throwback

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/college/big-12/university-of-kansas/article235306247.html Kansas dirty? I know, I know, I'm incredibly stunned too.

Crap. Having him stay in the B1G is a punch to the nuts.

A few weeks ago, Coach told the World-Herald that he may be a few days late for the start of classes. https://www.omaha.com/huskers/mens-basketball/fred-hoiberg-pleased-with-huskers-progress-camaraderie-from-good-but/article_57751579-5a76-55ea-b939-7ee0d0df8e08.html (paywall)

Those two December B1G games are very interesting - two really solid opponents, but we've had a ton of success lately in Bloomington. Hopefully we can split them as our team continues to gel, but I think you could make a case for 2-0 or 0-2 as well. Just from an initial glance, it looks like the back half of the B1G schedule is more challenging than the front half, so that's beneficial for a team that should improve steadily throughout the year. No home games between Nov 22 and Dec 15 is odd. B1G schedule is kind of lumpy - 4x we have back to back home games, 4x we have back to back road games. That schedule layout probably doesn't lend itself to many significant winning or losing streaks during league play. Just 74 days left till the season opener!

https://www.omaha.com/huskers/plus/fred-hoiberg-pleased-with-huskers-progress-camaraderie-from-good-but/article_57751579-5a76-55ea-b939-7ee0d0df8e08.html (behind the paywall) Hopefully whoever handled Jorge Brian Diaz's paperwork in admissions has moved on to a different school, or it might be tight getting Yvan in class by the deadline.

Husker Basketball Italy Game Schedule Day City Game Info Mon., Aug. 5 Rome vs. Stella Azzurra Academy, 11:30 a.m. (CT) Wed., Aug. 7 Florence vs. Silute BC (Lithuania), 1 p.m. (CT) Thurs., Aug. 8 Florence vs. Silute BC (Lithuania), 11 a.m. (CT) Mon., Aug. 12 Como vs. Italian Select, Noon (CT)

Doc was on with Sharp & Benning this morning:

From the article: UCLA assistant Michael Lewis, who spent the past three seasons with Tim Miles at Nebraska, was the lead recruiter for Sallis at NU and was watching in Birmingham. So he's at least keeping tabs. Article also says Sallis' first in-person meeting with Hoiberg was June 19. So, after the coaching change, NU has had to make up for lost time in establishing a relationship versus a certain other team that shall go unnamed, but the article indicates Hoiberg & Co have made up a lot of ground in less than a month.

If we truly want to honor our history, the secret scrimmage every year should be in Mabel Lee with towels on the windows.

A few items from OWH today: --Official Italy practices start Monday --They've been doing 4 hours per week of workouts as allowed by NCAA until now --12 of 13 scholarship guys should be here Monday (only missing Yvan) - Mack, Stevenson, Kavas & Cheatham have been finishing up classes at their previous schools The remainder of the article discussed his offensive philosophies and where he's borrowing ideas. And the part that made me smile: Should be another NU hoops article or 2 later in the week/over weekend. https://www.omaha.com/huskers/plus/he-may-not-have-a-harden-or-giannis-but-fred/article_4b693a1f-6dcf-5de0-af83-56debe2ca7ab.html (behind the pay wall)

Somewhere, a Big Ten official was watching that from his couch and T-eeing up JPJ for looking at the opponent.

It truly is amazing that any university or person could make 2 hires that terrible out of 3. We're talking two all-time-disaster, wouldn't-trust-either-of-them-to-walk-my-dog hires. Unless, of course, the goal was to make terrible, utterly incompetent hires. Then, mission accomplished.

Have to wonder if he really wants to play D-1 college basketball all that much. He engaged in quite a bit of self-destructive behavior at NU. Sometimes that's just engaging in self-destructive behavior; sometimes that's a sign that a player doesn't really like basketball enough to make the commitment required at this level.

Sure the quality of teams is primarily because of Hoiberg's first year. But the structure isn't. You don't think the athletic dept needs to have X number of home games? Trust me, they do. If you must have 16-17 home games to make budget, your non-con schedule has very little flexibility. You can't just "roll the dice" when big budgets are involved. Heck, they expected to play 17 home games this season till the league surprised them with a ACC challenge trip to Ga Tech. I'd imagine that screwed up some budget assumptions pretty substantially when you're taking in $500K-$700K per home game just on tickets. And that blue team is a terrible example. That blue team doesn't play two conference challenge games where the league dictates home or away; only one challenge. And that blue team only plays 18 conference games. Gives that blue team much more flexibility. If NU had only 18 conf games and only 1 mandated non-con game, we'd play more home and homes ... like we did when we first joined the B1G. Huge difference between 19 conference mandated games and 21-22 conference mandated games when you need to have X number of home games. It's no coincidence we haven't announced a new home and home since the B1G went to 20 conference games. I'd imagine in the future, once Hoiberg's teams are established, we'll upgrade the schedule by either ditching the in-season tournament for a couple of years to play a couple of home and homes or a couple of TV-mandated neutral site games, or try to play in an in-season tournament that has a higher level of opponents. Or we may have to ask to have the game with that blue team count as a Gavitt Game in the future to provide a bit more wiggle room in the schedule. But home and homes like Kansas are going to be rare with 20 conference games and an in-season tournament on the schedule.

