throwback

When I read that quote in the newspaper this morning, it made me laugh - classic Miles. All this great news on the recruiting front is tough to get used to ... but I think I can do it.

I can kind of understand why Dougie might identify with Northwestern - after all, his old team and the 'Cats accomplished similar things team-wise last season: No regular-season conference championship, no conference tournament championship, no team hardware.

Agreed - Nebraska's success is the key - in the long run, the other programs are just window dressing. When NU is good, everyone else in the state will be taking a back seat, just as it was in the early 90s. Somewhat related to this topic - Interesting spread in the OWH yesterday, as UNO's new on-campus (sort of) arena will be open for 2015-16 basketball/hockey seasons. That obviously will be great for UNO's men's basketball, a big step up from Ralston Arena. Also should be interesting to see how Century Link losing UNO hockey will affect the arena's finances. I'm sure some of those renting suites at C-Link were there for UNO hockey and had no interest in anything else going on there, and therefore will be taking their dollars to the new UNO arena. Not a lot, but some. If the arena's lone remaining primary tenant puts together a stinker of 2014-15 season, it'll be interesting to see whether the arena can replace any suite holders it may lose when UNO hockey leaves before the 2015-16 season. I would imagine they can, but who knows? Fans can be fickle, especially when NU hoops is going strong just down I-80. And it'll be interesting to see how the C-Link handles the rent for its remaining primary tenant. C-Link almost certainly will have to try to make up for some of the lost UNO hockey income, especially because it has been my understanding that UNO hockey had a really bad deal with C-Link from a financial standpoint, so the loss of Mavs hockey would appear to be doubly tough for the C-Link to withstand - losing both the general revenue from hockey, as well as losing a favorable financial deal.

Thanks for putting all this together - lots of good info. The best thing you can hear with a team that is coming off a season of great success with the majority of players returning is that they are even hungrier and want to accomplish more. You don't want them to be coasting in the off-season, relying on past success to carry them through (cough, 2014 Fla St football, cough). Regarding Hammond I'm sure they'll pick & choose their spots where he can have success early in the season, keep his confidence high. I like his talent level. And Smith sounds like quite a recruiting coup - everyone sounds really high on him - Miles & staff's ability to spot talent that others overlook is pretty impressive ... and they're also now showing the ability to go out & get Top 100 kids as well. Great news for the future. Focusing on now though, when I see things like NU picked in the top 4 of the B1G, or NU picked preseason Top 25, and hear this brimming confidence and optimism out of players, I have to shake my head. It almost seems surreal. But I'm with Miles - you can never win too much or too soon in a coaching career. It's a good problem to have.

Good stuff - NU has put a lot of checkmarks in the plus column in the past few years, but without the proper timing of all of them working together, NU wouldn't be putting together the amazing resurgence of the program we're currently enjoying. And the proper timing allows each plus to build upon the previous one.

Picked up TSN preview over the weekend - while it'd be nice to have Terran on the cover, it's still infinitely a better cover than a year ago. Here's where our opponents are predicted to finish within their conf: 11/16 - Northern Kentucky (7-24 last year) - 5th out of 8 in Atlantic Sun 11/18 - Central Arkansas (8-21 last year) - 12th out of 13 in Southland 11/22 - @ Rhode Island (14-18 last year) - 6th out of 14 in Atlantic 10 11/25 - UNO (17-15 last year, CIT qualifier) - 6th out of 9 in Summit 11/28 - Tennessee-Martin (8-23 last year) - 6th out of 6 in Ohio Valley West Division 12/01 - @ Florida State (22-14 last year, reached NIT semis) - 7th out of 15 in ACC 12/07 - Creighton (27-8 last year, NCAA qualifier) - 9th out of 10 in Big East 12/10 - Incarnate Word (21-6 last year) - 6th out of 13 in Southland 12/13 - Cincinnati (27-7 last year, NCAA qualifier) - 3rd out of 11 in American Athletic 12/22 - @ Hawaii (20-11 last year) - 5th out of 9 in Big West 12/23 - vs Wichita State (35-1 last year, NCAA qualifier) - 1st out of 10 in Missouri Valley -OR- vs Loyola-Marymount (13-19 last year) - 10th out of 10 in West Coast 12/25 - vs Colorado (23-12 last year, NCAA qualifier) - 3rd out of 12 in Pac-12 -OR- vs George Washington (24-9 last year, NCAA qualifier) - 2nd out of 14 in Atlantic-10 -OR- vs Ohio (25-12 last year, CIT qualifier) - 2nd out of 6 in Mid-American East Division -OR- vs DePaul (12-21 last year) - 10th out of 10 in Big East BIG TEN SCHEDULE Double plays Wisconsin (1/15 in Madison; 2/10 in Lincoln) - predicted 1st Iowa (1/5 in Iowa City; 2/22 in Lincoln) - predicted 6th Maryland (2/19 in College Park; 3/8 in Lincoln) - predicted 7th Illinois (1/11 in Lincoln; 3/4 in Champaign) - predicted 8th Minnesota (1/20 in Lincoln; 1/31 in Minneapolis) - predicted 9th Single plays Michigan St (1/24 in Lincoln) - predicted 2nd Ohio St (2/26 in Columbus) - predicted 3rd Michigan (1/27 in Ann Arbor) - predicted 5th Indiana (12/31 in Lincoln) - predicted 10th Penn St (2/7 in University Park) - predicted 11th Purdue (2/15 in West Lafayette) - predicted 12th Northwestern (2/3 in Lincoln) - predicted 13th Rutgers (1/8 in Lincoln) - predicted 14th Kind of an interesting conf schedule - NU gets 3 of the predicted top 5 as single plays and only 1 of the top 5 as a double play (NU is predicted 4th). Yet we also get all 5 of the predicted bottom 5 as single plays. All 4 of the middle predicted 4 are double plays. Looks pretty balanced from a strength perspective ... at least based on TSN's predictions. In the non-conf, there doesn't appear to be many challenges in the single-bid conference foes, all are predicted as middle-of-the-pack finishers or worse. Even among the mid-major-type conferences, only Cincinnati is projected near the top of AAC. URI is slotted in the middle of A-10, and Creighton picked near bottom of BE. And FSU is predicted middle of the pack in ACC, as our only Power Five scheduled opponent. The Hawaii Tourney could provide some significant challenges, depending on how the games shake out. Certainly a few tricky non-con games in there before the Hawaii trip, but you have to like NU's chances of a really good start to the season with a veteran team returning. -- By the way NU is preseason #22. Almost forgot to even look at the preseason Top 25 page. It's not quite a habit ... yet. Will be soon enough. Wisconsin is preseason #3, Wichita St is #10, Mich St is #18, Ohio St is #21. Terran is pre-season TSN 2nd team All-American. Dawson of MSU is 1st team; Kaminsky of Wisky is 3rd team.

