GhostOfJoeMcCray

Wouldn't read into it. Gary Sharp is the voice of the Mavs, travels with Frankie to every game so they're probably close. Probably doing a solid favor for Gary's show. All that said, I suspect it's the Badgers. But we're getting Griffiths with 3 years left, so it's all good.

I know a lot of our fanbase thinks the sky is falling and that Fred somehow hasn't earned his extension (yes, there are people saying this). But on April 1, 2023, our Nebraska Basketball scholarship roster for 2023-24 looked like this: Keisei Tominaga (did not announce his return until June 1) Blaise Keita Juwan Gary C.J. Wilcher Jamarques Lawrence Ramel Lloyd Wilhelm Breidenbach (would enter portal in May) Quaran McPherson (would enter portal in late April) Eli Rice Rienk Mast committed April 12 Brice Williams committed April 12 Josiah Allick committed May 2 Matar Diop committed July 23 Deep breaths everyone, it will be OK. We are in a much better spot than we were at this time last year.

I'm not too worried about replacing these guys, but thinking bigger picture, it's got me wondering...is there any point to recruiting High School players anymore? Our recent high school recruits: Eli Rice - gone after 1 year Jamarques Lawrence - gone after 2 years Ramel Lloyd - gone after 2 years Matar Diop - gone after 1 year Quaran McPherson - gone after 2 years Denim Dawson - gone after 2 years Oleg Kojenets - gone after 2 years Wilhelm Breidenbach - gone after 2 years Eduardo Andre - gone after 2 years Keon Edwards - gone after 1 year Bryce McGowens - NBA after 1 year From what I can gather, Thor Thorbjarnarson is the last high school recruit to complete even 3 full years at Nebraska (his fourth year was 2020-21). I think that is what stings about Jamarques the most. We finally had a HS recruit that was doing something positive on the court, and we couldn't keep him around.

What is Fred thinking? I would imagine something like this: When you have a close-knit group that accomplishes things that haven't been done here in a long time, it hurts personally to lose guys from that team, especially when they're choosing to leave with the option to come back. However, Ramel/Blaise/Matar literally lose us nothing on paper. They can all effectively be replaced by literally adding any 3 transfers with similar body types. Eli wants to play more minutes right now and had potential but was too slow and would not have been a starter here next year. CJ maxed out here and was also too slow and would not have been a starter here next year. Jamarques is the only one that frustrates me (Fred) but I understand because he wants to be a starter as a junior and I was probably honest with him that that is not guaranteed here because we believe Ulis (or another transfer) is our starting PG and Brice and Juwan are not coming off the bench. Fred had individual meetings with every single player. If anything, these departures should tell you that Mast/Williams/Gary are back because all these guys clearly did not see a path for them to get the minutes they want (or think they deserve) this year. It also tells me Ulis might be better than people think.

Half the battle is showing up (on time).

Alabama is in the Elite 8 with 5 of their top 6 scorers starting their careers at a mid-major school. Mid-majors are basically the new JUCO. Coaches should expect if they find/develop a diamond in the rough, they'll only have him for 2 years max.

I personally had no problem cheering my butt off for Brice Williams, Rienk Mast and Josiah Allick. Just about 12 months ago I had no idea who Brice Williams or Rienk Mast were. It didn't matter to me. If you choose to come play for Nebraska at any point, then welcome. So in that sense the roster turnover doesn't bother me too much. But I would say that this changing teams every year is ridiculous and needs to stop. Professional athletes are not even allowed to do that. You can't just have a great year and then declare yourself a free agent and go play for the highest bidder the following year. There are things called contracts in the real world, and the TEAM owns your rights to play. We need to fix this system because it is outrageous.

I meant he has had enough in the sense that Storr is leaving and Chucky liked Storr and needed Storr and without him they are in trouble. I didn't mean to imply there was tension between them. The opposite actually. Storr leaving Gard might give Chucky the final straw to do the same. I hope so at least. He could come here and lead the program to a dream season. Fidler and Kyle can join along. Or they can all go to UW, play for a coach that all their fans want fired and top players seemingly don't enjoy playing for. Whatever.

AJ Storr in the portal might change that... Maybe Chucky (finally) has had enough. You have to imagine the thought has at least crossed his mind that he could be the local hero to get Nebraska its first NCAA Tournament win.

Well that leaves Diop or Ulis

Yeah I should have added while he doesn't look to be the quickest, he seems to have all the intangibles that would allow one to make up for that. Verge and Cam Mack certainly had quickness and burst. Griesel, Brice and Jamarques aren't the most impressive athletes but played the point just fine and certainly ran an offense infinitely better than Verge and Mack.

Not to take the easy way out, but I've watched a lot of his film and would describe him as a "basketball player". By that I mean he can probably do anything that we ask him to. The question will be what do we ask him to do. He can run the offense and take guys off the dribble, he can catch and shoot, he can pull up and shoot off the dribble. He can play make. I've seen him posting up down low in some clips. If I had to guess though, he probably lacks the quickness and burst to be a Big Ten point guard and will start his career as a SG. I can't contain my excitement for this guy. I think he has a special level of competitiveness and work ethic that is going to make an instant impact. I know this interview has been posted before, but I'm ready to run through a brick wall.

Pat Kelsey might turn out to be a good hire for Louisville. In the same way that literally hiring anyone might be a good hire for Louisville. They have really fallen far. Their fans can't be happy that the best they could do, on paper, is a guy whose biggest coaching gig to date is head coach of a CAA team.

While I would never say no to Keisei coming back for some reason, I'm kind of also excited to see Nick Janowski because I think he will play good minutes for us next year. He shot 44% from 3 in his HS career and scored more points in HS than Tyler Herro and Matt Thomas...while he may not provide the "wow" plays Keisei did, I also do not find it impossible that he can't score 7-9 ppg as a freshman, shoot better than 37.6 % (Keisei's average this year) from 3, and play a tad better defense. I think this kid will be legit when it's all said and done.

