HuskerBB

When you do be sure to pinpoint the exact location of Norm's parking spot - assuming your map is large enough to extend out that far.

Good question A Karmin cover rap version of the anthem might be pretty cool (and take about 15 seconds). But I bet she sticks to the traditional tempo.

I made it from earlier information. $10 now? Geez I wonder what lot 21 will be. I don't know that for sure - just relaying what is on the PBA website. I suspect and hope that your map is actually correct.

Karmin the duo - or Amy Heideman the female half of Karmin?

dimes - where did that map come from? I was in the www.pinnaclebankarena.com website earlier today and they now have a link to a parking map for mens and womens games and it shows lots 19 and 20 as $10 - same as the festival lot. If your map comes from huskers.com it is probably accurate. I think SMG is the entity selling the festival lot parking and I am not sure but UNL may still be controlling the sales (and getting the revenue) from Lots 19 and 20. If that is the case the PBA website simply may not want people to know that Lots 19 and 20 are cheaper than the festival lot. Also would be nice if someone could let people know if the access to those lots is only through Line Drive (off of Sun Valley) or if they are leaving the streets that flow into the north bottoms (Charleston to the north and 4th to the south) open either before or after games. When they built the baseball stadium the people on Charleston made a big ruckus and got them to close the access on Charleston off for Saltdog and Husker baseball games. Not sure if that applies to basketball now as well.

They do that for concerts also - you have a pass and they take that and give you a ticket and they you have to give them a ticket when you leave. Not a very efficient system but at least they are not collecting money and making change. Only reason I can think that they might do this is to catch people who might have parked there early in the day and then tried to stay for the event ?

Are you sure you can buy a spot in the Red 1 garage for men's games - I thought that was season permit parking only.

Yes that is a student section but there only a handful of students there. For some reason nearly all of the students who did show up stuffed themselves behind the scorers table. Hopefully a decent number of students show up Friday.

6,000 more seats??? I think PBA capacity is a little bigger than BDSC was at the end (Isn't Pinnacle about the same as BDSC was when it was built (around 14,500) but BDSC capacity got smaller each time they changed bleacher seats to chairbacks). But certainly Pinnacle capacity is not 6,000 more people than BDSC was. Maybe 6,000 more than it is now for volleyball - but that is a whole different animal and an apples to oranges comparison.

Norm I agree with you for the most part - but as I said in the game thread, students are going to be much more noticeable and effective on the end of the court. They only get one end now in this arena - but if I was a student (I was one long ago - we had a coach named Iba then and I NEVER missed a game) I would have been on the end not behind a scorers table. Trust me - students behind a team's bench are not going to impact a game - players at this level are used to that and coaches are not going to let it bother them either. I share your concern about the concessions as mentioned on the other thread - particularly the lack of Runza's. But then later today someone mentioned another glaring absence - the frozen malts !! Are they anywhere in the arena ??? Also - what's up with the popcorn. I remember 40+ years ago I was a kid going to games with my parents at the Coliseum watchin Chuck Jura, Leroy Chalk and Bob Seigel. Some of my favorite memories of those games were how the whole place would smell of freshly popped popcorn and how I always would get my dad to buy me a "frosty malt". A generation later in the 1990's I was taking my children to games in BDSC to watch Eric Piatkowski and Bruce Chubick and they loved to get those same frosty malts. Kids are all grown up now - but someday in the future I would like to think I could take my grandchildren to a game in Pinnacle Bank Arena - and really would love to be able to get them one of those Meadow Gold frozen malts to eat with a flat wooden "spoon" and tell them how I used to have the same thing watching Husker basketball half a century before. Maybe I am just out of date but there are things unique to Nebraska sports that should not be lost. Only place I ever had (or even saw) one of those frozen malts was at Husker BB games. Is that tradition dead now?

