throwback

Exactly - the only reason athletes haven't been able to make money on the side like other students is to maintain some sort of "fair" and even recruiting situation. With illegal payments, that even playing field in recruiting isn't going on and hasn't for decades. If the NCAA can't / won't uphold this idea of fair recruiting, what is the point of continuing to limit what athletes can earn on their own?

I had this sentiment at first. And it very well could change college athletics and maybe not in a good way. But with the NCAA's inability / unwillingness to police its rules regarding extra benefits and cheating, NIL should at least bring the payments above board and create a more even playing field. Maybe a cynical way to look at it.

Looks like Big Ten Network will be showing NU-Michigan State from 1994 on June 16 at 10:30 pm as part of Nebraska day. They'll also be showing NU's trip to Italy again, just in case we want to try to remember who was on that long-ago roster.

Well, a big part of it is southern schools have a huge advantage and don't want to give it up. But quite a bit of it had to do with MLB having its draft in the first half of June in the past. They wanted to assign draftees to short-season A ball immediately, get them half a season in the minors. Colleges just didn't want to push the regular season past that draft date. Now with MLB cutting the draft down to 20 rounds and pushing the draft into late July this year and cutting out quite a few minor league teams, college has an opening to make the push to a later start and end date. Whether they can actually come to a consensus, though, I don't know. Bakich's proposal sells giving teams more time to ramp up toward the season. Rather than 3 weeks of official practice before starting mid-Feb, teams would get 7-8 weeks. It'd be safer for pitchers, letting them build their arms steadily. And with a later start date, attendance will go up. All over the country, attendance increases significantly from March to April and from April to May, even among southern schools. Additionally, northern teams could save money by not having to travel so much the first few weeks of the season. So programs hopefully could pull more of their own weight financially if you push the regular season ending back to mid-July (which is why the southern schools were giving the idea the time of day last spring, as they were worried about covid budget cuts). Plus a summer college season fills a void for fans with fewer minor league teams out there now. It makes a lot of sense. Hopefully it gains steam this summer, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

LOL - sorry. I think NU at least makes the NIT next year. (Hope that helps.)

I hope you're right - it's just so tough to overcome that RPI bias the committee has. To be top 20 RPI out of the B1G is very difficult. It takes a ton of wins all season long. Illinois and Indiana both have gotten Top 8 seeds in the past 10 years by just dominating the league - I think Illinois went 22-1 or something to get a top 8 seed and Indiana went 21-3 or something, so it definitely can be done. (Indiana was coming off a CWS appearance the previous year, which doesn't hurt either.) Expecting it to happen regularly is where I think it's asking too much, especially as the depth of the league continues to improve as teams spend more $$$$.

I was a little surprised we didn't try running more (or at all, for that matter), especially against Kopps, but he's quick to the plate. Opitz is so good back there, they're really tough to run on. Maybe NC State will have a better shot than we did, but I'd be surprised if they try it much.

I'd say its a mix of talent and development. Several of the upperclassmen took big jumps offensively. Then you bring in guys like Everett & Matthews (& Anderson, which required a bit of good fortune). The previous staff was always pretty good at bringing in offensive talent, but Bolt & Co definitely maxed out the holdovers for the most part. The two areas where Bolt & Co have upped things are in terms of pitching talent & emphasizing local kids. The pitching staff needed it badly, so quite a few of the major contributors this year are new players. Most of the everyday players were holdovers. For recruiting, Bolt & Co are starting in Nebraska and filling in holes outward with solid players, which is the opposite of what went on previously. These first couple of years, Bolt & Co have done a great job of convincing Nebraska kids at Juco to come back to Lincoln. Going forward, and as they get to know the local talent better, I'd imagine they'll sign more Nebraska kids straight out of high school. But they'll always use the Juco route to fill in holes.

No it's not public knowledge on the splits. They'll say which players are on scholarship and which are walk-ons, but that's it. Coaches don't like that info getting out to other teams. The players usually know where everyone sits, but they don't always have the most accurate info either. Also, the splits can be fluid from year to year. If a kid isn't performing, he could drop down to 1/10 so they can afford to give another kid more. Kind of used as an encouragement for the kid to transfer, too. I think at one point, the rule was you had to have between 27 and 35 players on some portion of scholarship and there was a requirement that a certain number of players had to receive at least 1/3 (I think it was 27), but I don't follow it close enough anymore to know if that's changed recently. At one point it was pretty rare for more than one or two players to receive more than 1/2, at least at NU, but again, not sure if that's changed recently. Plus, baseball rosters turn over so much with guys turning pro late & bringing in transfers and ju-cos to fill those spots over the summer that it's really tough to track. And the B1G really limits oversigning versus the SEC, Big XII, ACC, etc, that it further complicates things, necessitating bringing in more players over the summer at the last minute.

