Husker Hoops Penitent

Sorry for him personally, but with or without him they have last-place locked up. Next year too!

KSU: 77 NU: 59

The seasons are always over before finals week at NU. This is the only team to never win a tournament game! They never will and I'm guessing everyone on this board knows it. The questions is: does Hoiberg get seven wins this season?

What do we do well? We get blown out on national television with regularity.

The whole system is junk. From player evaluations, fundamentals and the bush-league schemes. It hasn't and won't work in a serious conference. NU should renegotiate Hoiberg's contract: pay him the minimum amount allowable (as a state employee) and stop with the expectations and promises. The university could use the revenue in better ways. Students can still have fun at games. I remember Northwestern football during their win-less years where the fans had great fun even though they knew they would lose every game. I suggest we look at NU sports in a new way. It will be far less difficult to accept when we know there is no chance at success. Or to quote the great Jon Johnson: “There’s no hope. Fuck everything. Go Big Red.”

I see NU is literally the worst Power Six school when measuring the basketball and football programs (in the last five years). Well, someone has to be. I like Frost and Hoiberg in spite of the dismal records. Why not sign them for life and then forget the silly expectations?

Our opponents don't need a head coach to beat the breaks off us. Just as Nebraska doesn't need a head coach to secure last place in the Big Ten. With or without Hoiberg we have last place locked up!

The players know, just as any veteran NU fans know there is no hope this season. The body language is obvious. This program is shit, as are the coaches. Ridiculous for a program to pay a coaching staff to finish last each year. I guess Hoiberg will leave NU just as his grandfather did- never having a winning season. Next coach should be paid whatever the state minimum requires, that way the university can pass the savings on to the fans. The game should be secondary. There should be clowns and circus performers as well as bounce-houses and food booths everywhere. Make it fun. Who cares who wins (we know anyway!).

I think he knows it is hopeless.

Linus Van Pelt says, wait until next year!

We are veterans of "long, terrible seasons". We got this!

If I were Alberts I would demand at least one thirteenth place finish in the conference every four years!

Hoiberg's record in conference now stands at 5-36. A winless conference season this season (likely) would put him at 5-54. At NU that should get him an extention!

What they do, or rather have done well is cause my group of twenty or so friends to stop going or watching games after enduring decades of middling to little success. When Hoiberg first came here I immediately thought he would rapidly take us to heights never achieved at NU and consequently be snatched away by a school like Duke or N. Carolina and we would collapse back into our historic place in the hierarchy of the conference: read: the bottom. Now I couldn't care less what happens primarily because I don't think any good, let alone, great coach would ever consider NU as a desirable job, and it would take a great one to win at a toilet like NU, so it doesn't matter if they keep Hoiberg or not. Same with Frost. They will produce shit from here to eternity. A few years back this current scenario would have seen nearly impossible. Hoiberg and Frost are the worst two coaches in the modern era at the school in their respective sports. Stunning.

NU is the most effective at losing with four-star recruits than any team I can think of.

Auburn 96 NU 53

Haven't posted in a dog's age, but have been watching this shit-show from a distance. I am officially offering my services as head men's basketball coach at NU starting immediately. I will do the job for one-tenth of Hoiberg's salary and will bring my own staff and pay them myself. I will pick up the first three drunks I see in The Railyard on my way to the arena before each game, after downing four double shots myself. I literally guarantee I will guide this team to consecutive fourteenth-place finishes every year I am allowed to coach. I also guarantee we will make no progress as a program which will be evident each year after the first game. If I fail then I will return all the monies I have been paid. This money can be held in a trust to ensure my ability to honor the contract should something as unthinkable as a thirteenth place finish occurs. One of the primary benefits will be the liberating of the twenty-thousand or so tortured fans still reeling from the laughable football season from wasting any more time with the basketball team. My methods, you ask? Firstly, I won't bother recruiting any four or God-forbid, five-star players. This only raises expectations to unrealistic levels rather than producing any positive results, and thus hurts the beaten Husker fan even more. No, I say! I will give scholarships to every player on a Lincoln high school team each year as the scholarship limits allow. This will save the university lots of money as we won't waste money traveling on recruiting trips and the like. Next season when I take the job I will introduce the new roster. Next year I will offer scholarships to the the entire Lincoln East roster (only six seniors eligible). The following year I will offer scholarships to Southwest High seniors, etc. This supposes there are players stupid, or desperate enough to accept.... Thankfully Traudt, Sallis and Hepburn were close enough to catch a whiff of death that emanates from this corpse. (M. Abdelmassih is already slowly backing out) Having such a small roster will also save the university money. If they (the Lincoln East players) decline the offer I will gather a team from the campus, which, come to think of it, is a better plan- that way the university won't have to spend any money on scholarships! Please consider this offer.

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