aphilso1

There has been much talk about how the redshirting guys would consistently beat the starters in practice. But in addition to those redshirting players, we now have a full cadre of new faces joining the program. So who you got? Taking the redshirts out of the equation and just going with the new recruits, would you take last year's rotation or the new guys? Mack / Webster Cheatham / Lat Thor / Teddy Burke / King Yvan / Andre Cross, Green, and Matej / Lakes/Trey (the probable sit-out transfers) Edit for clarity: I'm not including Trey in this since he isn't expected to be eligible next year. include him if you want to, but I'm purely looking at guys that I expect to be able to see the floor in '20-'21. Edit for ignorance: Well crap, I was thinking you could transfer from D-II to D-I without sitting, but apparently I was having a case of the Mondays, er, Wednesdays. So that makes this whole exercise less ideal, since it's really not an apples-to-apples comparison without Lakes. I guess I'll just include both sit-out transfers in the "bench" comparison against Cross/Green/Matej.

The interview in that tweet was pretty good. Gives a better idea of what Eduardo's thought process was in choosing Nebraska over the other P5 offers. Also, lets you know a bit about what he was told to expect for this coming year -- namely, expect to have a big role because we "don't really have a big-time presence inside." Some other tasty morsels in the interview too, but that's probably as much as should be shared on a public forum...pay up if you want to know the rest.

So putting all the info together, it looks like: 1. Sanogo was Plan A. 2. Getting either Wiznitzer or Breidenbach to reclassify to 2020 was Plan B. 3. Eduardo was Plan C. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Breidenbach next year. I like that kid's game. As for Eduardo, I saw someone comment that they thought he was a potential redshirt candidate. That doesn't seem to be the case though. Fred clearly was pushing hard to get another big for this year, which tells me he sees that as an immediate need.

I imagine there are a lot of fans on here that have a second team. I don't for basketball, but I do for football. I grew up a rabid Notre Dame football fan. When I attended UNL I jumped fully onboard with all other sports, particularly basketball and baseball. But for football I've just never been as passionate for Nebraska, since I already had a team to obsess over. Nebraska is clearly my secondary football team, which is good because I don't get nearly as worked up over their many failings over the past fifteen years.

Yeah, on paper we should be much improved in the muscle and rebounding areas of the game. That's part of why I looked at Sanogo not necessarily as a guy that would fill an immediate need, but instead as a guy with too high of a ceiling to pass up. But the fact that the staff has immediately moved on to Plan B makes me think that they aren't actually comfortable with our 4/5 situation, despite what we as fans see on paper. I'm just getting a bit of a "Danger, Will Robinson" vibe with all of this.

This makes me worried. Sanogo felt like a potential game-changing talent, that we wanted regardless of system fit/need. The kind of player you make room for because of extreme potential. The fact that we are now going full-court press on another big tells me that Fred isn't as happy with our post situation as I'd hoped. Maybe I'm reading too far into the tea leaves, but I'm now worried that we may have a continued rebounding/post defense problem next season.

That is unfortunate. Breidnebach looked like he could be an absolute steal for us if he slid up to 2020. I imagine he will get a lot of good offers this year, and competition for him is going to be a lot tougher.

His eligibility clock is a bit confusing. He played a game in 17/18 at SFA, and a full season at SLCC in 18/19. Then a year for us. So he has played two full seasons plus like 5 seconds of a third season, which I'm guessing he got permission to count as his redshirt year. But either way, his clock should have already started in 2017, right? Maybe he is assuming that he can use the new one time transfer rule that is supposedly coming. But as someone who has already used his redshirt year, and is now transferring for a third time, he doesn't seem like someone who a "first time transfer rule" would apply to.

At this point I really just hope Cam gets a degree from somewhere. He will mature at some point, whether that's next year or two decades from now. When he does, that diploma will make adjusting to adult life much easier for him. I wish him the best, particularly off the court.

I'd be happy with that.

I'm just glad it's not Creighton. Or Minnesota, I guess. But really Creighton.

Brilliant move by Fred. I can remember when coaches used to do things like grayshirting or stashing kids at prep schools to get around scholarship limitations. But Fred is hiding them at other D1 schools, and just waiting two years to bring them to Lincoln. The man is a genius!

Matej's shot may have looked clumsy, but it went in at a ridiculous rate in Seattle for three years. There was a good reason that we were all excited last year by the Kavas pickup. Purely from a body type standpoint (6'7" 230 lbs vs 6'8" 200 lbs), I do think Lakes looks like a guy that won't get embarrassed as much on the defensive end of the floor as Kavas. That was a major issue with Matej -- he needed to produce at a pretty high clip on offense to make up for his deficiencies on defense. Now granted, I have yet to see any kind of tape on Lakes on defense, so this is purely speculative just based on the "getting off the bus" test. Personally, I think that Kavas' struggles started on the defensive end of the floor. It didn't take long to realize that he was a major liability on D for us, so for him to be a "net positive" for us he needed to more than make up for it on the offensive end. And as we all know, his offensive game was fairly limited other than from deep. That puts a ton of pressure on each individual 3pt shot attempt. I imagine every attempt started to feel like a "must make" shot. So like you, my theory is that his struggles were mental. I just think the reason was different.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Seems to be a carbon copy of Kavas from a year ago, and Kavas didn't really pan out. I am curious what position he will defend when on D, and whether his shot will transition to P5 basketball. I like the fact that he has a year to sit out prior to contributing; hopefully that will be the key to increased productivity compared to Kavas.

I think he will end up with a better offer if he waits it out. Some P5 school will have late attrition (a la AWIII) and be desperate enough for talent that they are willing to take on the extra baggage with Cam. The question to me isn't if he would eventually get a P5 offer, but more so if he is willing to wait that long. Easier to take the bird in the hand than the two in the bush, and other such analogies, ya know?

Hold on a minute. When did Sacha Baron Cohen join Huey Lewis and the News? Dude in the back row, third from left, is clearly Jean Girard from Talladega Nights.

I see what you did there. Nice.

Nice! Unfortunately I typically only made the trip down from Omaha once or twice per year. Actually went to my first road match against RSL for my birthday last summer. We loved the location and moved to Utah this winter, so I was hoping to catch road matches against RSL and Colorado this season. Obviously the 'Rona is impacting that plan though.

Who is your MLS team? There's only one correct answer.

Are the College Basketball reddit boards pretty decent? I've found most reddit subs are a cesspool of ignorance. So not sure that I'd put much weight in that.

I'd pass on him, too. He attempted only 0.9 shots from three per game, and 5.3 free throws per game. That tells me that the high 3pt% is likely a small sample size bias, and the FT% is the true indicator of what quality of shooter he is. Not worth the roster spot IMO.

I'd hate to lose Arop, because I do think that he will be a very nice player for us eventually. I also think having some local kids is good for any program, as they are often team leaders even if they're only role players. Cross though wouldn't be a loss. He looks like a guy whose ceiling is to be a rotation player for a Sun Belt school. If he is seeing minutes for us, then that's a bad thing. He doesn't strike me as a potential team leader either, but I could easily be wrong on that count.

This is a solid point. Fred appears to have found guys that are built to withstand the bumps and bruises of conference play, while also having the skill sets that he's looking for to run his offense. Last year I think we did have some of the offensive pieces he wanted (although obviously needed an extra shooter or two), but didn't have guys that could hold their own on the defensive end physically. And as the year wore on, that effected the offensive productivity as well.

Yes, while holding a 10 lb dumbbell in each hand.