Norm, sorry if I made an incorrect assumption. Don't really remember that board well enough to know who you might be talking about. You might be right about some posters on RSS having inside knowlege - but there are also several that try to give that impression who do not. No big deal - not worth discussing here. diehard - I don't really have any issues with what you are saying. Obviously you put alot more mental energy into following recruiting than I do - but I don't have any big issues with what you are saying. I think your 90% figure is a bit high - because I think coaching is at least more than a 10% factor. But part of that is player development and the other aspect I would point out is that some players are good fits and will respond to some coaching styles better than others. While there are certainly guys who are going to be good for any coach - there are also some who need the right coaching to really maximize the talent they have - and it is not the same coaching for everybody although good coaches will be able to do that with a wider variety of players. Ultimately this is way off topic to this thread - but in general I think you make valid points about recruiting and I certainly respect your desire to follow it closely. I guess I would add that to some extent I evaluate a coach's ability to recruit "after the fact" when I have seen the players that they bring in. I just think it is much harder to draw valid conclusions before then unless you spend alot of time in the effort and even then it is a pretty inexact science. As far as our former coaches I would agree the Collier had some bad misses but he also brought in some pretty talented players and then did a poor job coaching them. I always thought Barry was a poor coach in dealing with highly talented but a little bit undisciplined players - but a decent coach of less talented players. Problem was the guys he knew how to coach to maximize talent did not have a high enough ceiling to compete at this level - and while he had some players who could have made us more successful at this level he did not coach them well (Nate Johnson would be Exhibit A). Doc was much harder to figure out. I don't think you can really say he recruited to his system because I could never really see any organization or consistency to his approach to either coaching or recruiting. But clearly you are correct that he was not able to land players that had the ability to make us successful at this level and that was a key factor in his downfall.

Yeah I know that Rivals has some good recrutiing resources. I never spent too much time on that anyway. My theory (which I believe holds true) is that every coach knows way more about a kid's talent and ability to fit into their program than any recruiting service will ever know. So I just hope that we are able to get the kids we say we are going after and I don't give 2 cents for how many stars some recruiting service gives that player. I will acknowledge, however, that at least on some level knowing which other schools are recruiting a kid does give you some amount of general information about the kinds of players that we are "trying" to recruit and that is an important aspect that doesn't get directly factored into my "theory". It seems pretty clear that Miles is setting his sights on a higher caliber of player than Doc was - and you need to take that into account if you are measuring recruiting success by whether or not we are getting the players we are after. Some attribute that solely to Miles being more aggressive - but frankly I think it is just as much attributable to Miles doing a much better job of identifying higher level players that we have a chance to get and doing the initial work it takes to make them at least somewhat interested. But - always remember that just because big name schools are going after a kid does not mean they would be a good fit for us - and more importantly - and more frequently - there might be a player that is not getting alot of recruiting attention for some reason who ends up being really good. Rivals like all recruiting services misses alot in their evaluations. If you want to be able to access film to make your own evaluation then I think it is probably a great resource for that - but I don't have the desire to spend time on that - nor do I claim to have the expertise of a college basketball coach in making the evaluation. Plus highlight film is really only a small part of the overall picture in deciding whether a kid will be a good fit. That is why I spend alot more time thinking about the players that we have than worrying about the players we may or may not be trying to get.

I have been off RSS for some time now - but there used to be some people on there who professed to know things about what was going on with the BB program who were completely full of sh!t. Not talking about Robin - some of their other so called experts of all things NU. From what I have seen posted elsewhere the level of discussion on that board for football has done nothing but go down since I left - so I would expect it hasn't gotten much better with respect to basketball although most there don't really care about basketball anyway.

What I have found is that most people who put themselves out as an "insider" on a message board are usually the farthest thing from being an "insider". People who a truly loyal to the program and have solid information are generally going to keep that information to themselves or be very careful about how it gets let out - and they will generally be the first to disclaim any actual knowledge and the last to use message board postings as a way to "stroke their ego". As far as the rivals basketball board I am not sure who you are referring to but I used to frequent that board also. nustudent was over there and on this board also for awhile and he brushed alot of people the wrong way - but in his case I always thought he was simply opinionated and a little arrogant - but not an imposter or someone who was not truly loyal to the program. Maybe you are thinking about someone else - but I don't really remember too much as that board has been pretty dead since this one really got going.

