds. Basketball games are an entirely different experience up close. Totally worth the upcharge, especially since Nebrasketball games are cheap.

Bryce probably is the 4th or 5th best player right now. What many Husker fans don’t realize is that unless you’re a top 10 recruit, you likely aren’t going to be an absolute star freshman. Some blossom into stars by the end of the year, but most of the backend five stars are just solid role players right off the bat. That’s what Bryce looks to be right now, but eventually it’ll all click for him. He’s clearly very talented.

Yeah for sure. There's still time for it to come to fruition. I'm not going to write him off just yet.

Agree... I don't know why people are so offended by this. I don't know if the Cuse kid meant it as an insult... he may have simply stated what he thought about when he heard they were going to Nebraska. And for those that took it as an insult... if you're insecure about living in a state with a low population, why don't you leave?

Not claiming what he says is true. Just passing on what I saw. I guess we'll find out soon.

From Brett Edwards, who's apparently a sportscaster in Lincoln? "I've been hearing not so great things about the Nebraska MBB team. Look for some things to shake out here soon. That's all I can say for now" Apparently it wasn't all he could say for now, as he followed it with this tweet: "It's mostly regarding possible roster attrition"

Yes. You know "a dream come true" can be used to describe something that's far-fetched, right?

Actually, I'm not assuming that at all. But I am saying that it's worth the try.

This would be an absolute dream come true.

Sounds like a win-win. No buyout and we get a new coach.

This exactly. We’ll see if they can take the next step next year. But I have serious doubts because of our lack of size. How many times did a big man have a career game against us over the last couple months? That kid tonight probably dunked on us five times. Unless we start scoring like Villanova, it’s going to continue to be hard to overcome that.

We’ve had three crappy coaches in a row. That doesn’t mean we’ll never get a good one.

By that I meant a typical NIT team. Clearly better than an average team. But yes, I definitely think this is not the March Madness worthy team that you think it is.

I think tonight provided a clear argument that we’d be no better than 19-15 if we played the same schedules as the teams to which you refer. Metrics are there for a reason. They aren’t perfect, but they help paint a clearer picture than simply comparing 22 wins vs 19. We beat up on mediocre teams and had three or four nice wins at home. Sad fact is that we aren’t used to seeing good basketball in Lincoln. When we finally got a team that was competent, we held them with high regard in our minds. Looking back, this is an average NIT squad, and I’m afraid it’s the apex for Timmy here. Unfortunately, he bought himself another year. No tournament next year and he better not be back in 2020.

Yeah, I'm just basing it on the general vibe of the board. I've definitely seen people say we'll be a consistently ranked team next year, too. I've felt that way at times as well, so maybe my post was more directed towards my past opinions than anyone else's specifically haha. I agree that the continuity and being able to start a season already knowing our identity should be helpful in getting off to a fast start. For now, I'm kind of expecting something like an 8 seed type of season, but if the balls bounce our way I could see something better than that, and if they don't, I could see another NIT bid. We'll see what happens with Palmer, Copeland, and Jordy. And we'll see how effective players like Allen, Nana, Thorir, and Xavier Johnson can be in replacing the lost production of Taylor and Gill.

This opinion won’t be liked in here, but here goes... IMO, the most optimistic fans in here are exaggerating the improvement we made throughout the season. While yes, we did improve some, as most teams do, I think the schedule is the main explanation. A few points to back my case: 1. Early in the season, we beat a tough Minnesota team at home. 2. That same week, we nearly beat Kansas at home. 3. That same week, we outplayed and nearly beat Creighton in Omaha. 4. Around that same time, we beat a decent Boston College team at home by double digits. 5. During our stretch of “playing better basketball”, we had wins at Northwestern and Wisconsin and at home against Maryland, Penn State, and Michigan. We also needed a miracle to win at home against Illinois. To me, the results from points 1-4 point to a similar team as the one from point 5. I think the reasons people use to justify our “vast improvement” are these: 1. We played terribly against St. John’s 2. We lost to UCF 3. We went 13-5 in conference I agree that if we played at St. John’s today, we’d probably fare better than we did in November. But we still might easily lose that game. We may easily lose at UCF today as well when you consider Tacko Fall’s presence. And our conference record was helped by the light schedule we drew. What’s my point in all of this? That the people expecting us to be a consistently ranked team next year and a shoe-in for the dance are getting ahead of themselves, IMO. Because if we replayed our entire schedule starting today, I’m not so sure it’d have gone much differently. I like that we (should) return the core of our production. I do like our chances of making the tournament, but would not be surprised if we didn’t. And in that case, Tim would have to go. This program’s ceiling is not the NIT.

How would playing Kansas State be any better for our resume than Creighton?

Umm it absolutely would have helped us... had we won. Instead of pulling a pansy move by dropping him from the schedule, how about we stick it to him by actually beating them for once?

Exactly. It's not like the room isn't full of opinionated dudes either. They aren't just gonna bow down to him because he's the Chair. If he really was making a strong case for us, I'm sure someone would have been willing to call him out for trying to favor the in-state team.

Fact is we only had one win against a tournament team. Every team that made the tournament had at least a handful of them. It sucks that our opportunities against Purdue, Michigan State, and Ohio State didn't come at home, but most every at-large team has a win of that caliber on their resume. 13-5 is nice and all, but we racked up wins against average to below average teams. My only gripe is that teams that have faltered down the stretch (Oklahoma, Arizona State) maybe shouldn't get in. But actually, if you look back at past tournaments, how you finish your season really doesn't have any correlation with how you do in the NCAA tournament. And to be honest, if we played Oklahoma's schedule, we might not have done any better. The Big XII isn't full of world beaters, but everyone but Iowa State is at the very least a solid team. We'd be underdogs if we played any of them on the road.

Watch his reaction to Tulsa getting in last year, and it'll probably replicate that.