throwback

It actually starts at 6 If the HSN could sell commercials for a 30-to-60-minute post-game basketball show, they'd certainly carry it for the reasons mentioned above. So the best way to encourage them to start one is contact HSN directly and ask for one and then contact some of the advertisers who sponsor NU hoops and thank them for their sponsorship. Then if HSN goes to them to try to sell a post-game radio slot, the advertisers may be more willing to buy more time. Those in charge are still trying to figure out how to handle a resurgent NU hoops program, so any suggestions from fans would be appreciated by HSN I'm sure. Did they used to take calls on the pre-game show for a while when Nee was here? I seem to remember a show where the basketball director of ops would take calls. Maybe that was just occasionally on Sports Nightly.

LJS talked to Morrow for an article today: http://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/mens-basketball/hoops-recruit-target-morrow-has-busy-summer-ahead/article_ef230330-a123-598b-ae13-4d607877e989.html

I'm a fan of the Lincoln skyline ones, looks good - maybe make the arena clearly visible on the far right? Kind of as an anchor on that side? And maybe have an "N" in red on the arena silhouette, so it stands out more, although that may be too much. Just a suggestion, looking forward to seeing more!

I would imagine this BE series, along with the ACC series, puts an end to Delany's talk about expanding to 20 or 22 conference games. Teams' budgets can't afford to have them play so many road games. And I thought I read somewhere the B1G has put some feelers out there about playing the B1G Tourney at MSG in the not too distant future. I know it's set for Chicago in 2015 - anyone know how far out has the league awarded the B1G Tourney?

Yeah that's what I was wondering when I first saw it - I thought maybe one night of the four would be played at MSG or something, especially when the B1G is trying to make in-roads in the NYC metro with the addition of Rutgers. Maybe they will end up doing that down the road. I don't think it ends the NU-CU series, but they may have to be more creative or skip a season on occasion. As an example if you look at NU's non-con schedule this past season of 12 games. If you play 3 in a tournament, that leaves 9 you can schedule. But if NU was already scheduled to go to Omaha, and then with the ACC series and the BE series you could be assigned two more road games. I'm not sure NU's administration would be pleased with just 6 non-con home games for 15 total home games, especially with a sold-out arena now. The B1G office will be mindful of this type of situation I'm sure, but it'll be tricky logistically to ensure each B1G team isn't necessarily handed 2 road games in the ACC and BE series if they already are locked into a road game or a neutral site in-season tournament. With each B1G team likely only playing in this BE series 4 or 5 times over the 8-year contract, it probably won't be that big of a deal in terms of scheduling, but BE teams may have more scheduling problems as they'll be playing in it 6 or 7 times over the 8-year contract. (14 teams vs 10) Wiscy-Marquette play every year too right? Maybe they incorporate the annual NU-CU and Wisc-Marq games into the B1G-BE series on occasion, just to make it easier on scheduling for everyone involved. And there certainly are some other in-state/regional types of games that don't get played every year that could happen as part of this - Xavier-OSU, DePaul-Illinois/NW, Butler-Indiana/Purdue, PSU-V'nova, Seton Hall/St John's-Rutgers, G'town-Maryland, etc. Sounds like there will be a press conf with more info Monday at 11:30 Central - should be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'd think NU is covering its bases in case Deng and/or Cornish fall through by looking at some sr transfers such as the kid from Cal or CSU's D-Smith. With both of those guys, as with Moses, you're hoping that maybe the injuries they've been suffering through the past couple of years are finally healed enough to give them a shot at having a breakthrough year. As to why you'd pursue sr transfers versus 2 and 3 year transfers, I'd take that to mean NU really likes where it stands with quite a few 2015 HS recruits, so they want to ensure they have plenty of scholarships available. And NU likes those potential 2015 HS guys more than it likes any of the other D-1 transfers they could choose from at this point. Being Coach Miles has now been on campus 24 months, 2015 should be the class where the coaching staff has had finally enough time to establish some significant relationships with that group to give themselves a realistic shot with some solid players. Plus you have the NU brand trending upward after last season's strong finish, which will allow NU to get in the door a bit easier with recruits, so this strategy of trying to keep as many 2015 HS class scholarships available as possible makes a lot of sense.

