Chuck Taylor

I recorded the selection committee's top 16 seed reveal and watched this morning. Wisconsin's inclusion as 4 seed once again showed that:

1. Bids aren't decided on the basis of NET. Wisconsin got a 4 seed with a 20 NET, while 9 NET BYU and 14 NET St. Mary's weren't in the top 16, or among the 3 mentioned as just missing. So neither was among the top 19 seeds. The NET is used to sort and compare teams' wins and losses.

2. All games are evaluated the same, regardless of when they occur, so Wisky's recent woes didn't matter. They had accumulated enough wins before that. (The loss to Iowa later in the day probably would have dropped them out of the top 16, though.) The committee chair specifically addressed that.

CBS bracketologist Jerry Palm had us last 4 in and reference our lack of road wins. Colorado, also one of the last 4 in, won at USC last night, for whatever that's worth.

I thought there was a question of who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds, and they decided they weren't sure. But with Jeffrey Anderson, there's always a little theater involved.

FDU ended up winning. 

Just a little history:

Jumbo Stiehm could be called the father of Husker football. His "Stiehm Rollers" dominated the Missouri Valley conference in the 19teens and won 34 straight games at one point. A rabid fan base is born from that kind of dominance. Bob Devaney didn't invent Husker football, he resurrected it.

I think he also won Nebraska's only unshared conference basketball title, maybe in about 1915.

"Unshared" isn't the right word, but I haven't finished my coffee.

8 hours ago, millerhusker said:

Yep, contrary to what some think, the powers that be will look for any good reason to include Nebraska in March madness this year. Entertaining guards on potential Cinderellas are what creates the madness in March.  The storylines of Tominaga, Hoiberg and Nebraska never winning a tourney game all work in our favor. Having one of the better fan bases in college sports probably helps too. 
We still have to take care of business down the stretch. 

Count me as one of "some" who think otherwise.

The people on the committee have to be able to defend their selections. They're not looking for storylines, or else a team that made the national title game in 2022 would have gotten the benefit of the doubt last year. They also had POY candidate Armando Bacot. However, North Carolina stayed home. Here's the Heels' resume:

Quote

The 2022-23 Tar Heels went 1-9 in NET quad 1 games (their only Q1 victory being a home win against #6 Virginia).^[1] They finished the season 20–13 overall and 11–9 in ACC play

They also finished 43 in KenPom and 46 in NET. Plus they had zero Q3 or Q4 losses and a 4-7 road record. 

There was easily enough story line to twist that record into an NCAA berth, if that actually was done. 

Quote

Old Dominion scoring leader Vasean Allette has been dismissed from the team for "conduct unbecoming of a Monarch," interim coach Kieran Donohue said.

Maybe he wasn't playing team ball?

2 hours ago, brfrad said:

That would be a tough one.

 

Safe

 

Purdue (Painter)

Illinois (Underwood)

Michigan State (Izzo)

Northwestern (Collins)

Wisconsin (Gard)

 

Most likely coming back

 

Nebraska (Hoiberg)

Iowa (McCaffrey)

Minnesota (Johnson)

Rutgers (Pikell)

Maryland (Willred)

Penn State (Rhoads)

 

50/50

 

Indiana (Woodsen)

 

Most likely out

 

Michigan (Howard)

 

Out

 

Ohio State (Holtmann)

 

Most likely coming back

USC (Enfield): Really bad year, but coming off 3 NCAA bids

50/50

Oregon (Altman): might leave with the wolves at the door

UCLA (Cronin): high-pressure job, might want to go back to Midwest

Most likely out

Washington (Hopkins): No tournament since 2019

Down to an 11 seed in Bracketville, got passed by several teams that logged big wins. Seems like for the rest of the way, it might be more a matter of what other teams are doing, rather than what we do, since we don't have any top teams left on the schedule. 

For now, root against:

Wash State, Nevada, Ole Miss, Utah, Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Gonzaga, Providence

11 hours ago, hskr4life said:

I like Blind Resume Tests... so... who you got between these two if you had one bid to the tourney?  It's probably pretty close.