No biggie to have a different opinion on what "great" means. For me personally, this was a great Nebraska basketball season - if not only for the fact that this program consistently is terrible and this year was far, far from that. Coming in with the expectations we had and the recency of being dreadful the last few years, a good season - in my opinion - would have been making the NIT, and a great season would have been making the NCAA Tournament. The best season ever would have been an NCAA win. I think a great season is one step below that. Hopefully our rotation all returns and we add some pieces in the portal and we enter next year with higher expectations.

that's amazing

As for the topic at hand, I'll say Fred gets at least some part of the Coach of the Year Award (it won't be a Painter clean sweep) and we'll get one player on one of the teams. And I'm fine with all of it. We are a sum of the parts type of team and I think we should take pride in that we finished 3rd and we might get 1 player considered among the top 15 in the conference.

If I'm being honest, I think 49ers fans would have rather have won the Super Bowl than have just been NFC Champions. But that's just me. I could be wrong.

Weird tweet by her. Yeah, pretty sure we would all rather have those things, Abbie...you think?

If we just beat these teams that we are a combined 0-5 against with an average margin of defeat of 12.4 points...we're in!

I don't know. South Carolina has had an incredible season. They are #8 in SOR and #19 in KPI. They are a 5 seed (Top 20 team) in Bracket Matrix. Their NET is 49, BPI is 48 and KP is 47. Utah State is #21 in SOR, #21 in KPI. They outright won maybe the toughest MWC ever. A 6 seed (Top 25 team) in Bracket Matrix. Their NET is 32, BPI is 67 and KP is 44. The predictive metrics have continued to say all year that these teams, for example, aren't very good. On the flip side, BPI and KP have said Michigan State (19) and Wake Forest (26.5) and Villanova (27) are very good teams all year. I don't think it has anything to do with personal bias. I'm sure they serve some purpose, but I think it's very flawed.

https://barttorvik.com/teamsheets.php?year=2024 Just looking at the QUALITY AVG (Predictive Metrics Avg) and then using 1-4 as a 1 seed, 5-8 as a 2 seed, 9-12 as a 3 seed, etc.

Michigan State has a resume average of 43 and predictive average of 19. If I had any power at all I would lead a revolution to abolish predictive metrics as I believe they serve no purpose, and KPI and SOR are more than enough. The NET more closely resembles the predictive metrics too, which is a huge problem considering your entire resume is built around the NET ranking of teams you played. South Carolina is 49 in NET and nearly won the SEC regular season title. Indiana State is 29 in NET and won 1 game against an NCAA Tournament team all season (Drake). According to predictive metrics, Michigan State is a 5 seed, Villanova is a 7 seed, Wake Forest is a 7 seed, Cincinnati is a 10 seed, Washington State is a 12 seed, and South Carolina and Utah State are not worthy of an At Large... I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous. That is just using a metric just for the sake of using a metric to say you have more metrics. I understand there are many other factors at play, but you can look at data from the last few years and it all tells the same story: Resume Metrics are considered much more heavily than Predictive Metrics in the selections and seeding. If Michigan State loses to Minnesota, I think they're either out or going to Dayton. If they beat Minnesota and lose to Purdue, I would guess 10 seed and yes we will be ahead of them.

I was actually working on some research over the weekend and this is a great thread to share. Nebraska Resume Average = 25 2023 Power Conference Teams with similar Resume Average: Missouri 22.5 - 7 seed Miami 22.5 - 5 seed Iowa State 26 - 6 seed Kentucky 26.5 - 6 seed TCU 30 - 6 seed Michigan State 30 - 7 seed 2022 Power Conference Teams with similar Resume Average Michigan State 24.5 - 7 seed LSU 25 - 6 seed USC 26 - 7 seed North Carolina 26.5 - 8 seed Texas 29.5 6 seed Nebraska Predictive Average = 35 2023 Power Conference Teams with similar Predictive Average Michigan State 33 - 7 seed Iowa 33.3 - 8 seed Miami 37 - 5 seed 2022 Power Conference Teams with similar Predictive Average Indiana 32.7 - 12 seed (had resume average of 52) Michigan State 33 - 7 seed Seton Hall 34.3 - 8 seed USC 37.3 - 7 seed And for what it's worth, we are 24 in Bart Torvik's overall ranking right now. The teams in that range last year on Selection Sunday were: 22 Texas A&M - 7 seed 23 Auburn - 9 seed 24 Kansas State - 3 seed 25 FAU - 9 seed 26 TCU - 6 seed 27 Virginia - 4 seed I did not look into these teams nonconference SOS for example, which would hurt us. But in the research I've done, the NCAA official seed list most closely mimics the Strength of Record metric than anything else, and the seed list generally falls much more in line with the Resume Average than the Predictive Average (Resume Average had a differential average of about 3.85 from the official seed, while Predictive Average had a differential average of about 7.74). And Strength of Record is our best metric. I think people might be surprised where we end up. Our SOR and Resume Average are in the 6-7 range. Even if they punish us more for the non-conference SOS (which the metrics are already supposed to have factored in your strength of opponent), 8-9 right now at worst. 10 is laughable to me, given all the information above. Our numbers are pretty dang good. Speaking of being 24 in Bart Torvik, in 2023 Kansas State (24 BT, Elite 8)...FAU (25 BT, Final Four)...in 2022, Michigan (27 BT, Sweet 16)...North Carolina (28 BT, Finals)...2021, Arkansas (25 BT, Elite 8)...UCLA (30 BT, Final Four)... OK getting ahead of myself now :)