ladyhusker

THIS. In fact, if you look at the articles from when we signed any of our starting five, IIRC facilities never really come up, or if they do it's as a secondary thing. (I think we had this conversation back when Kenya Hunter left? I could be making that up but I seem tor recall it.) Having nice facilities might help (admittedly no one WANTS to practice at Mabel Lee) but if we're looking at factors in recruiting, I think we can probably agree that not everything weighs equally, and from the mouths of those who did commit here, having a nice locker room didn't really have much bearing in their decision. Another thing to keep in mind: it's been joked about, but in all seriousness, with all the corruption in men's basketball recruiting, Nebraska has never come up. I'm not saying everyone cheats, but there is enough cheating going on that we don't exactly have a level playing field (which adds yet another hurdle to overcome). If we want to go down that road, maybe we'd pull in some better recruits and have quicker success -- but it seems to me that we can either have a longer road to success OR resort to some less-than-legal ways to speed up the process. I know which way I prefer.

This is the exact reason I hate the current system (albeit while happily taking it over the RPI). I know it might take a little more work, but I think the win/loss quad should be locked in at the time you play the game, not at the end of the season, as though the outcome of the game doesn't play a factor in determining the final ranking at the end of the year or that the team you beat or lost to early on (or your own team) is the same at the end of the season as they were at the beginning. So for us, Clemson and Indiana would clearly remain Quad 1. But any noise Seton Hall or whoever else makes after we played them winds up being kind of immaterial. Rutgers stays Quad 3. Maybe I'm looking too narrowly, but that seems a lot more fair and accurate to me than to wait until the end of the season (which might include sickness, injury, suspensions, etc) to determine how good the win or loss you had two months ago was. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Lord have mercy, but no. I was in Sioux Falls. Our fans were SLOPPY. I am far, far from a teetotaler, but that experience alone made me change my stance on having beer at the arena. Cheer loud, have fun, but please don't yell during our own free throws and try to take photos with the players during the game (and steal their stuff from the bench). Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Points still count from inside the arc, right? I worry our team is unaware. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Head coaches, yes. Assistant coaches, sometimes. (At Nebraska they're paid pretty well, but at other schools that isn't always the case.) Operations staff, not so much...but when the HC goes, generally so does the entire staff. It's part of the game, to be sure, and that's a known risk, but those guys aren't paid any differently than most everyday folks and get the boot too. Just...food for thought. I've known a few of them over the years, and that can be kind of a rough deal. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Just for the sake of accuracy, wasn't Michigan a Tier 1 win last year? Still agree that we have a decent shot of winning a good deal more than 1 more rhis year though. And Clemson is still solidly Tier 1, right? Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I actually think that's a pretty encouraging stat -- in order for both teams to be ranked, that means Nebraska has to be ranked. We've played a hell of a lot of ranked opponents, but it seems we aren't ranked ourselves all that often. For better or for worse yesterday, I actually see that as a sign of things looking up that, in a CONFERENCE game -- meaning not a fluke early-season ranking -- we were both ranked. We may have crapped ourselves in it, but was anyone's preseason expectation to actually be in the national Top 25 rankings come January?

Oh God it's all clear. I missed earlier that Larry Scirotto and his Little Man Syndrome was reffing this one. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I'm clearly not objective but I wondered the same thing. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

How was it that official's call AND NOT THE OFFICIAL LOOKING DIRECTLY AT IT? Ugh. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Third away game I've watched from my couch...Tech, Minnesota, and this one. Considering going to a bar for the last stretch here... Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I don't think it's KenPom so much as the NET formula...you get a better score if you win by more than 10. Maybe trying to get a little more insurance to make sure the final doesn't wind up less than that? Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

PA guy trying to make BOOM SHAKALAKA happen after dunks is just awkward. Really not a fan of that. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Le Bouillon in the Old Market -- little different (it's French) but super good. Little bit on the pretentious side and you cannot eat cheap there but is it ever tasty. My parents live up there and go to Spezia every so often, but more when it's warmer out and they can sit in the courtyard. If you don't mind the neighborhood, Johnny's Steakhouse (NOT the Italian one in Village Point, but the old one off of Highway 75) is still pretty outstanding for a steak or chicken. Dad swears by The Drover, too. Beacon Hills over by Aksarben is pretty nice too -- more casual, less fine dining, but definitely a good bit fancier than it was when it was down here on 27th street. Similar menu still, but the atmosphere is a lot more upscale.

