throwback

Oregon State is going to be an honorary B1G baseball member - they're playing 9 different B1G teams this season - league teams only play 10 https://x.com/BeaverBaseball/status/1852080559398490183 If the B1G wanted to add Oregon St as the 18th member for baseball since Wisconsin won't field a team, I'd be OK with that.

I missed this when it was reported last month, but it looks like the B1G baseball tournament will take the top 12 teams and use a pod / bracket format like the ACC uses. So I think it's seeds 1-8-12 / 2-7-11 / 3-6-10 / 4-5-9 in each pod, which would be Tuesday thru Friday - 3 games at the site each day. The four pod winners play semifinals Saturday and the final is on Sunday. Definitely a good way to get more teams a chance to earn the NCAA bid - gives the top 4 seeds a big advantage, though, as if everyone ties at 1-1 in the pod, the highest seed advances. Basically, if you aren't the top seed in the pod, you can't advance to the semifinals unless you go 2-0. Last year in the ACC tournament, I don't think any of the top 4 seeds made the semifinal, so maybe it won't be as "chalk" as it feels like it could be. Will be nice from a fan attendance standpoint, as you know exactly when your team plays before the tournament starts. Ultimately, I think you have to get more than 8 teams to the conference tournament when you are only playing 10 of the 16 other teams during the regular season. If you draw a tough B1G schedule and finish 15-15, you deserve to have a guaranteed shot in the conference tourney. Wouldn't have a guaranteed shot in an 8-team tourney but everyone .500 or over will make it in a 12-team tourney, plus a few under .500 teams.

They were pretty terrible for a long stretch in the 1980s and early 1990s until Altman got it going. When I was growing up, NU just didn't lose to those guys, so we built a pretty big series lead. I mean it was a rivalry game (kind of), but it was also a series where you could go to the Civic 30 minutes before tipoff and buy decent seats from the box office with a 75/25 NU crowd. Altman flipped the series and basically saved their entire athletic program, or they'd still be a mid-level Mo Valley team. Pretty crazy to think how lucky they got with that hire - especially the timing with conference realignment on the horizon. It's beyond time for us to flip it again, that's for sure.

This is an under-rated stat - the bluebirds never foul anyone, so to draw 25 FTs was really important. And for a team like us that's not great from the 3-pt line, we can make up those points by getting to the FT line. It has to make Fred a little crazy that we're better at the mid-range 2 than the 3 right now - going against the analytics quite a bit. But getting to the FT line regularly can help to ease the analytic pain.

One of those giant stat databases is going to have to find the last time a college player logged 38:37 in a non-OT game and took 1 shot. Might have to go back to peach basket days.

Sam with the dagger!

NU 81 USD 61

THAT. WAS. AWESOME.

NU 88 bluebirds 81 4

In case you want to skip Netflix's issues

NU 59 SM 55

I think he backed underneath a player who was airborne. There's still time to figure it out, but we're a long way away. One bit of optimism, we do seem to look OK running sets out of timeouts. I think Fred is trying not to call sets so they can figure it out on their own, but this might be a team that needs more sets for a while. Maybe worth trying. Or maybe that's the plan once the competition ramps up. There's just a lot that looks really bad on offense right now. Even if we make 8 of those bricked layups and win by 20 last night, I'd still feel the same way today. It doesn't negate the issues with offensive flow. We've been able to see 120 minutes of play against vastly inferior opponents, and it's looked awful against all 3, so the issues are not a one-off. We really miss Mast right now. Berke easily has the closest skill set to Mast on the roster. Maybe we need to play smaller and just live with the rebounding issues to get better flow on offense. I don't know that Morgan and Meah will be able to give us anything offensively once we hit B1G play. I don't know that either one of them can score consistently in the post against B1G-quality posts. Teams certainly won't be doubling them ... and I don't know that either of them could pass out of it successfully if they do get doubled. And if either freshman was doing anything in practice that would put them even with or ahead of the guys who are playing, the freshmen would be playing now. They're both redshirting unless something disastrous happens. The coaches might reconsider if we get blown out by St Mary's and the bluebirds, but I doubt it. I'd imagine we're riding all year with the guys who are playing now. I'd rather see them give Jacobsen a shot if they're going to try to get a spark by putting someone else in the rotation.

NU 84 FDU 62

Good: We had a season's worth of bricks from inside 5 feet, so maybe we got it out of our system. Bad: I'll give B-C credit for playing hard, but I'd argue that's one of the 10 worst opponents we've ever played at PBA. Ugly: This kind of game kills our NET, but without major, major improvement, at least we won't have to worry about it. Horrible on so many levels.

