throwback

Agreed on both points - especially on how it's definitely not going to finish that way. Having said that, Oregon & Indiana should be really good, so I think the top 3 are pretty accurate. I'm also sure somebody will jump up and contend that's not expected to. However, this might be part of why we scheduled up out of conference so much. I'd love to see the B1G get really creative with scheduling and do some 4-game weekends with 3 teams playing each other twice, just to play a higher percentage of league teams, but the coaches don't seem to want any part of unusual scheduling formats at this point.

I didn't realize Sanderson was draft eligible this year as a sophomore, but he'll be 21 years old on draft day, so he qualifies. Kind of surprised Swanson did not make the list. (Technically, Swanson was a 2024 draft class, so maybe that's why he's not listed.)

https://d1baseball.com/season-preview/2025-big-ten-season-preview/ D1 Baseball B1G preview (paywall) # 1-Oregon # 2-NEBRASKA # 3-Indiana # 4-Penn St # 5-Michigan* 6-Maryland* 7-UCLA* 8-Illinois 9-Iowa* 10-USC* 11-Ohio St 12-Minnesota* 13-Purdue* 14-Rutgers* 15-Mich St 16-N'western* 17-Washington* * teams we play # projected NCAA tourney teams

https://www.sportswriters.net/ncbwa/news/2025/02/03/texas-a-and-m-tops-2025-preseason-ncbwa-division-i-poll NCBWA Top 30 Other teams of interest: LSU #4, Oregon St #7, (Oregon #12), Vanderbilt #14, (Indiana #25), bluebirds (RV), (Illinois (RV)), Iowa (RV), Kansas (RV), K-State (RV), Louisiana (RV), Maryland (RV), (Penn St (RV)), Purdue (RV), UC Irvine (RV), UCLA (RV) - B1G teams we don't play in parenthesis

NU 68 UW 65

Worster was so good tonight on both ends - played so much more confidently. Offensively, I'd imagine he took what Illinois did to him personally & he decided to flip the script. Pretty amazing turnaround. That Brice dunk at the end of the half and then getting a stop was so important to steal some of UO's momentum going into the break.

NU 73 UO 72

I see Dannen said last night there will be no traditional spring game this season. Cited the 105-player roster limit and worries over injuries. Will have some sort of "spring festival" in April maybe with 7-on-7 drills. Gonna guess this will go over with fans about as poorly as you could possibly imagine.

Wow - pretty crazy to see something like this from your biggest rival

I'd be surprised if Breslow seats even 1000 for hockey. All metal bleachers that fold up I believe. Works great for the club team and other recreational activities, but not close to suitable for a B1G hockey team. It might be slightly larger than the second sheet of ice at Baxter Arena in Omaha that UNO uses for practices and that youth hockey teams use. I don't believe Breslow would be expandable either, but I don't remember if that was ever part of the plans when they built it.

Clearly no one remembers the secret agreement Tom Osborne and Trev Alberts made when UNO dropped football that NU would never add hockey. NU is not adding men's hockey - unless some booster comes up with $100M-plus to fully fund hockey for a decade-plus like Penn St did. I don't think PBA's seat alignments and sight lines work for ice hockey either, if I remember right from when it was built. And the Breslow Center was not built for varsity ice hockey - it works great for club hockey and curling at NU, though - much better than playing in Fremont like the club hockey team used to do.

N 73 I 66

Not an NU opponent this season, but UNO is on its way to 7-0 in the Summit & is probably a slight favorite at this point to win the Summit tourney. Would be UNO's first NCAA tourney bid if they can pull it off.

Just a numbers thing I think - they had to get down to 40 and they were carrying 5 or 6 more than that in the fall. He just wasn't effective enough last spring, and I don't think it was much better in the fall. Will be more to cut next season when they have to get down to a 34-player roster limit.

Early depth chart guess: C Helligso R Cymbalista R 1B Stone L Sanderson L Buttenback L 2B Stokes R Brumbaugh R SS Carey R 3B Overbeek S Stokes R LF Swanson R Brumbaugh R CF Bolin L Silva L RF Frost R (Silva) DH Sanderson L Buttenback L Swanson R SP1 Mac R SP2 Horn R SP3 Brockett L Walsh L RP Broderick R vs RHP 1 Bolin/Silva 2 Sanderson 3 Swanson 4 Frost 5 Stone/Buttenback 6 Carey 7 Overbeek 8 Helligso 9 Stokes vs LHP 1 Bolin/Silva 2 Stokes 3 Sanderson 4 Swanson 5 Frost 6 Carey 7 Overbeek 8 Helligso 9 Brumbaugh Kinda wish we had a power-hitting right-handed hitter to play 1st base vs LHP. Otherwise, a good mix of lefties and righties. A veteran lineup that could do some damage. And there will probably be a freshman or two that forces his way into the lineup. It's one of the most veteran rosters we've had, though.

3 weeks to go

N 78 W 71 18

NU 76 USC 67

Agreed - at least NU is in good shape in that we don't borrow from the U to fund the athletic dept. Those kinds of schools are going to have to make some hard decisions. Dannon told the OWH today that being self-funding lets NU keep the 1890 NIL and the athletic dept separate, while a lot of schools are going to combine their NIL collectives with the athletic dept. This means we can offer 1890 NIL money on top of the revenue sharing from the school. This will be especially big if the schools have to follow Title IX with revenue sharing. Most schools were planning to give 90%+ to football and men's basketball from the $20M+ in revenue sharing. If they have to follow Title IX, they have to split things far more evenly. We'd be able to supplement that extra money from 1890. Still a lot of uncertainty for something that's supposed to start July 1, though.

I try hard to forget the bad ones. Did we play Maryland last year? Can't remember. Hell, I've already forgotten last Sunday's game against whomever we may or may not have played.