Thought I would check out other boards over the noon hour to see what people might be saying about the game or the arena. The rivals basketball board did not have a single post in November - nothing about the game last night at all - before, during or after. Knew that one was pretty much history but did not know it was that completely dead. Against my better judgement I went over to the free rivals Husker board and there were a couple threads about the game/arena but nothing of substance. Could not resist clicking on a couple of other threads on that board which was a mistake. I have long since given up access to RSS and know I don't want to go back there but I am pretty sure it had no intelligent conversation about basketball or anything else. I still had a saved link to Huskerpedia - which is now Husker Max. They had a thread during the game for updates for people not there but not a single post after that at all. Not really looking around but are there any other boards anymore that comment substantively on Husker Basketball or does HHC now have a complete monopoly? Would not be a bad thing - but makes it more important to keep this one from getting polluted and taken over like some of the football boards.

Norm if you are walking from the North Bottoms you better not walk off all that Halloween candy - you will need some of that extra insulation to get you through that walk in sub-zero January weather.

Game was a blowout from the beginning which makes it even harder to learn much from tonight. I liked what our starters did for the most part. Remains to be seen how well we can defend against bigger and quicker opponents. I am sure we will play with more intensity in close games that mean something. As others have said Fuller really struggled tonight. Maybe just first college game jitters. I expected more of a crowd tonight. Wasn't bad for a normal exhibition game - but thought the first game in the new arena would bring more people. Students numbers were the most disappointing - but particularly because the ones who were there all sat on the side. If they want to have an impact on the game they need to get in the seats on the end. Hopefully those end seats will be full on Friday. I am not a fan at all of the arena concession arrangement. A long way to get to them from my seats - but the real issue is not having a standard selection. Apparently can only get Val's from the Val's stand - and I don't even know where that one is - and NO RUNZA's!!! How can you go to a Nebraka sporting event and not be able to get a Runza???. In the open area on the north side they have some meat cutting station where I can get a "Cuban Panini" for $10??? I don't think so - give me a Runza anyday. Seriously they just need to let kids walk up and down the aisles with Runza's and Val's pizza during the games or even just at timeouts. That would kick the crap out of the other concesson options.

I would guess quite a bit less than 8,000.

Lots 19, 20, and 21 (baseball lots) have 1650 stalls. The festival space has another 1300 stalls. Permit lots 7 and 18, red 1 garage, attached VIP garage total 2,233 stalls. Lumberworks garage (Canopy & O, still only 3 blocks away) 500 stalls. Is this one close to being done? That's 5683 stalls plus other downtown options. Plenty of spots everyone just needs to find them and most efficient way for them! Lumberworks garage is not open yet - probably will be by later in the year. Does your permit lot figure include the garages by the football stadium (above the ticket office) and the one by the Embassy Suites? Those are also permit parking from UNL. If they fill up all the Haymarket Park parking - including the lot north of the softball field there are people walking a long ways to the game - and that is a ton of cars to get out of that one exit. Curious if those original baseball lots (19, 20, & 21) will also be $10 or if that is just for the festival lot. If you end up with a crowd of 15,000 - that is probably going to be over 7,000 cars, especially if you include spots for arena workers and workers in the area around the arena. Your figure is still a ways from 7,000 stalls. But, there are some other spots - the garage across from Barry's for one - and the emply lots north of the Journal Star building will be used also on a pay by game basis. I would not plan on finding any meter parking anywhere very close to the arena - that was virtually impossible in the Haymarket area before anyone even thought of putting an arena there.

