bkamler

On one those Husker basketball radio road trips after we upset someone one of buddies says lets see what this GTO can do. We were in eastern Colorado at nine at night on a Wednesday so what the heck! Put the pedal to the metal and in a few seconds the speedometer hit its top speed of 120 but we kept going faster after that but the speedometer was maxed out. A little while later the motor kept overheating and we had to stop at every creek and fill empty beer cans with water to put in the radiator and build up a reserve of water as eastern Colorado has almost no water. I thought I had really done it but we made it home and had it towed to a repair shop and it was a stuck thermostat. No harm no foul. Go Huskers!

It was my pleasure to share my love of all things Husker with you guys!

My wife and I share season tickets with another couple and yesterday was their turn to have tickets, so I went to buy a single ticket and was about ready to leave to watch it at home as there were numerous people looking for tickets and no one selling anywhere! Right when I was about to leave, a man with his wife and daughter asked if I just needed one ticket and I said yes. He said he was buying them from a scalper and he was paying $60 each for four tickets. He asked if I would pay $50 and I swallowed hard and said yes. This was the best $50 I ever spent! Let me back up quite a ways. The first time I remember Nebraska basketball was in 1958 when I was 8 years old. They played in the old Coliseum. The game I remember best was December 12, 1964. Number 1 Michigan U. came into town and they had Cazzie Russell. They finished the year second to UCLA. Nebraska finished the season 10-15 overall with a 5 and 9 record in the Big Eight. My dad and I sat in the very last row up at the top of the Coliseum. The only lights in the place were over the court and there was a thick haze of cigarette smoke in the building that you had to look through. As I recall, MU led from the very beginning but only by one, two or three points, never more. There was almost no room for the players to inbound the pass on the sidelines and NU fans were pulling the leg hairs of the MU players when they would inbound the ball and that caused more than one turnover during the game. Cazzie Russell had scored 29 points (he averaged 31 for the year) and MU had a 1 point lead with just seconds to go. Fred Hare, a great but troubled baller from Omaha Tech got the rebound and dribbled the length of the court and put up a 15 footer that bounced around the rim and out. However he was able to rebound it three feet from the basket with his back to the basket and he threw it up over his head facing directly away from the basket over Oliver Darden who I believe who was 6'7. Hare was 6'1. The ball bounced on the front of the rim and then hit the back board and dropped in as the gun sounded in what has been called one of the greatest upsets in college basketball. Hare got kicked off the team and ended up playing for the University of Mexico, not "New Mexico", but Mexico the country for many years. I believe he was paid a tidy sum to play for them. I tell you this because there hasn't been much to cheer about other than a year or two when Danny Nee was here but I have been a fanatical fan for 56 years. I went to Denver University to play D1 baseball and ended up living in Denver for six more years after I graduated. While there, I lived with two other high school buddies who were just as loyal NU football, baseball and basketball fans as I was. We would all get in my 68 GTO with a case of adult beverages and drive about 60 miles east out of Denver at around 5:30 at night on week nights until we could catch the KFAB signal. And we had to keep driving east to keep getting the signal. One night we ended up in Kansas by the time the game was over. We did this even in snow storms. God, we were stupid but dedicated Husker fans all the same! We went to every NU-CU game in Boulder and we usually won those games even when we were not very good. I tell you this because I have suffered through disappointing season after disappointing season as a Husker fan and my four children have now suffered through a couple of decades of crappy basketball to and we are finally able to hold our head up high and enjoy the rewards of better recruiting, better facilities and better coaching! When Petteway hit that running four foot shot off the backboard with his left hand against Purdue like it was nothing and when we had two alley oop dunks and when Bennie tied up Hammons twice and when Rivers swatted 3 or 4 of their shots away I had to almost pinch myself to see if I was dreaming. This team really plays for each other. One of my co-workers has a friend who is a professor at CSU where Miles was coaching and he said that there are quite a few CSU fans that are Husker basketball fans because they live Tim Miles and what he did while there. We need to keep him happy here at good ol UNL! This post has been promoted to an article

Rays shot is either long or short AND left or right even in warm ups! Impossible to make simple adjustment. He needs to totally reconstruct his shot which is hard to do in season. His D and hustle will continue to earn him minutes but our offense would improve immensely if he can his threes at a 33% clip.

Last fall at a Lincoln Independent Business Association meeting where Miles was the featured speaker, I asked him if we would incorporate any full court presses. With a smile on his face, he said that was the stupidest question he's ever been asked! Miles said these guys can't even the area one foot from the basket much less the entire court! What an amazing transition since then

Last years team had a 1.5 GPA as a team so their grades this year are probably not good enough for their stars to go d1.

The rule was changed so it was our own fault for not showing instant replays.

I no more than said to my son that having Bennie and Rivers in together was like playing 3 on 5 basketball on offense for UNL when Bennie caused two turnovers in a row for Illinois. I stand by the statement but props to Bennie and David for the fine overall game they played.

