Husker Hoops Penitent

Last year, they beat Colorado but went on to have a….not so great season. Maybe losing will have the opposite effect and they’ll be decent. 

Fred is so good cooling the players down after their stupid mistakes. Gets a lot of practice. By the way, that's the only thing he does even remotely good.

This coaching staff is super invested in Wilhelm and I just don’t see it. At all

This is going to be a long season.

Man, Bandoumel is a tough tough watch.

Exhibition game #2 and we are in mid-season form.

Can you imagine if we go 0-20. Trev will either have to bring back the coach with the worst P6 conf season of all time. Or pay out the largest buyout in CBB history. Historically bad in either way. That's like having to drop a 20lb weight on one of your feet OR having to drop a 20lb weight on the other foot. Good luck Trev. 

I don't know what's more embarrassing:
 
Paying out the largest buyout ever for a basketball coach.
 
Or bringing back a coach who is about to coach an 0-20 or 1-19 or 2-18 Big Ten Team, in his third season, and waxing poetic about what a great job he's doing and how the future is bright. 
 
 

if you would've told anyone 5 years ago we'd get Frost/Hoiberg to Coach here, & that they would have two of the WORST records in program history, not one single person, not one, would've believed you...

Of course...I'm sure there is a scenario where the NCAA investigates our widely rumored "recruiting violations" and is about to vote to impose the death penalty on our program only to realize that we've self imposed the death penalty since the start of the Hoiberg era.  The NCAA decides not to punish us because there is nothing more they can do.  When an inept agency looks at you and feels sorry for how poorly you are run, that seems pretty close to rock bottom.

Update… Her NET ranking will be dropping tomorrow as she loses her first of the season.  
 
She did say “we were close daddy” on the ride home though.  I’ve already trained her on what it’s like being a Husker fan and she’s only 3.  Sigh.

If we operate under the assumption that Fred is back next year and the recruiting class stays together, Kieta will be the size of big we haven't really had here in a while. Paired with a recovered Breidenbach, that's a nice start to a front court. If then can convince Walker to come back, I'd be very happy with that. 
 
Edwards has already transferred once, so I think he'll be back. This will be an important offseason of development for him. Wilcher has already transferred a well. So he'll be back. Everyone's raved about McPherson, I'm excited to see him and Dawson next year, too. 
 
I have no expectation that the McGowens bros will be back. Maybe something will shift there. 
 
I think a lot of next year's success hinges on Kieta being a legit B1G post player and finding a legit PG. If those two things don't come together, it'll be another long year. It might be even if they do.

We just witnessed a Purdue team that is the exact opposite of our beloved cornhuskers.
 
Immense size, every player looking to distribute, rebounding, and clean movement without the ball. Jealousy is not a strong enough word to describe what I'm feeling.

Just wait until the last 10 minutes.
 

I feel like... I've been saying all this for years. And have received constant push back. 

I also volunteer to work on that incentive-based contract you're proposing. Don't even need close to 650k. Give me 60k and I'm doing significantly better. 

Being the Japanese Steph Curry may be analogous to being the Inuit Wilt Chamberlain.

The question will be does he want to be here?  This season he looks defeated and uninterested in coaching.  Body language says a lot. 

Freds job is more daunting based on history, but it is easier or should be to turn it around in bb based on #s.  The $, resources, fan support, facilities, etc shouldnt make either one of those jobs that difficult.  It comes down to coaching and finding the right person who understands that.  

Agreed.
 
Recruiting generally sells either a) proven success or b) the hope of improvement.  When Fred got here, he could sell both based on his track record at ISU/NBA and the natural hopefulness that occurs with a coaching change.  Fast forward three years, and his past coaching successes seem like ancient history to 17 year olds.  And he can't really sell the hope for improvement, when the product on the floor gets more embarrassing each year despite "talent upgrades."
 
For those reasons, I expect we have hit the peak in terms of recruiting and we will now see a steady decline in the talent he signs moving forward.  And if he can't get the job done with a supposedly talented roster, then what hope do we have that he can succeed with a less talented one?

Perhaps, but he also did things here that hadn't been done in decades. I'd have given him the chance to really build something solid. Maybe he would have failed in that, but I would have given him every resource to make that happen. The last few years, that didn't happen. If he could have built that stability and gotten Kenya and Lewis to stick around, you're likely looking at a roster with Xavier Johnson, Chucky, Hunter and probably other good pieces around it. His last two seasons he was in total survival mode. I've often wondered if he wasn't feeling like he was fighting for his coaching life at NU if things would have been different. Now, Miles of course bears some of that responsibility. And I think if you ask him what he'd do differently, there would be a few things that he could rattle off that could have changed things. Hindsight only accentuates that seeing how the Hoiberg years have played out.

I've had season tickets for 17 years now and have sat through my share of bad basketball season but this might be the worse one ever.  Even with the roster flip the last 2 years, still felt like we could win more than 7 games.  I drank the Kool-aid and really thought this was going to be the breakthrough year.  Man, was I wrong.  This team is in no way enjoyable to watch.  They are doing less with more talent.  Fred doesn't seem to have any answers or a clue to how to even fix it.  He just let's this team have free rein to shoot whenever and from where ever it wants to.  I used to think Doc had to short of leash when he pulled players for making one mistake but Fred has way to long of leash.  We have no movement of offense, the ball just sticks in Verge's hand or Bryce.  I watch other teams where the ball moves quickly and it ends up with an open shot.  Fred talks how good of shooting team this is and I'm sure in practice, that is true but in a game, it feels like everyone has to create their own shot and we never get wide open looks.  
 
Can't tell if it's a chemistry issue or Fred is just allowing games to be a showcase for the kids to try and get to the NBA but either way, this is an absolute train wreck.  I keep hearing that if we fired Scott and Fred who are you going to get but at this point, I'd almost take my chances.  Can it be any worse?  We might not even get to 7 wins this year.  I felt when they kept Frost that the standards have definitely been lowered at Nebraska that you keep a coach who has a horrible winning percentage and can't even make a bowl game in 4 straight years.  I'm thinking the same thing about Fred who most likely won't reach double digits wins in three straight years.  
 
Fred did great things at Iowa State but has done nothing since then.  It's looking more and more like this is not a match made in heaven.  It might be time to look in a new direction as you can tell from the crowd size that people have no interest or faith in Fred anymore.  As much as I was thinking we'd be building statues of Fred outside PBA, I think it's time to part ways after this year.

Folks: This is not year 1. It's not year 1.5 or even 2. It's year 3.

Shoot, I have a 10 minute drive and it's hard to get motivated enough to go. 

This is where I'm at also.  I got over a 2 hour drive to go to games and I just cant get myself to go.  I have been to 1 game so far.  I love my tickets which makes it hard to give them up but if prices stay the same next year its going to be hard for me to fork that over again for awful basketball.

the roster just doesn't work. you have bryce playing small forward at 170 pounds when he should be a shooting guard, and he doesn't defend at all. tominaga is playing the 2 at 6 feet tall and can't defend. lat mayan is playing the stretch 4 but can't make 3s... walker is efficient but not a great rim defender. verge is a good player, but not great at creating for others and also doesn't play defense.
 
and the bench is average at best.