YES! About time. My computer's refresh button was getting worn out this weekend.

Just reading between the lines of his comments, he/NU are unsure he'll qualify for a 6th season hardship. I don't believe NU can even apply for the 6th season until after this upcoming season, correct? And who knows how long it'll take for a ruling to come down, especially considering NU's history with these sorts of NCAA-type decisions. So if that's the case, I can see why he wants to try to come back for 14-15 & take the sure thing, rather than sit out 14-15 with the hope he'll get a 6th season and possibly miss out entirely. It's going to be tough, but hopefully he'll be healthy enough to contribute!

Promising news - the more times you can get them on campus, especially with NU's facilities, the better.

I believe I read somewhere that this is the 1st announcement of BTN broadcasts with more to come. I think CBS could also pick up some of the Sunday afternoon TV games toward the end of the season... GBR! Nebrasketball on CBS - I like the way that sounds. Rolls off the tongue nicely.

Is it possible the B1G will be announcing further BTN or BTN Plus broadcasts? For instance I don't think anyone else would be picking up UNO-NU - so that game would automatically fall to BTN or BTN Plus I believe, correct? Doesn't every home game have to be carried at the least on BTN Plus with student announcers? Also maybe I missed it but has the date/opponent/site for the closed scrimmage been leaked out yet? (Not that I want to try to sneak in or anything.)

Good to hear, thanks for the updates!

YES!

That says a lot about how much the coaches respect TP on and off the court - TP played a key role in getting White here too, right? I mean TP may not be here next year to play with Watson, yet he's willing to give up a Friday night to play host. Although a free Misty's prime rib wouldn't be all bad.

Great news!

And, where is he heading? To a school whose baseball team didn't make the super regionals. That would be good news, based on what Robin is saying.

And when the new TV deals + NU's full B1G share kicks in around 2017, our budget will be in the $120M to $130M range.

BTN has 3 NU games from 2014 scheduled for replay July 18 8 am (Central) - Ohio St at NU 1 pm - Indiana at NU 4 pm - NU at Michigan St

So looks like we're down to 2-3 games left that we don't know 1 home game/season opener 1 likely road game (per what Miles told OWH) That would get us to 30 - then if we want to play a 31st it'd have to be against someone from the Hawaii tournament at any location. If it's like last year, TV would dictate that matchup, and then we'd have a chance to accept that match or turn it down. (Maybe we could get a Colorado or Wichita or DePaul to come to Lincoln? As the first game in a home & home? If we had a game scheduled in Chicago in 2015-16 against, say, DePaul, maybe that would be enticing to a certain 2015 recruit? ) So the home schedule looks like: ??? Central Arkansas Cincinnati Creighton Illinois Incarnate Word Indiana Iowa Maryland Michigan State Minnesota Northwestern Omaha Rutgers Wisconsin Not bad - looks like 15-0 to me

Short update in today's OWH that Smith is back in Lincoln & NU's personnel will be evaluating Smith's knee today - hoping the news will be good

$40 for a 25-shot firework that always is and always will be a dud before it gets to that sweet 16th shot? Seems like a rip-off.

I believe we're in the same scheduling boat we were in last year as far as total games, as the Charleston tourney is the same as the Hawaii tourney in the eyes of the NCAA as far as total games on the schedule. With the 3 games in Hawaii, we can play 12 total non-con games, or we could play 13 non-con games if we play one of the teams that's in the Hawaii tournament as the 13th non-con game, and that game could be played anywhere, as it would be considered the 4th game of the tournament per the NCAA.. So I believe it's with an in-season tournament you can play up to 31 total games (27 + 4), or without an in-season tournament you can play up to 29.

Wow.

Had NU-FGCU still on the bottom of the DVR list, so watched it yesterday - it was amazing watching Tai & how much more confident he looked in that game versus what he looked like late in the year. The talent is there, just has to regain his confidence. I like what I've heard to so far this summer - I have a good feeling it pays off for Tai in a big sophomore season.

Yes finals are Dec 15-19