GhostOfJoeMcCray

We do seem to start off halves slow, especially offensively. But I don't think they're changing anything with an 11-2 record and 5 straight wins by double digits.

Not the same question, but JBRBracketology said this on Twitter a few days ago: Updated Nebrasketball KenPom Team Sheet -Projected record 20-11 (10-10) -Win @ Creighton came with Jays at full strength, hopefully Creighton still makes Tournament otherwise that win unfortunately wont get nearly the respect it deserves -#216 NCSOS is ok, but not great either -Diamond Head Classic was good to help boost resume metrics (26.0 avg) even though I dont think any of those 3 teams make NCAAT -Projected favorite in just 6 of remaining 18 Big Ten games is unnerving -13 of remaining 18 Big Ten games are Quad 1 Target record for bid: 20-11 (10-10) 12-8 6-7 seed 11-9 8-9 seed 10-10 10-11 seed 9-11 right on bubble

BartTorvik (the free KenPom) lets you do this. Here is our Dec. 31 BartTorvik rank each season going back to Miles' NCAA Tournament team. 24/25 - 28 23/24 - 44 22/23 - 79 21/22 - 162 20/21 - 96 19/20 - 141 18/19 - 14 (man did the wheels fall off. We went 2-9 in our next 11 games after Jan. 1) 17/18 - 94 16/17 - 79 15/16 - 103 14/15 - 105 13/14 - 84

Lunardi isn't even good at what he does; unfortunately he has a big platform. Look at the 20-40 teams in the current BartTorvik rankings, compared to where Lunardi seeds them. Pretty typical. 20 Kentucky 3 seed 21 UConn 3 seed 22 Baylor 6 seed 23 Miss State 4 seed 24 Cincinnati 7 seed 25 Michigan State 5 seed 26 Pittsburgh 6 seed 27 Purdue 5 seed 28 Nebraska 11 play-in 29 Wisconsin 8 seed 30 BYU N4 Out 31 Texas 11 seed 32 Georgia 9 seed 33 Iowa F4 Out 34 Clemson 8 seed 35 Arkansas 9 seed 36 Northwestern F4 Out 37 Ole Miss 8 seed 38 North Carolina 10 seed 39 West Virginia 10 seed 40 Penn State 10 seed

How about this one: William Kyle (UCLA): 4.2 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 65.6% FG, 33.3% FT UCLA paid William Kyle a boatload to come there and they let Berke walk.

+/- vs. Southern Berke +30 Williams +22 Worster +18 Gary +16 Jacobsen +14 Essegian +13 Hoiberg +12 Morgan +12 Meah +10 Griffiths +9 Grace +7 Burt +7 Season +/- Per Game Gary +9.1 Williams +8.8 Worster +8.2 Berke +7.8 Essegian +7.7 Hoiberg +5.9 Meah +5.7 Griffiths +5.2 Jacobsen +4.4 Morgan +2.2 Ulis +0.7

Thanks @TourneyBound. I've been dropping the ball, unlike our team in Hawaii. I'll just do a +/- recap for the whole Hawaii trip: Gary +48 Essegian +40 Williams +28 Meah +26 Worster +24 Hoiberg +21 Berke +20 Morgan +6 Jacobsen +1 Season +/- Per Game Gary +8.5 Williams +7.7 Worster +7.4 Essegian +7.3 Berke +5.8 Hoiberg +5.4 Meah +5.3 Griffiths +4.8 Jacobsen +3.3 Morgan +1.4 Ulis +0.7 Not surprising that Fred has really settled in on the top 6 +/- per game as being our game finishing rotation, going with Berke at the 5. I really like how we are closing games out. We've turned a lot of close, competitive games into double-digit wins with solid play down the stretch and free throw converting. Noticed some more Brice running the point guard in Hawaii, even when Rollie was on the court. Is it just me or does Rollie slip and fall a lot with the ball? I don't even think he's playing out of control, he just literally seems to lose his balance and fall down a lot and give the ball away or almost give it away. Surprising he is only averaging 1.8 turnovers per game because it feels more like 3 every game. Either way, loving this moment in time of being a Nebraska basketball fan. I'll never take consistent winning for granted. GBR!