 

Team A: (15-6, 5-5)

NET 62, KPI 27, SOR 38, BPI 68, KPom 53

Q1: 3-3, Q2: 2-3, Q3: 3-0, Q4: 7-0

NET SOS 67, Non-Con SOS 317

AVG NET Win 171, AVG NET Loss 59

 

Team B: (15-5, 4-3)

NET 59, KPI 20, SOR 28, BPI 60, KPom 60

Q1: 2-2, Q2: 5-1, Q3: 3-2, Q4: 5-0

NET SOS 91, Non-Con SOS 68

AVG NET Win 145, AVG NET Loss 96

Team A has a win over the No. 2 team in NET, but a 1-5 record on the road.

Team B has a 7-3 record in Q1/Q2 games and a 5-2 record on the road, but hasn't beaten a top 25 team and has 2 Q3 losses. 

Team A higher, although both teams are in as of this writing..

On 1/26/2024 at 2:01 PM, jayschool said:

Um, Spiro Agnew?

Spiro Agnew came up with the term "nattering nabobs of negativism." He reportedly was reading one of our game threads during a loss.

13 hours ago, hskr4life said:

 

Honestly... I didn't see a lot of fire Frans on that board.

I've seen some grumbling about him not getting over the hump (no BIG title or deep NCAA run), but he's really done a good job, better than most of us would like to admit. He'd have 5 straight tourney bids if not for Covid, plus a BIG tourney title and  great players in Garza and the Murray twins. He has a better talent base than we do, but nothing like Michigan, Illinois, Ohio or Indiana.

Main downside is his personality, but his players seem to like him.

Our offense is now 24 in KenPom. It was 179 in 20-21 with Teddy Allen, Delano Banton, Derrick Walker, Trey McGowens and Kobe Webster. Sum of the parts > individual parts.

FYI

OK, I'm going to admit it. I've reffed games, although just junior high level. You can't see everything, and you learn to call games a certain way. For example, a defender reaching across to swat at a ball often will get called for a foul. The ref can't see if there's contact or not, but players aren't supposed to "reach" so they get called. Same thing with post defenders swatting down on the ball. They's supposed to be vertical. So it always get me when somebody says, "He got all ball!" Well, maybe he did and maybe he didn't, but that's the call.

Same thing for "over the back," which often is somebody outjumping from behind against an opponent to didn't block out. If you don't block out, 9.9 times out of 10, you don't get the call.

Dozens of other examples. The refs can't see everything, but they learn to call the game a certain way. Many are incompetent, but I've never known a ref who was "biased." However, I know plenty of fans who are.

I saw Chicago at Pershing, before they turned into a soft-rock band. Those guys could cook.

Fwiw, our offense is 28 in KenPom, our defense 95.

Now 2-3 in Q1, 1-1 in Q2. Improvement by Indiana and K-State would help.

14 hours ago, jdw said:

Watching Maryland Michigan this is bad basketball.

Gotta think Howard's gone after this year. What a mess.

19 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

Goodness...you don't believe in jinxing, do you Norm?  

So this could be the antithesis of the "I'm Done" thread?

1 hour ago, Silverbacked1 said:

When I saw that we got the player from Minnesota I had a feeling she might be the odd player out.

Penn. State?

I read she wants to play beach volleyball as well as indoor, so that rules out PSU and PU (Omaha team).

Watching Boston College, about to post that Kobe Webster had been granted an 8th year, but I guess it's a different guy.

1 hour ago, Silverbacked1 said:

Three ways to beat that:

(1) skin tight jersey

(2) tear away Jersey from the 70’s the football team should have a couple left over from the game of the Century.  

(3) spray his Jersey with cooking oil

(2) is finding support in McCook.

17 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

Rutgers has run the gambit of NET ranges and it shows that NET ranking is the sole determination of who makes the tournament.

 

Last year they had a NET of 40 and didn't get in the tournament.

Two years ago they had a NET of 77 and made the tournament. 

Do mean it shows that the ranking is NOT the sole determination?