throwback

Damnit. Felt like we were too amped up at the start of the game. Then once Minny took the lead, felt like we were pressing, trying to make something happen. Not the way we've played most of this stretch, where we've been pretty loose. As was mentioned earlier, we had a chance to bury them early and didn't do it. That was a killer. They really bullied us with their size, and you have to give them credit for that game plan, as it worked. That said, not sure I want Ben Johnson coaching my team when he leaves his best shooter on the floor with a 5-6 point lead after he gets his 4th foul with 9 1/2 min to play, then gets himself T'd up after his horrible decision bit him in the ass, but I guess it worked out OK for them. Also really hate how that last video review worked - may have been the right call, but 99 times (maybe 100 times) out of 100 in normal game play, the ball would go back to the offense because the defense knocked the ball loose. Shouldn't matter that much that Griesel's hand was still on it for a millisecond after it got knocked loose. But that's the rule. Seems to me that's an area where video review is too precise. That call alone didn't cost us the game - we made too many errors & Minny shot it too well. But that's a rule I find frustrating every time I see it. It just happened to hurt us tonight.

I think the B1G is a mixed bag - prob a little better than expected so far. Maryland & Michigan & Indiana have poor records but played very tough schedules so far, so hard to know for sure where they're at - Maryland will bounce back I'm sure, but not sure on the other two Penn St was competitive at Miami and Illinois has played solidly against southern schools, so those two may be better than expected. Ohio St & Mich St have a couple of nice wins and a couple of awful losses, so kind of what was expected. Purdue has played a trash schedule, but they've scored a lot of runs. They go to Ole Miss this weekend, so we'll know a lot more about them after that. Rutgers has been a huge disappointment. Minny & NW are beyond terrible. I may vomit typing this, but Iowa looks like the best team through 10-12 games. They can really pitch. We'll get a better idea on the Squawks after this weekend at Texas Tech. I think NU slots anywhere from 2nd to 4th at this point, depending on how much weight you put on the USD series. If Olson and Kaminska can give us 7 innings consistently Fridays and Saturdays, we'll be really good. Keep the bullpen usage to a minimum until Sunday and hope we can outscore teams on that day. USD has lost 6 in a row, by the way, and they're heading to TCU for 3 this weekend and at UCLA for 1 after that, so their skid could reach double digits very easily. That first weekend was a complete dumpster fire for us in so many ways. We need to rack up a lot of wins to make up for it ... and hope USD recovers big time when they get into WCC play.

This team can swing it for sure - Anderson is now hitting .512 and that's facing quite a few southern teams so far that usually pitch it pretty well. Can't imagine he'll make a run at Ken Harvey's .478, but there are some really bad teams on our schedule & he has a ton of protection in this lineup, so he has a good chance to hit over .400. Also team is hitting .323, which would be the 5th best all time, and is slugging .566, which would easily be a school record, if they keep it up. At 1.73 HR per game - if they play 55 games and keep up that pace, they could beat the school record of 93 in 1985. Having a chance to take a run at that record is incredibly impressive considering how many seasons college baseball was gorilla ball.

Ugh, sorry to hear that. Definitely one of my all-time Husker favorites from my childhood.

Go at least 2-1 every weekend, and you're probably going to the NCAAs.

I said "nearly" I'm not sure anything seems impossible for this group right now.

We gave up a combined 44 points in transition and on second chances and still won. Helps a lot to shoot 50%+ from 2 and 3, but that's still nearly impossible.

Well, disappointing way to end a great weekend. Time to let the freshman Clark work out the kinks against lesser mid-week foes and give Garza the ball on Sundays. To go 5-4-1 through the first three road trips is a very nice start, better than I expected. I think with our offense and our Friday / Saturday starters, we'll be a factor in the B1G race. Kind of unfortunate that we have to play both Maryland and Iowa on the road, but that's just the beauty of this horrible unbalanced schedule. Adding UCLA & USC may fix some of that, if they do the schedule right. Still need more guys to step up and throw strikes consistently out of the bullpen, as we're a little thin there. It will help to get some of those guys work against lesser opponents the next couple of weeks. I'd guess with our offense and bullpen inconsistencies there will be some wild back and forth finishes to games this season. Time to rack up a lot of wins on this home stand. This is a part of the schedule we have to dominate to keep our RPI in reasonable territory. Hope the weather doesn't screw things up too much.

Only 431 replies about an hour after the game. I'll go out on a limb and say more to come. Minnesota may just choose to shut down its basketball twitter account Wednesday.

NU 77 Minny 68 5

It's insanity that this team finished 16-15 with everything they've gone through. And I think they have a bit more insanity in them, starting Wednesday.