I love that Meah's only shot selection is a dunk. I remember when Jorge Brian Diaz absolutely refused to dunk. It was like he was afraid of hurting the rim. Random note after googling him...he went his whole career at Nebraska as Jorge "Brian" but his entire pro career and his wikipedia page say Jorge "Bryan". He really never corrected anyone on the spelling of his name for 3 years.

+/- vs. Indiana Williams +25 Gary +21 Worster +18 Morgan +9 Essegian +6 Hoiberg +4 Meah +4 Berke +3 Jacobsen +2 Ulis -7 Season +/- (Team +79) Worster +65 Williams +64 Essegian +47 Gary +45 Berke +44 Hoiberg +44 Griffiths +38 Meah +32 Jacobsen +29 Morgan +11 Ulis +6 Season +/- Per Game Worster +7.2 Williams +7.1 Gary +5.6 Berke +5.5 Essegian +4.9 Hoiberg +4.9 Jacobsen +4.8 Griffiths +4.8 Meah +4.0 Morgan +1.2 Ulis +0.7 When Brice and Juwan are on, we are tough to beat. They just gotta stop taking their foot off the gas some games.

I didn't see a tournament team last year based on Creighton, at Minnesota, at Iowa or at Maryland. It still happened though. It's a long season. I still believe in this team but we really need to defend our home court all season, do very well in Hawaii (at least 2-1 with the loss not being to a crap team), and pick up a couple more road wins than we did last year.

Sam Hoiberg is averaging 2.3 and plays half the time Brice does and is closer to 5-7 than 6-7.

+/- at Michigan State Jacobsen +7 Griffiths -1 Hoiberg -10 Meah -12 Ulis -12 Berke -23 Morgan -23 Worster -25 Essegian -26 Gary -29 Williams -31 Season +/- (Team +62) Worster +47 Essegian +41 Berke +41 Hoiberg +40 Williams +39 Griffiths +38 Meah +28 Jacobsen +27 Gary +24 Ulis +13 Morgan +2 Season +/- Per Game Berke +5.9 Worster +5.9 Jacobsen +5.4 Essegian +5.1 Hoiberg +5.0 Williams +4.9 Griffiths +4.8 Meah +4.0 Gary +3.4 Ulis +1.6 Morgan +0.3 Not much to say about that disaster. Morgan played well and Jacobsen being +7 in 9 minutes of playing time in a 37-point loss is remarkable. Pretty concerning stat to me is Brice has 1 rebound in his last 91 minutes of game time. He averaged 5.5 last year and 5.3 the year before at Charlotte and he's averaging 2.5 right now. Not great when you're 6-7 and play nearly 30 minutes a game.

All I said was Connor made 6 threes in a game twice already and Keisei never did that in three years against any opponent. Sample size has nothing to do with that. Connor did it (twice). Keisei never did. If you want to say Connor gets more volume because the rest of the team isn't as good of shooters as last year, you're technically right so far. Through 7 games this season Essegian has attempted 45 threes and made 20. Through 7 games last season, Keisei had attempted 38 threes and made 13. So Keisei would have had to go 7-7 just to equal Essegian's start to the season. But I don't really agree with the notion that Keisei never made 6 in a game because he didn't have as much opportunity as Connor. He had 7 games in his career where he shot 10+ threes, and he had 13 games where he took 9+ threes. Never made six.

Not really. Keisei averaged 6.3 three-point attempts per game last season and made 2.4. Connor is averaging 6.4 three-point attempts but making 2.9.

In the post-Creighton highlight video, Fred and the team were all calling him "Motion Connor" in the locker room. It's pretty clear Fred has been coaching him hard to understand he has to move without the ball if he wants to be successful. And it's working.