I'd imagine if you're going to try to steal a player out of Mizzou's back yard, the time to do it is in while they've just undergone a coaching change. Hopefully he was a big fan of Coach Haith.

Hopefully he noticed that NU has quite a few players just like this & he'd fit right in

NU is the clearly the best team on that list right now - and I'm sure that Indiana student who was commenting at the end of last season's game would agree with me. This is the kind of news that makes the early alarm clock worth it! Great roster management by Coach - even if he only gives us 10-15 min per game next season, between he and Smith and Hammond, it allows Walt to play almost exclusively at the 4. Plus frees up another scholarship for a 2015 class that could be pretty impressive. And Ayegba gets to play in a B1G time conference, rather than a league that's a shadow of its former self, and he gets to go back to the NCAAs in his final season. Win-win all the way around!

Sorry to hi-jack - but does the fact that we're hearing more about Miles making visits with 2015 prospects mean that he's pretty confident that he has 2014 almost wrapped up? And we're just waiting on certain players to finish academic requirements before announcing anything? Or maybe we have a couple of them almost wrapped up and we're just kind of waiting to see who else shakes out in terms of 2014 transfers for the last one? On one hand it just seems a little odd to keep getting news on 2015 guys but hearing crickets on 2014 - then on the other hand since we have to be a little careful on how initial contact is made with transfers, it probably makes some sense that we wouldn't hear all that much on them, at least until they are ready to make a visit. There's no chance Miles doesn't have a plan in place, so I'm leaning toward he feels we're in good shape on a couple and we're still weighing our options on #3. Obviously there's still plenty of time to fill out the 2014-15 roster, so it makes sense to hold out to weigh all options.

Yeah that's a good point on free agency - kind of one and done in the opposite direction My guess would be that G'town has made plans to move on, so he would not be allowed to come back - if he can't get his final credits needed to graduate he could always go D2 or NAIA without having to sit out a year as mentioned earlier on here. However I fully expect him to be on NU's roster by August. Would sure be nice to have a combo of him, Hammond & Smith to fill the 40 minutes at the 5 so Walt can focus on playing the 4.

Hopefully Tarin is a good recruiter.

No he redshirted his 2nd year at G'town so he could possibly play another year at G'town. The rule doesn't give you a 5th year of playing, it just allows you to transfer to another D1 school without the penalty of sitting out a year. If you played all 4 years without a redshirt, you wouldn't be eligible to use this loophole/rule for an immediate transfer to another D1 school. Your eligibility would be used up. I believe the original idea behind it was if you graduate in 4 years, but you've only played 3 years because of a redshirt season, and your current school doesn't offer a particular graduate field of study you want, that you're able to move to a new school that does have that field of study as a graduate course, but you don't have to sit out a year to do it. It was meant to reward good students who were trying to obtain a certain type of graduate degree. Someone correct me if I'm wrong

And there certainly isn't any hurry on the transfers - that situation is very fluid as more players announce plans to transfer and it's not a fast process, as teams have to be careful with how contact is initially made and so forth. One thing that seems to be popping up again and again with transfers is guys wanting to move closer to home, which obviously means we run into the same problem we run into with signing HS players - there aren't a lot of high level D1 prospects in the immediate area, which means some transfers are going to remove us from the list immediately unfortunately. Which is why I'm starting to think Dwight Smith is at least 50/50 to end up at NU. I think NU may be after bigger "fish" for now, but it wouldn't surprise me to see him end up accepting one the last 3 scholarships. If he does, that says Coach Miles believes he can be a really good "glue" guy for next year's team. Taking another senior graduate transfer with Ayegba would give us 2 additional scholarships for 2015, which has been the key recruiting year all along, just because a new coach usually nededs a few years to connect with HS players early enough in their HS careers to truly have a shot with them, so it wouldn't be all bad to have 4 scholarships for the 2015 class. Coach Miles obviously knows much more about Dwight Smith than he would about any other transfer, so if he believes DS could be a contributor to next season's talented team - both on the court and off in terms of chemistry - I'd fully understand that move.

