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Wow. Awful news. Hope the best for him as he goes through the cancer treatments.
 

Good luck to Jamarques. I’ll be rooting for him.

Nobody minds if a ref misses an occasional call. We're all imperfect humans and don't expect perfection. AND I think MOST officials WANT to do a good job. But there are ENOUGH bad officials that a way to weed them out needs to be found. Not just in the B1G, referees seem to be deciding how the game is called on the fly. And they seem to LIKE the knock down, drag out brutish kind of play of schools like Illinois. And they seem to cave in to coaches like Underwood and Painter who must scare (?) them as games go on. What can Izzo do to them that Hoiberg can't. I wonder???
 
Conferences need to tell officials to call the game according to the rules! My greatest gripe is how a player driving into the lane INITIATES contact with a defender and yet the defender get called for the foul. A close second is when a defender goes straight up and the offensive player jumps INTO him and yet the defender is whistled. Is that really how the rules are written? In addition, the evaluation process of referees (is there one?) and how they score needs to be PUBLICIZED. Has anyone ever seen a list of how refs grade out? PAY them enough to do the job (if we can hand out million dollar checks to players surely we can figure out a way to pay refs enough!) but make continued employment contingent on how they grade over a season.

One of my favorite, and least appreciated, sports movies is the 1992 Bruce Dern/James Wood classic,"Diggstown" in which he plays a retired boxing champion. Check it out some time and appreciate his work. Interestingly, he attended college at NYU on a basketball scholarship.

J-Law quickly vaulted up my list with how genuine he greeted my bro and I after such a painful defeat in Memphis. He was so kind and gracious with his time (while his own 'bro' waited...) that I leaned in for a hug. He wished us well on our journey home. Wow, that's an impressive young man. He could have been surly and sulked, he chose to be a great human being. And that means a lot to a big NU fan, I'll sing his praises as long as I live. That's a good dude, J-Law. GBR Always.

Relative to our past quarter century and preseason expectations, it was great 
 
 

I guess he could join Bronnie and LaBrons new NBA team.

OK, guys, hear me out here:
 
I know that you can't do the "what if" stuff and it works both ways, BUT ...
 
In the first half, they waived off a Keisei bucket and clearly incorrectly called him for travelling. Count that basket. Now, we're only down 12 at half.
 
In addition, Josiah Allick missed 5 layups in the first half. Point blank. If he makes just 3 of those, now we're only down six.
 
For the game, they shot an unbelievable 13 of 23 (56.5%) from beyond the arc. Let's say they just shoot a torrid 40%, which is still 12% better than their average and 5% better than they shot against Houston. That's 9 of 23. That's 12 points difference. Maybe they get a couple of offensive rebounds off those misses and get 2-point put-backs. That's still 8 fewer points on their end.
 
So, instead of losing 83-98, that puts it at 91-90, good guys on top.
 
My point is we weren't as bad as the final score made us look AND the game really came down to them being way uncharacteristically hot from deep.
 
And to add to this point, that same team, shooting a more ordinary 35% from deep, just took a #1 seed to OT.
 
That's who we lost to.

To me the big picture is we built an identity two years ago, we added on to it last season successfully, and we need to continue to build with with the best guys we can find who fit that identity

Dalton Knecht transferred from Northern Colorato and became a first team AP All American at Tennessee.
 
Knecht at Northern Colorado, 2023:  20.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.8 apg, 0.8 spg, 0.6 bpg, 38.1 3P%, 47.9 FG%, 77.1 FT%
Thomas at Northern Colorado, 2024:19.7 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 4.2 apg, 1.7 spg, 0.9 bpg, 33.0 3P%, 47.2 FG%, 86.8 FT%

Hope Blaise gets healthy regardless of where he ends up

An all-lefty lineup would be something... have one righty off the bench for a change-of-pace. 😉
 

This is speculation on my part, but I’d bet money on it ( 10 bucks anyway 😀 ).  Rice lead our team in scoring on the summer trip right?  And I have very little doubt that he did his share of damage in practice from the get go as well.  These young men rarely lack confidence and they think they should be playing.  By and large, he didn’t play.  You don’t think he thought he was better than so and so ?  There you have it, he ain’t sticking around to get the shaft again.  Right or wrong ( in Rice’s thinking ), that’s my strong hunch of his thought process. 

This is speculation on my part, but I’d bet money on it ( 10 bucks anyway 😀 ).  Rice lead our team in scoring on the summer trip right?  And I have very little doubt that he did his share of damage in practice from the get go as well.  These young men rarely lack confidence and they think they should be playing.  By and large, he didn’t play.  You don’t think he thought he was better than so and so ?  There you have it, he ain’t sticking around to get the shaft again.  Right or wrong ( in Rice’s thinking ), that’s my strong hunch of his thought process. 

Asking for a friend: Can we hold off with the 2024-2025 lineups for a week or so until everything settles out?

Yes, we do. Especially Brice & Rienk. We can fit pieces around those 2 in particular the best. Not that I want Juwan to go, don't confuse that. I just believe he can replaced easier than those other two. GBR Always.
 

There's a stat for everything.... is there one for the most pre-game dookies? 😅
 
 
 

And that's where we are in this rebuild. In Fred's first three years, we had a smidgen of inexperienced basketball talent and low- to mid-level athleticism. Last year and this, we added experience and basketball talent. For next year, we need to add more athleticism without sacrificing basketball IQ and experience.
 
That's a tough needle to thread at a place like Nebraska.

Still the most wins in a season for this program since before many of you were born.
 
I'm disappointed. Demoralized. It was embarrassing. The aTm fans were jerks. All of those things.
 
But the sun came up this morning. I have a tee time. And my guys were still the best team we've put out there in close to 3 decades.
 
So, I'm keeping my season tickets and I'll see you all at the vault next fall.
 
Best regards,
 
Norm

Sheesch!
this has been a great year!!!
we outperform our 12th place prediction.
our third place finish is in a conference that is undefeated so far (except for us) in both the NCAA and the NIT first rounds.
we made it to the dance.
we don’t get to play a nobody at the dance and pretend we beat someone good.
the last game and a half exposed our weaknesses.
Fred Hoiberg and Co. will continue to improve Nebrasketball.
it’s been a great—and totally unexpected—run this season.
can’t wait for next year!!

Indeed, nothing close to a failure. They overachieved. Projected 3rd from last and finished 3rd from the top. It’s now on Fred to increase the margin for error. Talent and athleticism must improve. 

Tonight hurts. But I refuse to say this season was a failure. So many good memories from this season. Let's do it again next year. 

That was QUITE a game and a heart breaker.  We were 16 for 37 from 3 IIRC.

Anyone remember Ron Foul and Check from Iowa State? Or the time students threw water pistols on the court at Stipanovich or hot dogs at a player from Kansas State? And how about the "sit down Norm" signs? I also recall Norm running off the court at Allen Fieldhouse flipping the double bird to the fans after an (infrequent) upset there. Yes, those were the days. 

Well my wife doesn’t. And neither do any of the kids I work with so…🤷🤷