Awkward. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Oh, and one other thing -- when I say this was mismanaged, I don't just mean the lack of real extension, I mean the PR that goes with it. It's true that giving 2-3 more years with the comments Moos made would still give a hot-seat perception. But giving 2-3 more years while expressing support, not another "prove it again" statement (after another extended silence), removes the speculation. If money was really the big concern, he could have coupled a one-year extension with some great language expressing optimism and support, in a timely manner (as though he had several weeks between the end of football season and the end of basketball season to evaluate and come up with his options, rather than being reactive to what an arbitrary committee decides mere days before you know this question is going to arise publicly) and it may not have been quite as bad, although I still think would be lacking. In that regard, not crafting a positive message right away is just as big a mistake. At the end of the day, though, I think they go hand-in-hand, and personally I think he failed miserably at both. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Haven't had much time today to chime back in, sorry! To briefly address some of this -- I think some of it will just have to be an agree-to-disagree thing, because it seems to be in the eye of the beholder and none of us has the eyes that really matter (Miles' or Moos'). From where I sit, from what I've heard, and what I've been able to piece together, I think Moos made a mistake. I do think it's incongruent to battle for your team one day, and the next say "never mind, he didn't really prove anything after all". It's only a no-win if you can't make a decent argument to back up your actions, which wouldn't have been that hard to do (especially from the guy who happily gave Ernie Kent a better deal after worse results). If this year had the potential to go as well as we hoped it would -- and knock on wood, so far it has -- it just seems foolhardy to me to leave it up to Miles' sensibilities to determine how offended he should be by the pittance Moos offered. What's the worst-case scenario in giving him the extension and pumping some sunshine about why you did it? We pay a little more if you can him the next year? I tend to think money isn't a problem. What's the worst-case scenario in NOT giving him the extension, and letting him twist in the wind for a while first? You give the appearance of being against your own coach, you leave everything open a bunch of speculation, you potentially hurt recruiting, and when the coach DOES deliver, you get into a bidding war against a school that wants his services as well (and wind up paying more for him than you would have had to the year before), and have to rely on the fact that yes, at one point he did want to be here, but now that you set yourself up as the guy who didn't really believe in him he may be less inclined to want to keep working for you. Maybe my take is wrong, and Miles just really wants to be here, or can be paid enough to want to be here. Maybe this is all water under the bridge and they're totally fine. But as someone much larger than me might say, this just seems like pretty, um, risky roadz.

@Norm Peterson, well-played quote game. I guess I think the AD's job is to do the best thing in the long-term for their athletic department. Yes, you have to mitigate fan/donor sentiment, but leading by popular vote is a terrible way to manage a very complicated multi-million dollar business, which essentially is what Nebraska Athletics is. So Moos' job isn't to not get yelled at on message boards, it's to do what's best for the long-term success of the program, and by just about any metric I think the way things played out at the end of last year is a spectacular failure to do that. I think there is no real good end of the story from what Moos (and his administration) set up last year. If Miles is your guy, you back him. Your phone calls and emails and cheerleading act in the weeks just prior to this whole debacle would lead folks to believe you thought he was a successful coach. The committee disagreeing shouldn't affect that, especially when it's your own credibility on the line. You get him to the industry standard for contract lengths because if you don't, you're creating another recruiting/perception hurdle for no reason. If money is a concern (...is it really? Personally I very much doubt it) you negotiate the terms of that, but since you're the guy who apparently had no problem renewing Ernie Kent every year with absolutely piss-poor results, this is a MUCH easier spin job to do and you literally have an entire staff of people to do just that. You highlight the reasons for optimism, give Miles a two-year extension, and maybe some message board folks aren''t super happy but you still have a guy who is popular with donors, who runs a clean program (something I think that will become more of a commodity soon), and who is coming off of one of the best years in school history. It isn't a stretch to call it a good day. If Miles is NOT your guy, you take decisive action and let him go. You better hope the person you get instead is clean and can do the things Miles did do for the program, but again, you have a staff whose sole job is to spin your actions to the public. He had one good year, several poor ones, yada yada. Personally I think this is a poor choice, but clearly there are those out there who think it's the right call, so I'll let them be the ones to speak up for Door #2 here. The one thing that would be absolutely awful for your department's long-term success is exactly what went down. You told your coach that he's not your guy but you couldn't really do any better, so you might as well ride with him one more year. So instead of being the one to write the script, you're hoping that either a., your coach tanks so you can fire him without anyone yelling at you, or b., if the year does go well, his sense of loyalty is much higher than yours and he wants this job more than you wanted him. And while I can't speak for anyone else, I'd say that if I were in Miles' shoes, I'd be throwing up the deuces at the end of the year to the guy who basically told me he'd take me to prom only because last year's queen wouldn't go with him, but now I'm the one with the crown and he's the schmuck who NOW thinks I'm worth dating for real. I'm not saying there was an easy decision to be made, or that Eichorst didn't set up a rough call for Moos. But he's paid, handsomely, to deal with this exact thing. And I really don't see how the long-term success of the athletic department is improved by the twisting-in-the-wind scenario he created.

