Husker Hoops Penitent

I want to thank all of the faithful for reading without prejudice as well as offering excellent insights and comments. I know it was bombastic but I needed to purge. I want to state, I love Hoiberg and the staff and hope for the best. It is tough and I don't presume to have any answers. He is working hard and is brilliant, witty and funny. I love NU and am a graduate and have stuck with the team since I first began listening and watching (live and on t.v) back in 1976. You dance with the one that brung 'ya, so I will persevere.... The sun will still rise, indeed. Cheers, mates!

NU basketball & football motto: "We do less with more!" There are some on this site who know hopelessness but cannot find the strength to express it, most however cannot even abide the thought. It is the other cohort I am speaking to: the few who are brave enough say to themselves: NU is shit, has always been shit, and will ride the asymptotic curve of shit into eternity- right down to the Planck-scale. It is to you- the small set of fans who have heard the chimes at midnight lo these many decades and cannot waste any more time picking over the bones and viscera of this holocaust, that I speak. I say: save yourself by stealing back the time you would have lost by engaging further in any way with this abortion. Read more books, watch good films, listen to music, build, create, hike, garden. Spend more time with friends. Above all, seek God! I know the small-minded will toss reactive insults my way and tell me to go away, that I am stupid, am a troll etc. This, on an "open forum" no less- funny how the dimmest among us are the loudest in their denunciations of others with differing opinions. Remember: NU basketball speaks for itself. No amount of desperate histrionics or kindergarten insults will change the facts! I don't offer my thoughts to hurt anyone, players or coaches. They work hard and do their level best. Nature, however, bats last. Some are born for success, others to toil in Lincoln, Nebraska.... Recently someone on this board lamented NU's current conference affiliation. If NU was in the Big 12 they would still be winless. This nightmare is ongoing and inescapable. It won't get better. Why would it/how could it? The system requires good shooters and therefore doesn't fit the personnel at NU. This team was still-born from the beginning. The former recruiting "advantage" Hoiberg had at ISU (culling the best transfers) is no longer a secret. Every team is doing it. The recruiting momentum is waning- I am seeing demonstrably fewer highly ranked players even considering NU as the months roll by. McGowens, the Younger signed w/ NU only because his brother plays here, so the five-star hysteria should be given an asterisk... and that assumes he even follows through with his commitment. Moreover, who could blame good players from backing away from NU? Hoiberg's cache has vanished as has Frost's in football. Players talk and they know the whiff of death surrounds this steaming pile of garbage. I want to formally apologize for comments about Sallis, Traudt, Murrell, Hepburn and the other good players who want no part of this wreck.... Mercifully, only eight more games remain in the regular season. Following those eight blowout losses will be the opening day blowout loss in the conference tournament. After celebrating consecutive last place honors we will see the annual mass exodus of players, which will be followed by a desperate influx of paper champions running from their respective pasts. This forum will be agog over their incredible potential and like Linus van Pelt waiting for the Great Pumpkin, cries that this will be "the year" when all the suffering will have been worth it! Of course, the season will start and the tragi-comedy will resume. The bad shooting and dopey play will commence and when March rolls around alas, the fourteenth place three-peat will be ours! Perhaps the most astonishing element in this whole scenario is the differential between NU and the other teams in the league. NU is so much worse than whichever program is second most inept. Even historically bad Northwestern has three times the wins NU does, and has beaten several really good teams. NU isn't even competitive. We have seen no improvement from last season. No improvement from the start of this year. All the hype (Walker will give us a legitimate inside presence, Lakes will keep defenses honest, etc.) was nothing but the annual bullshit shoveled into the mouths of NU's desperate fan base. Lakes, Ouedraogo, Andre, Wood and Arop: nothing, nothing, nothing! Yes, friends this is the end of the line. The Huskers have no business playing in the Big Ten in basketball or football. Frost and Hoiberg, Hoiberg and Frost. They are out of their depths. NU should shut down the program and save the money. Put it into research and hiring good professors, or at the very least drop down to Div. II. UNO (Omaha) went from Div. II to Div. I, why can't NU find a more suitable level? Ultimately this is strange, because I thought Hoiberg would be the one to overcome the curse- he is a brilliant basketball mind, after all. Some obstacles are simply too great to conquer. I might just offer my services as head coach once Hoiberg decides to extricate himself. Heck, I'd coach the team for a fraction of the current salary. I know I could lead them to an 0-20 record every year, blowouts guaranteed! Just remember: "We do less with more". That said, I wish everyone peace and bonhomie. Selah.

Wisconsin 77 Nebraska 50

UM 80 NU 48

Nebraska basketball and football are funny. NU needs a new motto: "we do less with more"!

MSU 86 NU 47

HuskerFever, I think it means we can speed up the tempo in our quest to defend our status as defenders of the cellar!

Gophers 81 Huskers 55

UI: 98 NU 59

PU 97 NU 53

I have to eat humble pie: I was one of the worst offenders re: Stevenson. I thought he would be one of our best.

Still have a shot at 0-20!

Huskerpapa, I think the new normal will be close, if not exactly like your list above. America is now a failed state, rapidly devolving into a third world disaster. It likely won't improve (look at the history of empires), but the one certainty is the last one, which henceforth shall apply to both basketball (obviously), and football. The "wait 'til next year" shibboleth will finally go into the long night once the last person born in the 1980s dies. As is said about scientific advances: they progress one funeral at a time. Happy new year anyway, Husker faithful.

Agree, hhcscott! Take heart, I worked out the simulations and the computer vomited out the following: NU will actually be a near-bubble team (in February) in 2044, so take your vitamins!

I'm with you- and writing this from the asylum in which I have been contained since the 70s when I began torturing myself each winter. I won't give up and still thank God the He sent us Coach Hoiberg. It isn't hard to let go and hope for better results next year, and as several keen observes have noted- our metrics are improving. The record isn't but eventually the math will begin to make sense in the macro. Here's to a happy and blessed new year for each one of you on this board. God be praised!