Swan88

Ray and Benny have one thing in common: both were Rivals two-star recruits. Actually, Benny eventually became upgraded to a three-star, but Ray never did and still shows as a two-star recruit on the Rivals database.

Cum-on, Norm! You gotta give other people a chance to post this stuff first !!! Sheesh. That trigger finger of yours . . . [this is intended as a smart-aleck joke--just in case it isn't obvious]

Gaaaaaaaah! Salt-in-wound stat line for Jeter from last night: in 20 minutes, 8 points on 3 of 4 shooting, including 2 for 2 from three, 7 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block, 1 turnover and 1 foul. Yep. We are better off without him.

How's this for a stat line: 30 points on 12 of 17 from the floor (71%), 6 of 9 from three (67%) and 0-fer 1 from the line (ouch), in 38 minutes with 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 foul and 2 turnovers. All that under heavy defensive pressure. Looks like Ray's extra shooting work on the practice court is paying off. Perhaps the recent sportscaster's comment during a game that Ray is NBA material, if his shot could be more reliable, is spurring him on. Here's hoping that he can replicate this performance in a game where we have a fighting chance!

Before his foot/ankle injury and then his knee injury, Benny Parker was averaging 6.1 points and shooting 51.6% from the floor on 4.5 shot attempts per game. In the five games after those injuries, Benny averaged 1.6 points per game while shooting just 2-of-ten from the field. This is according to a turn-of-the-year article in the Journal Star. Hopefully, he's doing much better now on the injury front. Perhaps, however, a bad wheel or two shouldn't be ignored in the discussions of Benny Parker!

Norm said: "I was always a big fan of Doc's." I too was/am a Doc fan. Doc started out well and showed some promise. But he then became the victim of a string of self-inflicted bad luck that did him in: from the Sallee debacle, to the Diaz TOEFL fiasco, to Diaz refusing to play his first year of eligibility, to signing the likes of Shang Ping and Alex Chapman, to an incredible and constant rash of injuries, to Cookie Miller and Jay-R Strowbridge leaving early, to signing a top-notch recruit who then doesn't show up (can't remember his name), etc., etc. etc. The bad luck seemed to snowball, especially after Sallee couldn't enroll, and kicked him out the door. That being said, the Tim Miles era is now here, and Nebrasketball is poised for greatness in a manner that Doc obviously could never produce. Tim Miles, for example, has a history of making multiple start-up projects work successfully, while Doc never had the experience of making one start-up work. Go Big Red!

Ah yes. The old nomnative case vs. objective case pronoun issue. Thanks for clearing that up, Norm.

Amen!!! What in the world is with the primacy of "me" these days! Most boomers in their younger years would have been reprimanded severely by their elders for such a self-centered comment. But it's standard form these days. Granted, every generation views such things as evidence of the deterioration of society and of the younger generation having lost all sense of what is right, while the younger ones tend to have a sense of superiority for their enlightened ways over the obvious and flagrant errors of their elders. Still . . . It's irritating as heck!

And no one spells names (or any other word, it seems) correctly either.

its pitchford bro And "its" is actually a contraction for "it is" that requires an apostrophe: "it's" -- as long as we are being picky and precise.

Movement out the door is often most pronounced during a stop of action, such as a time out. Perhaps when such a thing happens, everyone still in their seats should start booing.

Now that Coach Miles has identified leaving-early as an important issue, perhaps there should be some education efforts on the subject to alert everyone that the time-honored Husker basketball "tradition" of leaving early is now frowned upon and considered rude behavior and an insult to the players, staff and other fans.

Norm said, "And seeing the name of a Husker player as B1G rookie of the week makes me wonder if that ol' worm isn't starting to turn." Another positive sign is the performance of Colorado St. this year with players signed by Tim Miles. Colorado St. Is 15-3 so far, with wins over Washington (73-55), Virginia Tech (88-52), and UNLV (66-61); and losses to Colorado (70-61) and #16 San Diego St. (79-72 OT). In their latest game (UNLV), for example, all of the 7 Rams who played were signed by Tim Miles, except for one who had 2 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 turnover.