N 89 BC 68

UTRGV's new head coach has been on a crazy fast climb up the ladder - looks like he was coaching high school JV basketball a decade ago. Has been an assistant at L'ville and BYU most recently - looks like they're relying heavily on transfers who were really good 3 pt shooters at mid-majors. SOUTHLAND CONFERENCE PRESEASON POLL Place Team (First-Place Votes) Total 1 McNeese (21) 242 2 SFA 208 3 Nicholls (3) 205 4 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 191 5 Lamar 143 6 Southeastern 121 7 UIW 117 8 UTRGV 112 9 Northwestern State 90 T-10 Texas A&M-Commerce 54 T-10 New Orleans 54 12 HCU 48 It's UTRGV's first year in the Southland, coming from the WAC.

Fred was on Big Red Wrapup on PBS / NPM this week: https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/series-media/big-red-wrap-up/season-24-video-15847/ohio-state-recap-50024407/ He starts at around 29 minute mark - summary - For us to get competitive at ISU right away was through transfers – back when transfers had to sit out – after we got good with the transfers, we started getting the right freshmen in our program Now everybody is in the transfer market – and then NIL is a whole different perspective – people are still trying to figure it out, especially with revenue sharing coming in next year – we appreciate 1890 in helping us build a team – have to have it to be competitive now NIL is important, but we still try to sell them on what we can do for them and how we can help them get to the NBA – we’ve had 12 players get to NBA out of ISU and NU Oldest team in the league last year and that played a big part in our success – even the year before, I think we’d have been a tournament team if we stayed healthy - that being said, we regrouped after the injuries and had some guys step up and had the best record in February that year – that momentum carried over to last year Last year, the players never had any agendas – everyone came to work every day – enjoyable to coach Our coaches wanted to set up this year’s team to be older again and I think we accomplished that With Sam, he’s one of the hardest workers – after Bandoumel got hurt, we talked on the plane ride back from PSU and he just stepped up and played well – been a staple ever since – he has the respect of his teammates because of how hard he works – he’s earned it – but sometimes I take a step back as a parent and it’s pretty cool to experience this We miss Mast a lot – he helped Keisei so much with his passing – Allick did a nice job too Meah & Morgan are completely different players than Mast along with Berke – we have different ways we can play with those 3 - Morgan is really good with his back to the basket – Berke can facilitate and score from 3 – Meah is a shot blocker – none of them replace Mast fully, but we can win with them Williams finished the year on a high note – played the best at the end – he’s going to be our go-to guy and we have to play through him a lot – benefited him last year playing the point to gain confidence in his ball handling for this season – excellent versatility for a 6-7 guy Feel good about point guards this season – You have Ulis who’s been a B1G starter on good Iowa teams – Worster has been great at Utah – talked to people in the Pac 12 and they love his attitude as a winner – he’s all about getting us organized offensively and defensively and getting everyone involved – both of them are in the 5th year and will be great for us League is a monster – no nights off, not going to face any team that’s a gimme – have to try to stay consistent through the highs and lows I like our non-con schedule – good tourney in Hawaii – St Mary’s is good – road vs CU – good mid-majors – I think the non-con will prepare us well for B1G play Gary hit some timely 3s last year even though he slumped later in the year – we want him to shoot the open ones – when he’s contested, we need to work on driving or making a play for someone else Biggest job for me and the staff this year is narrowing the rotation – don’t know that we’ll figure it out right away – may take some time like we did last year – I think we have 13 guys who could help us – can’t play that many – we always speak about keeping yourself ready as roles may change We have a lot of energy guys that can try to replace Keisei – Worster has good natural leadership skills – Sam too – Brice has grown in leadership – we need Gary to be that guy too – when things get tough you have to have a guy that can bring everyone together on the court – I tell them all the time I only have 4 timeouts, so you guys have to figure it out on the floor - we need that guy to help pull us through the inevitable ups and downs Our atmosphere is great – when we brought in Griffiths and Essegan, they mentioned PU and NU as the best places to play in the B1G – great atmosphere for us vs PU last year but also the big comeback vs WU – that was the biggest win of the season – crowd really carried us through that game

NU 92 - 71 10 20

I see GVSU played Toledo in an exhibition Saturday and lost 77-71. They have some pretty good guards, it sounds like. Probably a decent D-II team. https://gvsulakers.com/news/2024/10/19/mens-basketball-mens-basketball-falls-in-exhibition-game-at-toledo.aspx

Was Holtmann the guest coach for the day?

Huge flip