He's in year 2 of a 7 year contract. It's a top 30 contract with the ability for a lot of incentives. I get that we like him an awful lot but what exactly is the reason not to wait another year on this? What happens if Nebraska under performs next year for some reason? Do you think Miles wants to spend half the Tim Miles show taking guff about a contract extension/boost if we have injury problems that derail the team? I'd get the OMG WE NEED TO GET MILES MONEY talk I see out from time to time if he was underpaid, but he's not underpaid nor undercontracted. Valid points - certainly NU is never going to pay its basketball coach equal to or more than the football coach for example. So a crazy salary increase is out of the question. And those are good numbers you've provided - it's good to see NU climbing the ladder in terms of commitment to basketball in terms of coaching salary. However I would also point out that NU's ability to make money from men's basketball has taken a sudden and dramatic turn upwards ... and a good chunk of that ability is because of Miles. Let's say roughly 7000 season tickets were sold in Doc's last year at Devaney at roughly $20 a pop, 18 games = roughly $2.5 million. NU is easily making double-plus that amount now just in ticket sales, and that doesn't include seat licenses, skyboxes, etc, at the new arena. NU is making a profit - a strong profit - in men's basketball for the first time in a long, long time. Granted a large percentage of that increase has to do with the new arena, especially in Year One. But going forward, the novelty of the arena wears off and now you have to win to keep those new season ticket holders happy. I'd guess the number of season tickets that will be abandoned from 2013-14 to 2014-15 will be minimal, and that's primarily because of Miles and this impressive turnaround he has engineered. So I believe just from a financial standpoint - call it revenue sharing if you like - he has earned a raise of some sort. I'm not advocating going crazy and giving him a $1 million annual raise or something. But I think rolling over his contract another year and providing a raise of some sort would be well worth the good will it would buy. You show the coach he's important to you by providing raises and rollovers. And you show any suitors that you're serious about keeping him in Lincoln, meaning perhaps they look elsewhere for an easier coaching target to pick off. After all I think we can afford it now. Making a small investment now to keep Coach Miles happy and to make him feel appreciated to me is akin to investing in any other area of the program, helping to keep that now large profit stream strong.

Better question is "Why wouldn't Tennessee come after Miles?" - for that matter anyone with an opening would be pretty ignorant not to at least inquire about Miles' availability. I'm sure his agent has gotten good at saying "no, he's not interested" the past few weeks. Rather than worrying about who is coming after Miles, I think the more pressing issue is when NU makes the announcement about Miles' contract extension and/or salary increase.

Good info everyone thanks - glad to know I'm not the only one in the dark. No other votes for Deng huh? I could see where he may be a "fall back" option if some other transfers fall through since he seems to be visiting later in the signing period. His numbers were so good I think taking a chance on him would be worth it - even with the ankle injury and even if he couldn't play next season. But I also understand with next season shaping up to potentially be special, finding pieces that can play immediately has to be the priority.

Since things should start heating up tomorrow, anyone who follows recruiting more closely than I do have some educated guesses on how we fill these 4 scholarships? I'll start with the easy one: Smith Then I'd guess Ayegba and Deng. I have no idea on the fourth - maybe another senior grad transfer? Someone else will have a much better educated guess than I could ever give I'm sure. Will they hold it for at least a couple weeks on the slim chance of stealing Ristic at the last minute? And this could drag on well into May correct? Both because the end of the spring signing period is May 21 I think and because transfers have no impending deadline on when they can enroll. Should be a fun month!

Those are good points - it does make some sense to postpone a trip like this until you're going to have more newcomers

Sorry to be the killjoy if you were planning to follow the team Down Under this summer , but the LJS kind of buried this in the middle of the season recap in Sunday's newspaper. That's too bad, as I thought the trip would have been a nice way to quickly integrate the newcomers onto a veteran team.