Playing golf at Firethorn versus being asked to try on 17 different versions of a blue uniform? I can see why the Traudt family loved the official recruiting trip to Lincoln versus any other unofficial recruiting trips they may have taken recently. I mean if the kid wanted to spend the day on a recruiting trip trying on outfits like he was shopping for back to school with mom in the 4th grade, I'm sure Grand Island has an Old Navy he could've visited instead. Could've saved the gas money and the 5-hour round trip drive.

What a fun season, despite the handcuffs the B1G brass put on the team. Would've loved to have a shot at Arky this weekend in supers where it was a true best of 3, rather than us having to play those extra games in the regional format. When you consider we had to play an extra 9 innings vs what Arky had to play, and we still had enough pitching to hold that team to 10 runs over the first 25 innings we played them in their park is pretty crazy. Something's been bugging me today - saw a lot of it on social media last night & Shatel repeated it this morning (and apologies if anyone on here said it in one of these threads ) - so have to throw this out there. Shatel said NU is going to be hosting regionals and super regionals with regularity going forward (not verbatim) - that simply isn't going to happen. I get the sentiment. NU baseball is on an upward trajectory, and it looks a lot like what DVH was building in the early 2000s when we hosted supers in 3 of 5 years. But it's not anywhere near the same because of the B1G. Being in the B1G, we're in a whole different world in the eyes of the tournament committee than we were in the early 2000s in the Big XII. A northern school in a southern conference, if it has a great season, has a regular chance at top 8 and top 16 seeds. A northern school in a northern conference -- even as much as the B1G has improved in the past decade -- has to catch lightning in a bottle. Just look at Notre Dame - they win the ACC this year, yet somehow end up as a 10 seed. Even catching lightning in a bottle for them in 2021 wasn't good enough for ND to host a super. Most years, the ACC winner is a sure fire top 3 seed. When a northern team wins it, though, not even a top 8 seed. "If ND won the ACC, it must've been a down year." (Sounds a lot like "if NU finished 4th in the B1G in basketball, it must've been a down year.") Northern teams from northern conferences have to be on fire from game 1 and win a lot on their southern trips for the first month, all while playing great teams that have been practicing outdoors for weeks. Very difficult to do. The early 2000s NU teams had the ability to make up for an average start with tough conference series against the 'Whorns, Baylor, etc. The early 2020s NU teams won't have that ability to make up for even an average start. They have to be great immediately. It certainly can happen for NU, and they may end up with a top 16 a couple of times a decade. Maybe they'll get lucky and host a super one of those years. But it simply isn't going to happen with regularity, especially in the super round. College baseball in its current format simply won't allow it. We'll see how much traction the proposal from Michigan's Bakich to push the season back 4-6 weeks gets this offseason. There were a lot of southern coaches who were complementary of it right after covid canceled last season when there was a lot of talk of budget cutbacks, but now that things are going back to normal, I imagine the support from the power brokers in the south is waning. But if we push back the start of the season, the northern schools suddenly will have a shot. It's a good idea with all of the minor league baseball cutbacks, so hopefully it gains steam this summer.

No question Arky is the favorite there, but NC State is red hot. Arky's top of the order needs to be waaaay better than they were vs us. If Arky can get to the CWS, with all of the off days, Kopps might throw some every game. If so, they'll be a tougher out in Omaha than they probably were in regionals & will be in supers.

Good observations - we have a lot of fourth-year juniors with the free covid year that I'm sure are ready to go pro, but with only a 20-round draft, I'm not sure how many of them will be drafted. They still could just go free agent, but they might be tempted to come back & try to get drafted the following year. Schwelly will be top 3 rounds for sure, probably 2nd. Povich could be anywhere from 3 to 10 - hard to say. He sure helped his cause tonight. He loves it at NU & he may have "unfinished business" but not sure you can turn down a top 10 round pick slot. He does have quite a bit of leverage as a third-year player. Will be interesting to see how MLB teams play those 11-20 rounds. Do they take a senior who has no leverage to try to save money? Do they take a lot of fourth-year juniors who are probably ready to move on, which may save a bit of money, versus taking third-year guys who have more leverage? I don't think Perry or Chick have any shot at getting drafted. Perry has to show a full year of health. Chick has to figure out how to hit offspeed pitches consistently. Teams in the Big Ten had the book on Chick over the last half of the regular season, but he was able to see more fastballs in the regional, which helped. There's a lot of juniors on this team who may try to go pro - Wynne, Bunz, Frank, Everett, Shay, Hallmark. Going to be a challenging roster management time this summer. Hope they can hang on to Christo, but we'll see what kind of signing bonus he's after. Sounds like he wants a big bonus, so I like his chances of getting to college, but it just takes one MLB team to decide he's worth the investment.