It's a bad home non-con schedule, but this is also what can happen when you have 20 conference games and the conference dictates 1 or 2 of your non-con games too (ACC & BE challenges). Have to have X number of home games to pay the bills. And it's tough to schedule more than one home and home when you don't know whether you'll be on the road or at home in ACC/BE challenges until early summer. Unfortunately, with 20 conf games and w/ BE & ACC challenges, I suspect we'll see more non-con schedules like this and fewer home and homes with teams like Kansas going forward.

I looked at this a while back, so I could be mis-remembering, but I believe the only team to sign multiple consensus Top 10 Juco recruits for 2018-19 was New Mexico State. I'd gladly take the season they had 100 times out of 100 ... minus the final few seconds of it, of course.

Agree - there is some crazy potential on this roster. Even more importantly, it's obvious that these coaches believe in these guys. From everything they've said, it's pretty clear they weren't just filling scholarships to get to 14 (then 13). They really believe in all of these guys. From the article, Abdelmassih had scouted a lot of these guys previously while at St John's, and Doc had been looking at Cross. Abdelmassih had even seen Yvan at a tournament. Sure, the coaches are going to tell us every one of these guys is great. That's expected. But the detail in this article and in other comments they've made tells me they aren't just giving lip service. These are the guys they want. They certainly don't have to offer the details they have on these players, unless they actually believe it. Now, it's a matter of meshing all of them together to create a cohesive team - no small challenge. These Italy practices and subsequent trip couldn't have come at a better time.

Great story (behind the paywall) on how NU remade its roster from Abdelmassih's perspective. https://www.omaha.com/huskers/plus/husker-hoops-roster-redo-was-a-daunting-task-here-is/article_8a451a84-6fb7-518d-aec5-9cf4144eb6a3.html My favorite paragraph: This article drives home just how impressive of a makeover these guys pulled off in 2 months.

If I remember right from the World Herald's multi-day look back at the Nee years from last summer, Danny liked taking teams into out-of-the-way road venues because he knew they'd be nasty, as the fans rarely had a chance to have a P5 school in their building. He thought it helped the team prepare for rough conference road environments. If I remember right, the 90-91 team's trip to UW-Green Bay was one of the toughest ones ... or at least the one where they had the most beer thrown on them. Plus he had only 14 conference games and 13-16 non-con games to fill (with 0 of those non-con games dictated by the conference like they are today). You had to be a little creative.

Good to see Iowa really challenging itself. The Hawkeye bench scrubs are already licking their chops.

At one time, to pick up a 4th game out of the 3-game neutral site tournament, the 4th game had to be against a team in the tourney field. Not sure if that's changed or not. I know in 2017-18, when we were in the tournament in Orlando, we counted our Gavitt Games trip to St John's as our 4th game for the tourney because St John's was also in the 8-team field in Orlando, so we had 31 total regular-season games. In 2016-17, we only played 30 regular-season games, as we didn't play a 4th game against someone else in the Wooden Tourney field, and only played the 3 neutral site games there. That's different from the 4-game tournament where you get 2 at home against non-P5 teams and 2 neutral site games, like we had last year in KC and like we had a few years back when we played in Brooklyn. You can play up to 31 with that type of tournament. If that rule is still in effect, to pick up a 4th game out of the Cayman Islands tourney -- and an 11th non-con game -- we'd have to play a game against someone in that field - doesn't matter where it's played, as long as it isn't at the tourney site.

Now you've done it. All the Clone lurkers are shaking their fists at the screen.

Exactly. It takes a few days to launder that kind of cash safely and find just the right jobs for the player's parents.

We'll be OK in 2020. 2 or 3, maybe 4 guys will leave after next season and/or at mid-season. Just the way the game works now.

I'd take that finish to this season 100 times out of 100, and I'll defer to your knowledge on that subject. After all, I can barely pretend to know what I'm talking about with NU hoops. There's no chance in hell I can pull that off for ISU hoops. The last thing I need is to be Internet shamed on here by some random ISU fan for my lack of Clone hoops knowledge. (And I know you're lurking out there Clone fans. Coveting our coach is bad form, by the way. You've got your guy. And we've got your better guy.)