Connor has hit 6 threes two games in a row. Keisei's career high was 5.

In my opinion, Keisei is unmatched in his ability to ignite a crowd and create energy in the arena with his timely shot making. He is also probably better than Connor at creating his own 3 point shot out of nothing. Connor is better at everything else. Connor is 20-45 right now after 7 games. Keisei didn't hit his 20th three until game 10 last year and he was 20-60 at that point.

I know you weren't trying to imply this, but Keisei averaged 15.5 ppg against Big Ten teams last year and 14.5 as a junior. Connor averaged 12.7 ppg against Big Ten teams as a true freshman playing in Greg Gard's system...

thanks. Fixed it.

Looking at Bart Torvik numbers this year compared to last year as of Dec. 3, we're very similar except much better defensively and worse offensively. However, we're trending up offensively the last few weeks...#28 offensively since the Bethune-Cookman game. One year ago today we lost by 29 vs. Creighton and then blew a 15-point halftime lead at Minnesota on Dec. 6. It was pretty doom and gloom on here and I'm sure no one was even dreaming of an NCAA bid. So I feel much better right now about this team than I did last year at this time. BT Rank ADJO O Rk ADJ D D Rk 2023 7-1 record 42 116.8 28 100.8 132 2024 6-1 record 40 111.6 64 95.8 24 NET KPI SOR BPI KP 2023 23-11 record 33 27 24 37 29 2024 6-1 record 43 28 40 37 47 When you compare our current resume numbers to our final resume numbers above, it's looking pretty good considering our schedule is only going to get harder. Last year our metrics were way, way worse this time of year and we spent all season climbing from the abyss. We just need to get through the 3 Hawaii games and Southern without a bad L. The one thing last year's team had going for it was no bad non-conference losses. Selection Sunday would be a lot less stressful if we go 3-0 in Hawaii, and given the field, we should be the favorite to win the tournament and I hope we play like it.

This is why NET is considered a predictive metric and is not supposed to be looked at by the committee when evaluating resumes. Every other metric for Penn State is horrible.

+/- vs. North Florida Meah +22 Williams +21 Jacobsen +17 Essegian +17 Ulis +17 Gary +16 Griffiths +14 Hoiberg +14 Worster +12 Burt +2 Grace +2 Morgan +1 A ho-hum blowout. You love to see it. Season +/- (Team +99) Worster +72 Williams +70 Essegian +67 Berke +64 Gary +53 Hoiberg +50 Meah +40 Griffiths +39 Morgan +25 Ulis +25 Jacobsen +20 Season +/- Per Game Berke +10.7 Worster +10.3 Williams +10.0 Essegian +9.6 Gary +8.8 (I don't count his two minutes played vs. USD) Hoiberg +7.1 Meah +6.7 Griffiths +5.6 Jacobsen +5.0 Morgan +3.6 Ulis +3.6

St. Mary's is favored in all but 4 of their remaining games according to Bart Torvik.

+/- vs. South Dakota Williams +25 Worster +20 Essegian +19 Morgan +13 Berke +11 Hoiberg +11 Meah +6 Gary 0 Burt -2 Grace -2 Ulis -3 Jacobsen -4 Griffiths -9 In a 17-point win that we controlled from start to finish, I didn't expect to see such a wide discrepancy in +/-, yet here we are. Griffiths has probably played himself into being the 10th man for now (assuming everyone is healthy). He looks completely lost and has no confidence in his shot. I hope something clicks with him soon. Season +/- (Team +68) Berke +64 Worster +60 Essegian +50 Williams +49 Gary +37 Hoiberg +36 Griffiths +25 Morgan +24 Meah +18 Ulis +8 Jacobsen +3 Burt +3 Grace +3

We better show up. Don't want any repeat of North Dakota game last year. Going to be hard to match the intensity we brought vs. Creighton. But at least bring enough intensity to not let this be close.