You may be onto something, CWG. Autobiographical information from Will Shields at Huskers.com includes the following: "There were five Division I seniors on my high school football team. I wasn't one of those blue-chip, star-studded guys. I was someone who needed development and knew it." Will obviously developed dramatically after high school. Dramatic development upon reaching college may well be in Shavon's genes.

Groce being the most disappointing coach is based upon what? The answer to such question is in the original post above ("OP"). However, one correction needs to be made to the OP as follows: Groce has six Rivals 4-star players rather than four. Those six are senior guards Richardson and Paul and sophomores Shaw, Abrams, Henry and Egwu. If Miles had horses like that and ended up with Groce's initial BIG results identified in the OP, we'd all be wondering about Osborne's decision making process instead of giving Tim Miles a 98% approval rating.

With the Illinois game just around the corner, perhaps this is a good time to observe that, as of today, the most disappointing and under-performing BIG coach during the first weeks of the BIG season is none other than . . . [drumroll, please] John Groce! He may well turn things around beginning Tuesday night in Lincoln. But as of now, he is the hands-down winner. Consider this: 1. To begin with, he has four Rivals 4-star players signed by the prior regime and handed to him. 2. He has the horses to knock off Ohio State going away--74 to 55. 3. But those same horses lose to Purdue by 7, lose to Minnesota by 17, lose to Wisconsin by 23, and lose to Northwestern by 14. 4. And with those same horses he has the same BIG record as Nebraska, who cannot put any Rivals 4-star player on the court and has played a tougher BIG schedule.

Remember Shatel wondering which would happen first: a Husker Big 10 win or a Jay Valley loss. Both occurred on the same day and back to back. [Twilight Zone music playing in the background]

Chanel 6 has this Creighton grad doing sports in Omaha. He's obviously not a Husker fan in general and seems to frequently have something snide to say about Husker basketball or baseball, whichever is in season. Really don't like it!!!

The Rivers as a "big" comment was intended as a joke. Apparently it wasn't very funny.

In every Big 10 game this year so far, the hope and prayer has been that we don't get blown out. So, can't quite get to a place where a "win" seems even remotely possible.

Don't forget David Rivers. He's our newest "big" and can shoot 100% against big-time bigs.

The kid is obviously a terrific athlete and worthy of the scholarship attention for that reason alone. You don't see a lot of guys with his size and strength who can run like he can. He's just a physical specimen. However, he's also raw. And he needs to develop. Bigs take longer to develop than guards. You can take a big with the expectation that he'll need some time to develop. He's not going to come in next year and be a polished presence. He has some learning to do. But I could see him coming in and giving us some good freshman minutes next year (if he comes.) I've been teasing Swan back and forth about whether he's any better than Keith Coleman, our recruit from last year who ended up at North Texas. I've never said don't recruit the kid. But my uneducated, non-expert view is that we should temper our expectations for what he'll be able to bring to the table in his first season. All teasing aside, here is what we know for sure that Matthew can do: play defense, block shots, block out, rebound, run the floor, hit bunny shots and dunk. No one ever said he is good at dribbling, passing, or shooting beyond bunny shots. Apparently, Tim Miles and Co. are convinced that Matthew's defense, shot blocks, blocking out, rebounding, running the floor and close-in scoring are the priorities for this particular scholarship. Was Akoy a higher priority prospect for this position? Of course. But that ship sailed away. And since Nebrasketball put all its eggs in the Akoy basket for a very long time, we are now focused on a very athletic but raw-with-the-ball-in-his-hands alternative (I've called it the "curse of Akoy").

Ok. Let's call it 7.5 for 8 shooting.

On January 10 Matthew's Notre Dame Prep team played its first game in three weeks. They beat a Rice Academy 70 to 56. In that game Matthew had 10 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.

Couldn't help chuckling during the Michigan St. game at our skinny-as-a-rail David Rivers, (i) guarding one-on-one the monster Spartan bigs, (ii) schooling those same bigs on the offensive end to the tune of 8 for 8 shooting, (iii) producing 6 rebounds, a block and a steal with 4 fouls and only one turnover, and (iv) never leaving the court--he played the entire 40 minutes. Pretty impressive!