GoBigRed

And here is the GIF from the Illinois board, which cuts out his first step from the First National logo to the 3 point line. And it's still a travel without that step.

Last night's officials should probably just turn in their stripes and whistles. He caught the ball here and didn't take a single dribble before dunking.

I don't even bat an eye when Petteway shoots any shot anymore like I did early in the season. He's proven himself. He's our guy and if he misses, I'd rather lose a game with him being off than with him just not shooting the ball at all. And funny you compare this team to Doc's defenses Norm. Remember at the beginning of the year when everyone was all up in arms about this team's defensive effort and how we longed for the days of Doc's defensive teams? They've come a long way in a short amount of time. And we still don't have any big guys protecting the rim.

That was on the carrying call on Petteway (that I also disagreed with) but then they never showed the replay. #bigscreenproblems. Of course Miles will get to see the film and I won't. But the bad ref made that call and Miles might have wanted to pick up his 1st T if the replay had shown the call was a bad one. You were probably at the game Norm. I couldn't make it so I watched on TV and Miles leaned back and looked at the big screen on a handful of calls, not just the carry (which was a good call, btw, and one that they got Illinois for later as well). BTN showed him after every questionable call and he did it all the time on blocks/charges, handchecks, etc. It was pretty funny. Of course I was losing my mind, so kudos to him for being at least more patient than I am. Side note: last night was the first time I can remember this season our opponent getting called for an illegal screen. It seems to me that we get called for that at least once a game.

I get a kick out of Miles leaning back on the scorer's table waiting for the big screen replay on questionable calls. Like he's just double-checking to make sure he's right before he blows a gasket. Some calls last night were horrible. Was not surprised that Illinois was already in the bonus with 12 minutes left in the game considering they were playing offense on Groce's half of the court.

I think we should merge our US ALWAYS slogan with WHY NOT US for a new team slogan: WHY NOT US ALWAYS? That way when we collapse we can revise it to WHY US ALWAYS?

Even if we lose, 2-1 in our next 3 games would have us at 7-7. If you look at other teams' schedules, there's a decent chance we could be t-5th with Wisconsin with 4 games left. Can you feel it?

Not too much fun on Saturday, though, since the game is Sunday.

This too.

I know the Athletic Department has people reading these boards. Obviously you can't stop fans from leaving early, but it looks absolutely TERRIBLE when people are blatantly walking all the way down the sidelines to exit the arena, while the game is going on, and the TV cameras pick it up plain as day. You've got a game going on, and on the bottom of the screen hundreds of people are filing out one direction. Then on the top of the screen hundreds of people are filing out the other direction. It looks downright sad, especially when we are winning. It's embarrassing to anyone watching. Fixing this is as simple as forcing people to exit any of the 4 corners. If 2 of the corners are closed off at the end of games, then maybe they just have to wait or go up to exit. I can't think of any other college basketball game I've ever watched that has two lines of people marching out of the arena behind the team benches and behind press row. Looks like a bunch of damn marching ants. This is not meant to complain about the fans. This is about the way arena traffic is enforced.

Exactly the opposite situation we were in against Illinois tonight. Yes and it's nice to see Nebrasketball finally not choke in that "must-win" winnable home game. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) if we want to dream big, every home game from here on out is a must-win.

For those who think we have no chance: Michigan State in conference home games: W by 15 (Penn State) L by 5 (Michigan) W by 5 (Indiana) W in OT (Minnesota) W in OT (Ohio State) Nothing to be scared of IMO. Let's go play ball.

Alright, here we go. Michigan State, 2nd in the BIG. Nebraska, 6th in the BIG. Everyone is expecting us to lose. But a win....would be....huge

Benny really needs to take one of these wide open threes at some point...just man up and shoot it Benny!

TM TM. Tim Miles Time Machine. Whether it's something he said or merely the chinstrap, Shavon: welcome back.

Take the effing timeout!

Petteway is a bad 1st half player and amazing 2nd half player. Why is it an offensive foul on Shields when his elbow barely makes contact with a defender who flops, but it's not an offensive foul when Illinois player puts an elbow in Smith's face before any other contact is made?

No, but his point was more that going 5-2 at any stretch in the Big Ten is an accomplishment.

No, it's really not that hard to predict the 68. When it comes down to it, there are usually only a handful of teams competing for the final spots. The seedings are much harder to predict.