I don't see Vooch on the list - must be an oversight. Can't imagine trying to compile that list, would take a lot of work. Also it doesn't say (Will graduate) after Biggs' name - hopefully that's an oversight too. - And this list shows just how tough it is to find a 6-9+ graduate transfer like Ayegba - I only see 4 others who could end up at NU, one of whom is Lee who already has committed to Ohio St. Horford obviously isn't eligible to come to NU, so, besides Ayegba, that leaves: Alex Gavrilovic, 6-9, F, Jr., Dayton James Johnson, 6-10, F, Jr., San Diego Jeremiah Kreisberg, 6-10, F, Sr., Yale With all of the schools looking for this type of player and such a small pool, it's nice to have a tie to Ayegba with Coach Hunter. I'd be more than happy to have Ayegba here next season.

For selected national TV regular-season/conf tournament games - no BTN games are listed. From Sports Media Watch: Dec. 4 - 101,000 - Miami at Nebraska, ESPNU Dec. 8 - 66,000 - Nebraska at Creighton, FS1 Dec. 28 - 244,000 - Nebraska at Cincinnati, ESPN2 Jan. 9 - 561,000 - Michigan at Nebraska, ESPN2 Jan. 23 - 167,000 - Nebraska at Penn St, ESPNU Feb. 8 - 144,000 - Nebraska at Northwestern, ESPNU Feb. 20 - 198,000 - Penn St at Nebraska, ESPNU Mar. 1 - 192,000 - Northwestern at Nebraska, ESPNU Mar. 14 - 1.187 million - Nebraska vs Ohio St, ESPN People were paying attention to NU as we went on our late-season surge. Not only were our ratings against PSU & NW up around 30% on the same network from the first meeting, but the NU-OSU game was the 3rd-most watched game on national TV on March 14, only trailing a pair of prime-time games in the ACC on ESPN. Keep in mind NU-OSU was played in the middle of the afternoon. And while the B1G was playing quarterfinal games that day, many conferences were playing semifinals. Only 9% of all college basketball regular-season/conf tournament games had 1+ million viewers. By the way, the fact that NU's lowest rated game was on FS1 was no fluke - FOX Sports 1 wasted its money on the new and not improved Big East. Terrible ratings the entire season. Just a guess, but I bet several of NU's BTN games probably outdrew its lone FS1 appearance in terms of TV viewers. http://painttouches.com/2014/04/08/big-east-fox-sports-1-ratings-pick-up-steam-in-march/ http://sports.omaha.com/2014/04/09/mad-chatter-husker-high-hopes-creightons-depressing-tv-ratings-rutgers-v-uconn/#.U0lqB_lSbwl

Who exactly is the first string SG? That was my first thought too but then thinking about it more, I went back and edited my post as certainly Petteway plays like a big SG.

I think NU could sign 2 guards for the 2014-15 season - we have just two/three guards on scholarship now, depending on how you classify Petteway - we need two more, especially since Parker can't really play the 2. I have to think NU is looking at another combo guard who could play 1 or 2, maybe Graham is it. Hopefully Tai can play more of that combo role next season as well and give us plenty of flexibility with rotations. Even if we wouldn't sign a HS guard like Graham to go with Smith, I'd have to think we'd be looking at a senior-eligible transfer or a juco who would be a guard and would be immediately eligible. Have to think Coach wants four/five guards on the roster, even with a player like Petteway who can play a point-forward type of position and/or play the 2. I can't imagine we lose Smith, regardless of who we attempt to sign in the next few weeks. It's a guard's game after all.

Right- I believe if they'd transfer to a B1G school before July 1, when the new teams are officially in the B1G, it's a one-year "penalty" - if they transfer on July 1 or after, the 2-year in-conference transfer penalty applies. I'm not sure if they'd have to start taking classes before July 1 or if they just have to sign scholarship papers before July 1. Of course as you said Maryland could always refuse to give them a release to any B1G school and make the rule moot. Minnesota's QB transferred to Rutgers a few months ago, but only has to sit out one year because Rutgers isn't in the B1G yet.