For what it's worth Smith would shoot a higher free percentage if he had less arch on his shot.

And virtually no replays on controversial calls at all. My son and were upset because there were foul calls at the top of the key that we're mystifying at minimum and no replays. If the replay proves a call was bad it can really get the crowd into the game and put the reg on notice that he blew a call.

Your shooting percentage will go down when you miss fifteen or more point blank shots and you have another ten to fifteen shoots blocked neither of which happened at this rate last year. The good news is Shields is recently doing more pump faking and going on the other side of the rim thereby making more of these bunnies then he was making. He's a smart kid that deserves to be playing because of things he does other than scoring and he will continue to improve with some ups and downs.

Didn't see him right away but when I did Noah was dancing to the NW fight song. From what I read about him he does seem like a great kid but to be clear I have four great kids who would never have split loyalties if there was a conflict like this one. that said I wish Noah nothing but good fortune.

I thought Bennies five points was a difference maker. I have been critical of him on the offensive end but today he scored on the break which is his forte if he has one. In the half court, when we had Parker, Rivers, Shields, Gallagos and Pitchford in, it was like playing 3 on 5 basketball. It seemed to me that in the second half the guys had been told to play aggressively on offense to create open looks and they did for the most part. Good, ugly win!

About two or three years ago, at home games in our student section there was a young man in the first row that danced to the music in a memorable if not coordinated fashion. Our family nick named him the "Dancing Machine". He graduated from UNL and went to Northwestern as a grad student. He has been at our home games during Christmas breaks since then and he of course cheered for UNL. There was an article about him in the Lincoln Journal I believe. Today, he was in the first row of the NW student section wearing NW colors, cheering for NW and dancing as only he can dance. In my book, he is a traitor!

Is it just me or does Miles neglect to call timeouts when it is apparent that a perfect storm is brewing? I love the guy but this has occurred in several games where if he calls timeout to stop momentum and run a set play we could ward off the onslaught.

My son told me that Petteway was projected as a late first round NBA pick by one forecast.

Just for myself and family I predicted we would be 11-9 right now and we are. However, I got the Florida GC, UMass, Michigan, OSU, Penn State and Indiana predictions wrong! So I have the 11-9 record "spot on" but I picked 6 of the games incorrectly. So I guess I can say they are right where I thought they would be at this time overall and in the Big Ten. For what it's worth, I have the Huskers finishing 16-14 with a 8-10 BT record. Then 1-1 in BT tourney and 2-1 in NIT for a final record of 19-16.

At the Indiana game I said to my wife what a "buzz kill" it is when the crowd is rocking and then the music goes away and the pep band plays. I have nothing against the band but WE DO NOT NEED A BUZZ KILL!

KNTK talks about how the Nebraska Hoops band immediately kills the vibe during the game. What are your thoughts on this? "Kill" the band? Revamp the music the band plays? Coordinate the speaker music/band music better? Do you like the band the way it is right now? I'm curious to see how others feel about this.

I wish Biggs the best and I hope he can learn something very important from this unfortunate situation. Unfortunately, sometimes even your childhood friends must be left behind if their behavior could or does negatively impact your life. When we were kids and we ran in groups at dances, at parties, cruising, etc. the lowest common denominator in our group always tried to lead us into doing hurtful, stupid or dangerous, illegal things that we would not have done on our own...but sometimes peer pressure brought us down to the mob mentality. Biggs played basketball at Omaha Central and I heard from a good source that their most recent state championship team had a 1.5 GPA and that this was the norm for OC teams in the past. However, these kids were still eligible under Omaha Public School guidelines (now being changed). As I understand it, the present rule says that an athlete only needs to have four D's out of his or her seven classes in the "previous semester" to be eligible. So, four D's and three F's in the previous semester and you are good to go even if you have seven F's going during the semester of competition! If my math is correct, this means that a 0.57 GPA renders you eligible to play sports! No wonder, if memory serves me correctly, only one of the four or five seniors on the most recent state championship team signed with a four year D1 college undoubtedly due to grades. Education has been dumbed down so far that a 0.57 GPA is incomprehensible. By allowing this to be the standard or lack of one, sends kids a powerfully wrong message...studying and getting decent grades is not important and has no value! It is no wonder that Biggs had to go the JC route and it is unfortunately not hard to understand that he is unable to follow minimum standards to remain on the team because his high school experience indicated that his basketball talent would overcome any deficiencies he might have or he was allowed to have. I truly hope the light bulb goes on for him and that he graduates this spring and that he can go on to play at a college somewhere far away from Omaha and his homies. Hopefully, he will surround himself with hard working teammates who will help him apply himself to be accountable on and off the court. Good luck Dev!

I'm sure he is but I am seeing marked improvement last two games.