Kopps is a freak and was by far the difference in the series. 11 1/3 innings vs us with 0 runs allowed - we scratched out 8 runs against the other guys in 14 2/3. That dude could've thrown 200 more pitches tonight & I don't think it would've mattered. And we all know DVH would've let him. I'll always appreciate DVH and what he did here, but he's not the most careful guy when it comes to taking care of pitchers in the postseason. Having said that, I'm not sure it matters for Kopps. His motion is so free and easy & he rarely has to throw stressful pitches. I don't know what he was like before his arm injury, but this version of him is absolutely filthy. He's the best college pitcher I've seen since Huston Street. Barf. It was clear we were hunting fastball early in the count against him, trying to avoid getting behind in the count, but it didn't matter. He rarely threw the fastball for strikes, so our strategy wasn't going to work. He worked ahead all night. He did a great job of mixing pitches. We just never could string at bats against him. I don't think we had 2 straight guys ever reach base against him in either game. Bunz has been really good all season, so it was the right call to go to him. Would've rather seen him have a clean count vs Opitz, but I think they were worried about turning him around after he hit the HR right handed. Not sure it would've mattered. Arky had all the momentum after Opitz's HR in the 5th vs Povich & we couldn't do anything offensively to get it back. It was just a matter of time. And while I'm sure Schwellenbach would've gladly taken the ball tonight, there's no way he was getting on the mound. He guaranteed himself a high round draft pick last night & maybe a 6 or 7-figure bonus. You don't risk his arm for any reason in that spot, not after what he gave you last night & all season. The adults in the room have to tell him no & I'm glad they did. Great season, going to be tough to replace all of the guys who will be moving on - Schwelly & Povich are almost certainly gone, plus all the seniors and maybe a few of the fourth-year juniors like Hallmark - but this coaching staff has a game plan recruiting-wise that is going to work pretty well here I think. They've certainly proven they can recruit pitchers, and I think they'll get good offensive players here too, if Mathews is any indication. (Anderson too, but they kind of lucked into getting him.) And I know most don't want to give Erstad much credit for what he did here, but the majority of the offense were guys he brought in. Bolt & Co have done an amazing job getting those guys to buy in and helping them improve, but Bolt certainly inherited a far better situation than what Erstad walked into. Would've been amazing to move on, but Arkansas earned it. That was far more like a super regional in terms of quality of play than a regional should be. They'll have their hands full with NC State though. Those guys are rolling. Not sure if Kopps can throw all 18 or 27 innings of the super regional, but they might be tempted to try it.

That's good to hear, because Sauter was on the radio about 12 months ago and basically laughed at the idea NU had any shot with him, because NU wasn't recruiting him hard at all. Having Hoiberg personally take over his recruitment was a genius move & gives us a shot here.

Nothing - but isn't it easier to stay above board and have a car dealership booster offer the player 100K to sign autographs 4 Saturdays in a row or to appear in a commercial, rather than go through a bag man? Granted, promising a great job for dad is a little tougher to do, but the 100K should be no problem. Plus, now the booster can write it off as a legit business expense. Writing off the cash you give to a bag man is pretty difficult. Those guys don't generate IRS-approved receipts from what I hear.

NIL is potentially huge for NU in all sports. Not only are they already on the cutting edge with their partnership, but they're also ready to go, if the NCAA passes it for July 1 as expected. For a school that doesn't have a rep for using bag men and that has a rabid and huge fan base, the ability for players to make significant money through NIL certainly has to turn the heads of recruits. I'm sure 99% of them would prefer to receive above board payments through NIL, rather than receiving slimy offers through bag men (even if they'll have to pay taxes on NIL earnings). For a school that offers six figures and a good job to recruits under the table, the NIL is not good news. With all of these payments occurring out in the open and being above board, it evens the playing field. I'm sure the NCAA is more than happy to step back from having to enforce this kind of stuff as well. Now they can sit back and do nothing like usual, and no one will care. It's good to see our coaches taking full advantage of promoting it.