Nighthawk: 19 and 20 were not booster parking choices. Those choices were the Deck 1 garage just south of the arena, the garage next to Embassy Suites (south of Journal Star building), the garage by the football stadium and surfact lots 7 and 18 which are on the south side of the original Haymarket Park bridge (north of the post office and the INS building). Those lots will all be permit only for boosters who ordered spaces with their tickets. I was told they allocated out all of those spaces with season ticket holder permits for Men's basketball. Also - apparently from the other post they were letting people pay to get into the garage south of the arena for the women's game. That is different from the men's game parking and it would slow things down a little getting in if some people have to pay vs. just handing them your pass. Should be the same deal getting out though. I parked in that garage for both Michael Buble and the Eagles and for both of the those the time to exit was not as bad as I expected. Next - the link that is posted is for parking for the Pink concert when it says the festival and Haymarket lots (19 & 20) are $5. I know the city was selling reserved spots for basketball in the festival lot for $160 which is about $10 per game. There is an extra benefit to having a reserved spot - but that tells me that those lots might be priced at $10 for basketball. (If someone parks there tonight please let us know what it costs and if it is different for the Haymarket lots vs the festival lot) I know people complained about parking at Devaney - but at least at first the Arena has the potential to be much worse. Time will tell but certainly there will be an adjustment period until people figure out where they are going and the best way to get there. It should not be cold tonight but those Haymarket Park lots are a pretty long walk across that bridge - or it will seem like a long exposed walk when it is really cold. Plus all of the baseball lots and the new festival lot will enter and exit from one place onto Sun Valley (unless they open up Charleston which is always closed for baseball games). I would expect long lines on Sun Valley tonight from people trying to get into those lots. I remember the first Saltdogs baseball game at Haymarket - the line of cars on Sun Valley was backed up all the way to O Street - and that was dealing with alot fewer people and cars than will pass through that entrance now. But, eventually people did a better job of figuring out where they had to go. It will be interesting to me to know how well that Haymarket Park area traffic flows in and out tonight.

I had scouted out the parking options earlier and noticed that problem with the lot north of the post office. The sidewalk to the north entrance to the arena is right on the other side of that fence. It is ridiculous that they did not put a gate in there so people parking in that lot could just walk right over to the north arena entrance. You have to go up stairst - but the walking distance would be about 1/10 as far. People are really going to hate that when it gets cold - and I will not be at all surprised if you see people trying to go over that fence in a couple places. Not sure how someone could look at that and decide to not give that lot access to the north arena entrance. Hopefully that will be fixed soon. How is the garage parking handled for women's games? Is the garage south of the arena just set up for event parking for people with a prepurchased pass - or are they selling spots there to the public. If it is the latter I can see why it would be much slower. For men's games you can only park in that garage if you have a pass. That is how it also has been for concerts and for those getting in and out has not been as bad as I thought it would be. Not great - but not horrible either. I do agree with the statement that you should plan on getting their earlier than you did for Devaney and don't think you are going to get out any more quickly - particularly for these first few games. Hopefully as people get used to the arena and the way traffic is supposed to flow it will get better during the season.

The entrance to that lot is off of Sun Valley. Same entrance that you use for the baseball stadium. You can't get there going through the Haymarket.

As many have said the difference is really almost entirely about expectations. Most people have low - even unrealistically low - expectations for the basketball program. The opposite is true about the football program where most people have unrealistically high expectations - thinking that the "norm" should be what we had in football in the mid-90's and anything less is a disaster. That might be a bit of an overstatement - but not much. The other aspect that is not really touched on directly above is the global level of "care" about the program. Nebraska football is a big deal for Nebraskans (in and outside the state) and it is a big business as well. Lots of people put alot of mental energy into the football program. That leads to overreaction in general - and more extremes on both side. The more you care about something the more extreme your reaction when things don't go exactly as you hoped. That environment also breeds things like the rivals message board where people's shared overreaction just feeds itself and makes it expand to even greater and greater levels. Plus the anonymity of message boards allows people to use them for self-agrandizement. Many of the so-called "experts" on the rivals board are really people who have absolutely no inside information - they have just used anonymity and arrogance to convince peopel they know something. Those people (unfortunately much like most of the media today) are much more interested in creating controversy than they are about the underlying program they are supposed to be a "fan" of. There are "experts" on the rivals board who I am sure are just posing as Nebraska fans but are really not that at all and are just motivated by a desire to try to bring down the program. The sad thing isn't that those people exist (they always will) the sad thing is that there are places where they find lemmings who follow them and believe what they say. In comparison there are simply not that many people who care that deeply about Nebraska basketball - and those few of us that do have been around enough to have a pretty good understanding of the program and where we stand. As a result we are more realistic about our expectations - and we have enough knowledge to spot the imposters and expose them. Guy's like kidney have tried to come on here and develop a following only to be quickly shot down. The rivals boards are example of a forum that got taken over by those guys like kidney who managed to sell themselves to the masses - and ultimately had the effect of chasing any knowledgable person off that board. The same thing could happen here if Husker hoops gets important enough to generate interest from people who really don't have an understanding of the program.