Wow - what a huge win. Would've been easy to fold when we let some chances for big innings get away early and then Vandy grabs the 3-1 lead. But our offense is not fun to pitch against. They get deep into counts, they square up mistakes, they're not afraid to draw walks. Good mix of HR power, gap power, and line drives. Good mix of rightys and leftys. I'm not a fan of the strikeout rates so far, but it's tough to argue with the results. So happy for Shanaman after a few shaky outings. I was very concerned about him being the closer because of his control issues when the pressure ramps up, but if that's the dude we get in the late innings the rest of the year, I'll happily eat crow through June. And it'll get lost in the shuffle, but Olson was brilliant. To work through the early jitters was big. Then he gives up a couple of HR balls, but he doesn't give in or shy away from the moment. He keeps challenging them and coming after them. To shut down that team like that is impressive. Vandy is for real. That team has played a killer schedule already and has a great record. Huge win for us that will pay dividends all the way through the rest of the season. And it wasn't a fluke. We were the better team most of the day. To start the day, I was simply hoping to split vs Vandy and Ole Miss. Screw that. Let's get greedy and go 3-0 this weekend.

Yeah, agreed, that is odd - but that site has always had some oddities. Boyd's World is far more accurate, but it doesn't do anything for the first few weeks or so because there's just not enough data. Unfortunately, Boyd doesn't care about making his site look "pretty," either, so it's not as easy to navigate as Nolan. But he has really good data as the season progresses, if you're interested in that stuff.

Warren Nolan's site typically needs more data to make it more relevant - probably need to get through 40% to 50% of the season before we can start counting on those predictions. Even at this point, though, if his data is saying Maryland is going to finish only 4th or 5th in the B1G, his data is smoking crack. Having said that, the B1G has had 2 pretty good weekends to this point, which should help everyone's RPI. Stealing one this weekend vs those SEC teams would be huge down the road. Curious if the coaches will take a chance and bump Kaminska back to Sunday vs Ole Miss and start Garza or Clark on Saturday vs Hawaii. They probably won't - it's not really their style to mess with the rotation like that. But if they're ever going to do it, this is the weekend. San Diego still doing well at 5-1-1, but they have 9 straight games over 2 weeks vs really good teams coming up, all on the road. We'll have a pretty good idea if that series is going to help or hurt our RPI after that stretch.

IA 83 NU 70

I don't think they'll back off - there's supposed to be a visible clock at every park, so everyone can see when the violation happens. That means it's not a judgment call, so umps will have to enforce it all the way through the season, or they'll get an earful from the other dugout. As players get used to it, violations will be far less, though, I'd imagine.

What a difference a week makes - that was an impressive weekend against a team that just doesn't lose that much at home. Glad to see the guys throwing strikes this weekend, other than a hiccup on Friday that they were able to survive. Maybe getting that first win just let them all exhale, because NU was outstanding Saturday and Sunday in all aspects. NU's offense was really good this weekend, took advantage of USA mistakes, which is so important in college baseball. Even though the Ks were a little high again this weekend, NU battled in a lot of at bats and drove up pitch counts. If NU continues throwing strikes, we're not going to be a fun team to play, because that offense is pesky. Scored in 16 of 27 innings this weekend against a team that pitches pretty well typically. Really good to have some depth at the plate that allows us to platoon. If they could steal one against Vandy or Ole Miss next weekend, that would be huge. Then it's time for a long home stand against lesser teams where we need to rack up a ton of wins. Just like it was too early to make sweeping judgments last weekend, it's too early to do a 180 after this weekend. But this is more like the team I expected to see, with an offense that's a bit better than I expected.

Seriously, that was disturbing. He has some really bad underlying emotional problems. Fran's tenure is not going to end well. I know he's a coward deep down, but one of these times his 'boys' aren't going to hold him back, and he's going to forget that it's all an act and take a swing at someone. I see a Woody Hayes finish coming.

Exactly - I especially loved today when he was feeding Walker in the post, he always took a purpose dribble to improve the angle before he made the feed. No lazy pass, no poor-angle pass. He made sure he was in the perfect spot to make the pass without risk of turnover. Just little things that you have to be a gym rat to do correctly every time.

Ha - just saw Fred's postgame interview on BTN. "Ben Johnson is doing an amazing job, etc, etc, etc..." Sure is nice to have our coach be the one to heap false praise on the coach of the team that's in last place for a change.

NU 86 MSU 81 4

Great effort today when the 3s weren't falling and when Keisei was struggling with cramps and when Minny just refused to lay down. So many different guys stepped up, very impressive. I don't think anyone played poorly. Great job doing what we were expected to do today. The stakes go up big time Tuesday night. These seniors deserve to go out with a win, so we need to make it happen.

Iowa just forced OT, 101-101. Unreal. MSU is 11-13 on 3s, made almost 90% of its FTs, shot 63% on FGs and is going to OT. Hope they both are getting all this offense out their system before next week.

Saw an early line that has us favored by 9 - we haven't been favored in a B1G game by 9 or more since mid-January 2018.