**If you are not a "dreamer" or you don't want to get ahead of yourself and risk getting your hopes crushed, please do not read any further. If you choose to anyway, you reserve no right to complain about this topic.** Just wanted to take a look around the country to see how far off we are from being in the discussion in Lunardi's opinion. His Feb. 10 Bracketology with RealTime RPI rankings: Last 4 In 50. Providence (16-8, 6-5 Big East) SOS 44 61. LSU (15-7, 6-4 SEC) SOS 76 41. BYU (17-9, 9-4 WCC) SOS 27 49. Missouri (16-7, 4-6 SEC) SOS 71 First 4 Out 57. Georgetown (14-9, 5-6 Big East) SOS 18 46. St. Joseph's (16-7, 6-3 A10) SOS 50 65. Clemson (15-7, 6-4 ACC) SOS 110 56. Ole Miss (16-7, 7-3 SEC) SOS 79 Next 4 Out 69. Louisiana Tech (20-5, 8-2 CUSA) SOS 207 72. West Virginia (14-10, 6-5 Big 12) SOS 57 62. St. John's (15-9, 5-6 Big East) SOS 32 42. Oregon (15-8, 3-8 Pac 12) SOS 16 Oregon is the highest RPI team left out of the field at 42. LSU is lowest RPI team in as an at large at 61 (clearly Lundardi values conference performance over non-conference dominance...see Baylor and Oregon). West Virginia is the lowest RPI team to receive any mention from Lunardi at 72. (Nebraska is 67). Other Multi-Bid Conference Teams between 43 and 72 not included anywhere in bracket: 43. Richmond (15-8, 5-3 A10) SOS 30 53. St. Mary's (17-7, 8-4 WCC) 58. Baylor (14-9, 2-8 Big 12) SOS 4 60. Dayton (16-8, 4-5 A10) SOS 60 63. North Carolina State (15-8, 5-5 ACC) SOS 48 67. Nebraska (12-10, 4-6 Big Ten) SOS 26 68. Boise State (15-9, 5-6 MWC) SOS 55 70. New Mexico State (18-8, 7-3 WAC) SOS 138 Forget what we have to do to make the tournament (win a ton of games). I just wanted to know how close are we from even being in the discussion (like Next 4 Out) and I've got to say, we don't look that far off, if West Virginia is in the picture. The only teams on this "relative" bubble with a tougher schedule than us are Baylor, Oregon and Georgetown. Georgetown is his first team out (at 14-9, 5-6) and Baylor and Oregon are having complete and utter meltdowns at the moment. If you look at West Virginia's schedule (they are in Next 4 Out): Best Win: Oklahoma (RPI 21) Top 50: 2-8 Top 100: 3-8 Bad Losses: at 225, 108 Road: 3-5 (against avg. RPI of 91) Now Nebraska: Best Win: Ohio State (RPI 16) Top 50: 2-7 Top 100: 4-7 Bad Losses: vs. 173, at 108, at 114 Road: 1-7 (against avg. RPI of 51.5) The only thing I can see giving West Virginia the edge on us is being 6-5 in the top RPI conference, while we are 4-6 in the second-ranked conference. We have better wins, a tougher schedule, and have played 5 of our 8 road games against Top 30 RPI teams (West Virginia has played at ONE top 30 RPI team among their 8 road games.) So the road records shouldn't really matter considering we've played mostly really, really good teams. And our "bad" road loss at Purdue is a "bad" home loss for West Virginia. And their loss at Virginia Tech (225) negates the fact that we have "two" other bad losses at Penn State (114) and to UAB (173). Even another "Next 4 Out" team like St. John's, considered "the hottest team in America" by some fans of birds. Best Win: Creighton (RPI 13) Top 50: 2-6 Top 100: 4-7 Bad Losses: vs. 114, at 117 Road: 2-4 (avg. RPI of 63.8) Pretty similar, slight edge to the Johnnies. (Side note: funny how one is the most athletic and hottest team in the nation, while the other is a blind squirrel trying to find a nut. Penn State beat St. John's on a neutral court). But I digress. My extremely long, drawn out point is: We can't be far off from being in the "Next 4 Out"...if we take care of business and win 3 of our next 4 to get to 15-11, 7-7, we should be in that "Next 4 Out" at the very least. We'd be 7-3 in our last 10 Big Ten games with losses at Michigan and at Michigan State. We'd be right there. Big "If", I know.

Most athletic team in America is also the word. They have 4 NBA draft picks.

Creighton goes down at St. John's. Thanks a lot, Jays. Dragging down our RPI

18 wins...in the regular season

Obviously we could. But my goal is to make the dance each and every year. So you can be damn sure I am going to be paying attention to what is needed to make it. Doesn't mean I think will, but I want to be aware of what is going on. And it makes no difference whatsoever what we are worried about anyway. It is what the team is worried about that matters. This nonsense about the fans having to only worry about the next game is ludicrous IMO. +1,000. So sick of people telling me I can't talk about the past and can't talk about the future. If all we are allowed to talk about is Illinois and the next game, this message board would be pretty dang boring.

Ohio State comes through and Minnesota beats Indiana. T-8th with Indiana as of now with the tiebreaker in our favor. If Wisconsin loses at home to MSU tomorrow, we are playing Illinois on Wednesday to move into a T-5th. Then we have possibly the easiest schedule of anyone to finish the year. Will this be the year we finish? Probably not. But they've got the opportunity right in front of them.