I understand the comparisons to Devaney but at least to some extent that is apples to oranges because PBA is not a basketball only facility and Devaney was pretty much built just for Husker basketball. I think it is more fair to compare PBA seating to other multi-use arenas (Qwest/Clink) etc than to Devaney or other basketball specific arenas. In that sense I think PBA compares very favorably. Mabye the front rows on the ends are a little farther back than they were at BDSC and they certainly are not right on top of the court like they are if you watch UNC games in the Dean Dome. But they are closer than I expected when we decided to join with the city in building an arena. I went to 3 places in PBA where I have sat on different ocassions to try out the "equivalent" seats that were issued for those seats. A. My primary seat location was 4 rows up in C at BDSC. Those seats are in row 21 of PBA and that is farther from the court than the BDSC seats - and those also got shoved a little farther off mid court - basically from the free throw line to almost the baseline. Those seats got "worse" but I expected that not because of the arena design but because they put students on that side where they were not before so I think everyone on that side got pushed up some. I still like the seats though. B. I have sometimes sat with friends in the B level on the end nearest the NU bench. On that end they eliminated the student seating and those "equivalent" seats are at least a little lower and closer than they were at BDSC. These were still in row 7 so they must have put some more people in front on them than were actually in front of them in the B level but still fewer rows than if you counted the bleacher rows at BDSC. Loved those seats in PBA - in this case I felt the equivalent seats were an improvement from a view perspective. Again I kind of expected this because of the elimination of the student seats below these. C. On occasion I have sat in row 2 of the A level at BDSC opposite the Husker bench. I felt that those "equivalent" seats at PBA were very much the same as the ones in BDSC - and this is a location that I expected to feel noticably farther from the court than we were at BDSC. Here I was pleasantly surprised to find them fairly comparable in distance from the court. Maybe my perspective is influenced by what i "expected" going in - but I was personally happy with how those "equivalent" seats turned out. I also went up to the highest row at PBA. I can't really say that I have been up that high in BDSC recently enough to fairly compare that view with the PBA view. But I have sat in the very top reaches of Qwest/Clink for Husker- CU games and in terms of that comparison I thought the PBA seats were much better.

Went through the arena today and was very impressed. As one who has been very skeptical from the beginning that combining with the city for a multi-purpose arena would result in a good basketball venue I can happily say I feel now that I was wrong. It would be possible to get seats closer to the floor - but this is very comparable to Devaney in that respect which surprised me for a multi-purpose arena. I wish we were putting students on both ends - but boy those lower seats on that non-student end are great seats. I know someone who has seats in that location and sitting there made me jealous. Went up to the top and that is pretty high - but they made things steep enough so it will not be a bad location at all for watching basketball. Skybox views also seem closer than I expected. Overall - in my view the perspective from every location is better than I thought it would be in terms of closeness to the court - and much better in that respect than the Qwest/Clink. Concessions and other amenties looked like they will be top notch as well. I might have preferred a little more of that on the floor level (there is just one place on that level on the south side) so everyone in the lower bowl is going to go up for food etc. But lots of variation and hopefully enough options to avoid lines that are too long. The capital terrace is a really neat idea and all around the concourse the views to the outside are really neat. Cool to walk along the east side and look over to the football stadium. Overall I was really happy with what I saw in pretty much every respect. Really looking forward to games there with a full house and an excited crowd with alot of energy. Have not had that with NU hoops for a long time.