Well, they hired Alvarez to keep Warren from having to speak with the football coaches. Maybe when Izzo retires, he can become the buffer between Warren and the hoops coaches. There's only 20 or so sports, so, it may take a while, but I think they can hire Warren buffers for all of them. Then they just need to hire a negotiator to buffer him from having to deal with the upcoming football TV package and they're set. I think this is the safest way to go.

Have you met Twitter?

Not to nitpick, the B1G hasn't been a 1-to-3, let alone 1-to-2, bid league for several years. That's old thinking. And the bids have been spread around the league to a large number of different teams. The quality of play in the B1G since NU joined the league has increased tremendously. (Not claiming that NU is responsible for that - it's probably more related to tons of money from football needing to be spent somewhere - but having a school that cares about baseball like NU join the league and moving the league tournament to the home of the CWS hasn't hurt.) 2019 - 5 bids - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State - Michigan made CWS 2018 - 4 bids - Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio State, Purdue - Minnesota was a #14 national seed 2017 - 5 bids - Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska 2016 - 3 bids - Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State 2015 - 5 bids - Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan - Illinois was a #6 national seed 2014 - 2 bids - Indiana, Nebraska - Indiana was a #4 national seed 2013 - 2 bids - Illinois, Indiana - Indiana made CWS 2012 - 2 bids - Michigan State, Purdue From 2012 thru 2019, only Northwestern, Penn St, and Rutgers didn't play in the NCAAs. 10 out of 13 teams having that level of success is pretty good. From 2013 on, it's been far more success than the B1G had in the previous 30 years. I believe Indiana's CWS appearance was the first for the B1G in 3 decades. Just as recently as 2011, Illinois was the only qualifier and was a #4 regional seed after a 15-9 regular season league record. In 2010, the same thing happened. Minnesota was the only B1G qualifier after a 15-9 regular season league record and was a #4 seed in a regional. So the league has come a long, long way. 2021 is an outlier because of the B1G's short-sighted decision to not allow non-con games.

To add insult to injury - only 3 times since NU joined the B1G has the regular season conference champ finished with a better than .721 league winning percentage like NU had this year. All 3 of those teams were national seeds & hosted regionals. 2014 - Indiana - #4 national seed 2015 - Illinois - #6 national seed 2018 - Minnesota - #14 national seed None of those 3 teams had as large of a championship margin as NU, which won the B1G by 3-1/2 games. Indiana and Illinois each won by 3 games, and Minnesota won by 1-1/2 games. Now all 3 of those teams were outstanding in league play, 21-3, 21-1, and 18-4, respectively. So NU didn't win at as high of a rate as those teams and wasn't going to get the same level of treatment from the NCAA committee. Understandably. But it's reasonable to assume that if NU had played non-con games, based on past numbers for recent similar teams in the B1G, that this NU team being in the #18 to #22 range nationally is not out of line. Certainly not #32.

Well, I guess we were nowhere near earning a regional host bid. Probably would've had to go 43-0 to pull that off. With where Maryland & NU ended up in the bracket, and with Michigan going 2-4 vs Maryland & NU in the final 2 weekends and finishing well behind both teams in the standings and in RPI, I have no explanation for how Michigan makes the field. To top off the insanity, Michigan gets the softest draw of the 3 B1G teams. With the quality of Michigan's #1 and #2 starters and with a strong closer, they have a shot to sneak out of that regional. The inability to properly seed the B1G teams comparatively to each other is on the NCAA committee. The overall treatment for B1G teams is squarely on the B1G leadership, though, by not allowing non-con games. Yet another B1G leadership blunder in a season of them.

Kevin Warren - the gift that keeps on giving. While NU clearly was punished for not playing non-con games, Arkansas can't be too happy either. Why bother to get the #1 overall seed when they're going to send a team like NU there? 2nd time in the past 4 tournaments that NU has been sent to the overwhelming #1 overall national seed (Oregon St in 2017). Hope this trip goes better than that disaster did. No time to feel sorry for ourselves or look ahead. Most of those teams from the northeast region have a really good #1 and maybe even a strong #2 starting pitcher, so we'll have a challenge Friday, I'm sure. (We saw that first hand in 2017 and 2019 with Yale/Holy Cross/UConn.) Need to try to get into the Northeastern bullpen early Friday. Guess we should've let Michigan sweep us, then maybe we could've swapped spots with them. I'd rather be in South Bend 100 times out of 100 than Fayetteville.

That had to be the fastest game by quite a bit that Mich has played since Bakich got there. And he only got to come out and grandstand once. Rough day for him. Getting to 30 wins in this crazy season is pretty amazing.