The Polish Rifle

I said it in another thread, but I've been a Fred skeptic. Today brought me back to the believer category.

I've been hard on Fred, but that was f'in awesome.

Yeah, I'm all for dumping on refs, but we've shot 6 FTs they have shot 2....that's how they're calling it. Let's just be honest and acknowledge we're playing like shit.

Maybe. But the context was he considered it last year and he would consider it this year. So I don’t think it would be wise to rule it out. And his star has gotten bigger and his play has gotten better so I’m guessing he will be entertaining offers larger than 500k.

This seems like a good thread for a Tominaga nugget I saw this morning…Per Robin on another other site, Tominaga was in discussion with Pro Teams in Japan last off-season. He was getting offers as high as $500,000. He will have those same discussions this off-season. Keep in mind he has no NIL opportunities in the states.

To Gary’s credit, part of the reason he gets injured a lot is he plays balls to the wall 24/7.

Counting on Gary makes me nervous. Dude has had 3 shoulder injuries, an ACL tear and a facial fracture in 3 seasons.

Probably the biggest point of optimism. They definitely ID’d the right guys in comparison to years past

We’re for sure replacing Bando, Sam, Walker. There’s at least a chance Keisei graduates and plays pro ball in Japan. Gary will be back, but how will his shoulder hold up….3 straight years of shoulder issues makes me nervous. Hoiberg's transfer recruiting has been a mixed bag, though went very well this past off-season. Track record on getting a big hasn’t been great. How will job status impact transfer recruiting? Grad transfers might not care, transfers with multiple years left will probably care. Feels like Fred has one shot at this and it’s gotta be perfect - at least it will be an entertaining off-season.

I appreciate this take. It’s gotta all fall in to place eventually!

To play devils advocate….Gary has missed significant time the past 2 seasons, Tominaga is streaky, Lawrence has shown flashes, and Lloyd and Q have yet to play a minute of college ball.

To say we need an Associate AD for Basketball, feels like an indictment on Hoiberg. Does Creighton have an associate AD for Basketball? Does Rutgers? Does Penn St? Iowa? Wisconsin? It's like saying the Basketball portion isn't being run right but it's not the coaches fault. Maybe we just need a HC with the vision to run the Nebraska Program including all it's flaws and beauty.

Fred definitely deserves credit for what he did at ISU. I have a hard time chalking up his Husker tenure as ‘Nebrasketball gonna Nebrasketball’. His resume is a full picture, he had a hell of a 4 year run at ISU, and he’s had what may be the worst 4 year stretch any P5 coach has ever had at Nebraska.

As @basketballjones mentioned…wins. Forbes is gonna win more games in the past 2 seasons at Wake than Fred will in 4 seasons here. This many 20 loss seasons in a row would make any CBB fans long for wins.

My first thought too...but he is from Iowa? Maybe he loves the midwest?

I was just thinking this same thing. It reminds me of Moneyball. We don’t need to star chase, we can’t beat the big boys at that anyways. How do you get the right mix of guys that will be effective offensively and defensively. Guys like Gary and Bando were undervalued in the portal but lead to a top 50 defense. Like you said they knocked it out of the park defensively.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!!!

Create a list and start interviewin’

I've never considered this and I'm not sure why...

Two fun stats for the day. 1. Prior to 2019-20, Nebraska had never had a 20 loss season in program history. 2. My research shows, no P5 HC has ever had 4 straight 20 loss seasons.

Will certainly be a hot name if Texas doesn’t lock him down.

Maybe.....Bo Ryan, Fran McCaffery, Matt Painter, Scott Drew were all random mid major coaches. More recently guys like Pikiell, Dennis Gates were random mid major coaches. Kinda hard to say Fred is better than any random Mid Major coach.

I will say the context around the metrics was getting to a place where “results matter” - that’s quoting Trev. Maybe Fred has more leeway than Frost does.

I’m curious if Fred’s restructure had expectations tied to it like Frost’s did? I believe it came out that 6 wins and a bowl were frost’s targets. If we do end up at 12-20, it feels like we would be well below any expectations that Trev would have set for Fred. EDIT: I found my answer. Per the LJS “Like Football, Hoiberg will have undisclosed metrics he and the team will have to meet next season”