Dead Dog Alley

Ringo.

They lose 3 players 44 minutes a game, 33 minutes at guard, 7 minutes at center, and 4 minutes at SF. (The 4 minutes at SF was a guy who transferred after the first semester.) They add three redshirts including the highly regarded Joey Hauser, the four star wing player, and a grad transfer SG/PG from Fordham. Some of the guard minutes will be made up by the grad transfer, some will be from increased minutes from the sophomore backup guard who averaged 18 minutes, some could be from Anim playing some at SG and not just at SF. It appears that Cain's 17 min/game was exclusively at the 4 last year (at 6'7" and 195), and Hauser played 23 min/game at the 4 and 9 min/game at the 3. Theo John played exclusively at C. So, they never played with a big lineup. They've got enough perimeter players that Sam Hauser will probably still get quite a few minutes at the 4 and Joey Hauser will get a lot of the rest. So if Ed is playing much at the 4, mark me down as surprised.

No, you don't. It is still covered by the scholarship.

I'm looking forward to making the drive to Minneapolis during the first week of April.

Isaac Copeland, Aleks Maric, Kimani Ffriend, Venson Hamilton, Derrick Chandler, Carl Hayes, Tony Farmer, Rich King, Dave Hoppen, Chuck Jura, Bus Whitehead. Those are the only 11 players at Nebraska, listed at 6'9" or taller, that have averaged more than 12 points a game for a season. Other than when Danny Nee was here, we see about one a decade. There is a lot riding on Copeland's decision, as obviously he would not be easy to replace.

Maybe he couldn't pass up the chance to be an answer to a trivia question: who was an assistant for both of the last two major conference teams that hadn't won a tournament game when they finally did win one?

Hopefully, next April, we can find out if you're right.

I hope if that matchup happens, that Ed will try to showcase his perimeter game and attempt about ten 3 pointers.

I'm throwing out the following information just to illustrate the nature of the coaching profession. There are 32 coaches in the top 6 conferences with that have been around as long or longer than Miles. Of those, 30 have won an NCAA Tournament game. The two that haven't are Miles and Chambers at Penn State. Also among major conferences, since they expanded the tournament to 64 teams in 1985, there have been a few coaches that get their first NCAA Tournament win at a school only after more than seven seasons, but there aren't many. Leonard Hamilton did it twice, at Miami and Florida State. Mike Montgomery did it at Stanford. Jim O'Brien did it at Boston College. Bruce Parkhill did it at Penn State. Richard Williams did it at Mississippi State. And that's it, as far as I can find. And in that time, the only two coaches that made it to their tenth season at a school without winning a tournament game are Bill Carmody at Northwestern, who lasted 13 years, and Danny Nee, who lasted 14. So, in general, it's extremely important to win early in your tenure, because otherwise it's extremely rare to get a chance to win late.

I wouldn't call what Nebraska played that day football. If anyone sat through more than a quarter of that garbage they must have been a masochist.

Mike Riley is getting paid $50,000 per year by Oregon State to be an assistant now, Pelini is getting paid around $220,000 per year at Youngstown. Essentially NU is paying the full amount of the buyouts. (Plus, in the last four years, for two football coaching staffs, for some other football assistants like Banker & Read, for Eichorst, for Connie Yori - in the neighborhood of $20 million.)

Assistant coaches usually don't stick around forever - the only ones we've had in the last 50 years that were here as long or longer than Kenya were Moe Iba (1971-80), Tom Baack (1978-86), Gary Bargen (1987-95), Jimmy Williams (1993-99), and Lynn Mitchem (1987-92).

Among the top 50 programs in the country, the list of ones that don't cheat appears to be much, much shorter than the list of ones that do.

I didn't even have to look at who started this thread, it was obvious that it was this from Kearney.

Also, that was probably, word for word, what was told to Eichorst the day after Harvey Perlman retired.

Could also be a Hobbesian....

Penn State or Loyola...who would you take?

If, say, Wisconsin, coming off of 19 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, had our schedule and record, would they have been left out? Hell. No. So there's that.

Actually, if you give him a full extension, and Copeland and Palmer do not come back, and you give Miles the ultimatum that he has to make the tournament, you've just wasted a bunch of money. If he gets a full extension and they leave, depending on how they are replaced on the roster (by, for example, two pretty talented division one transfers that have to sit out next year), they might just ride it out with him for year eight.

Here's Loyola's roster and stats (stats based on a per 37 games basis): Player Ht Wt Yr MIN PPG RPG APG Donte Ingram 6-6 215 Sr. 30.6 11.3 6.3 1.5 Clayton Custer 6-1 185 Jr. 28.3 11.4 1.9 3.6 Marques Townes 6-4 210 Jr. 28.0 11.2 3.9 2.5 Cameron Krutwig 6-9 260 Fr. 23.6 10.3 6.1 1.8 Ben Richardson 6-3 185 Sr. 22.5 5.1 2.2 2.8 Lucas Williamson 6-4 190 Fr. 20.1 4.9 2.2 1.0 Aundre Jackson 6-5 230 Sr. 19.1 11.0 3.3 0.9 Bruno Skokna 6-4 175 So. 11.7 3.2 0.9 0.6 Cameron Satterwhite 6-4 175 So. 9.7 1.7 1.6 0.8 Adarius Avery 6-5 190 Jr. 2.5 1.0 0.6 0.1 Christian Negron 6-7 215 Fr. 1.9 0.5 0.3 0.0 Carson Shanks 7-0 245 Sr. 0.8 0.3 0.1 0.0 Jake Baughman 6-3 180 So. 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 Nick Dinardi 6-7 225 Sr. 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.0 Dylan Boehm 6-5 205 Sr. 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.1 Let's say they play Nebraska's schedule. Do they win at St. John's? Toss-up. At UCF? Toss-up. At Creighton? A chance, but probably not. Do they beat Kansas at home? Not unless Kansas lays an egg. Do they beat Boston College at home? Probably. Do they win at Michigan State? No. Do they win at Purdue? No. Do they win at Ohio State? Probably not. Do they win at Penn State? Probably not. Do they beat Michigan at home? Probably not (but we get to see on Saturday). Do they win at Illinois? Most likely. Do they beat Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Minnesota all on the road? They probably lose one or two of those. Do they beat Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maryland, Penn State, and Indiana at home? They probably lose one or two of those. And then they are in the NIT. My point being, building a roster that can win in the tournament is not the same as building a roster that can hold up in the Big Ten.

Would Loyola have made the tournament if they had played with the same roster in the Big Ten? No. The size and athletes they'd face game after game would have ground them down; their roster isn't built to handle that. Putting together a roster that can compete in the Big Ten, and putting together one that can advance in the tournament, are often two different things.

Here are some results from the 14 current Big Ten teams over the last six years (with Michigan and Penn State numbers incomplete as they are still playing). Team NCAAs NCAA wins NITs NIT wins 20+ wins 22+ wins highest win total overall wins overall losses Michigan State 6 11 0 0 6 5 30 162 56 Michigan 5 15 0 0 5 5 32 156 65 Wisconsin 5 13 0 0 5 5 36 153 65 Ohio State 4 5 1 1 5 4 29 141 67 Purdue 4 4 0 0 4 3 30 135 72 Maryland 3 3 1 3 4 4 28 140 66 Indiana 3 4 1 0 3 2 29 127 75 Iowa 3 2 2 5 4 3 25 122 83 Minnesota 2 1 1 5 3 2 25 111 91 Illinois 1 1 3 3 3 1 23 111 94 Northwestern 1 1 0 0 2 1 24 101 96 Nebraska 1 0 1 0 1 1 22 97 97 Penn State 0 0 1 3 1 1 24 99 102 Rutgers 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 74 121

I just want to gauge some opinions here: if Loyola and Northwestern had swapped conferences for this year, where in the league standings would each have finished? Northwestern in the Valley, Loyola in the Big Ten.

In Nebraska's wins Gill was 41-95, 43.1%. In losses he was 13-48, 27.1%. Through the first 18 games (home against Wisconsin) he was 36-75 for 48%. After that he was 18-68, 26.5%. It could be that the wear and tear on his knees, after coming back from those injuries, affected him at the end of the year, or it could be that he just went into a slump after he got into the starting lineup.