Holy smokes I hadn't seen that before,@hhcmatt. Good Lord, that makes this past offseason that much more maddening. I get wanting your own guy, but come on...does Ernie Kent have some compromising photos of him with that goat or something? The inconsistency is crazy. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

This was all hashed out back in April, but for good times' sake and because I'm procrastinating my monstrous to-do list today, I'll bite. But I'm going to take the lazy way out and paste here what I posted then, because I'm cocky enough to think it basically all still holds true. (But I'm on my phone so please forgive the lack of formatting.) I'll add that I also think Moos impacted his own credibility in all this -- if he truly believed his team was worthy of a spot in the NCAA last year, he would have acted accordingly. Now whenever he calls someone to pump up a Husker team, in any sport, the appropriate response should be "Why should I believe you? You didn't even believe in your own guy enough to act like what you said was true last time." Say what you will about UCF looking silly claiming the national title in football last year -- there's no doubt they believed in their team, and put their money where their mouth was. There's something to be said for that kind of belief in your guy. ----- Here's the thing -- I think 2018-19 is only another do-or-die year because that's what the narrative became after the season. Rewind six-ish weeks. Selection Sunday just happened and we were left out, but Bill Moos had spent the last week calling everyone in his phone to tell them how awesome Nebrasketball is. We're sitting at 22-10, which by most standards (especially in Nebraska) is a good season. We had a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament, and yes, we lost to Michigan, but so did a couple really good teams, so while that sucks, it's not like we're not in good company. And the NIT may have inexplicably just crapped on us, but it's a team we played once already to start the season and jumped out to a 20-point lead at halftime so a win isn't impossible. Let's say that, at that point, the AD announces that despite what the committee decided, this was a really good season and we believe we're heading the right direction (because dang it, everyone who ever met Bill Moos in a bar once at a Final Four has heard from him this week about how great this team is and why we deserved to be in the tourney), and so with that in mind, we're looking forward to building on this year's success and taking the next step in 2018-19 with Tim Miles, who has received a 2-year extension. Could he still fire Miles if next year goes poorly? Sure. But does it also highlight the good things about this season (I can think of at least 22 of them right off the bat...) and give us a little momentum in the offseason? Yep. Maybe we still lose in Starkville, but maybe everyone isn't so pissed off when they go, knowing that at least their administration thinks they accomplished something. Or maybe we even say this conversation and announcement all happens after Moos and Miles met the first time...probably still works out OK. Instead, we got a whole bunch of silence, a ton of rumors (some of which may or may not be true, but it plants speculation regardless), and now a pall over what could have been a pretty important offseason with a coach who now looks like a lame duck and an AD who looks like he doesn't believe in his coach. All this so he could weigh out whether to fire a guy who just got a school record for conference wins and placed 4th in the Big Ten? Wait on it a year. If we suck, call your coach of choice and offer him a boatload of money then, and we're really no worse for it. If we win, great, we've got a winner. But this do-or-die narrative was cosigned, if not created, by the administration's lack of support and decisive action at the appropriate time. The ultimatum season didn't need to happen. Maybe Shawn Eichorst painted Bill Moos into a corner, but Moos turned around and pooped in it. He (and his staff) had the opportunity to write their own narrative and this is what they chose. I think that's certainly worthy of criticism, because I think all this could have all been avoided with some competent PR, and instead, we're treated to a doom-and-gloom offseason and a pressure cooker inside PBA next year. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I watch this and all I can see when I look at Michael Jacobson is Jimmy Neutron.

Their big white guy looks like the understudy to play Rolf in The Sound of Music. Carry on. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

I don't know why this is a hill I'm dying on, but I was curious and procrastinating a project for work. So I did a side-by-side of Jordy's first seven games, and Brady's first seven games he played in (technically this is 8 games for the team, since he didn't play against Texas Tech, while Jordy was not afforded that mulligan). But since the two cupcake games really tell us very little and do nothing more than inflate stats, I also did a side-by-side with those two games removed. Essentially, I think we get left with the same player, if Jordy doesn't even get the edge on that. Jordy fouled a lot, but he was also playing on the road and against better competition, so I think some of those calls are to be expected and some of those are just on him. The difference is, I think, the role they're being asked to fill, and that's a pretty big factor. Jordy was a top-whatever recruit, and so yes, he rightfully had more expectations placed on him than Brady. But for all the talk of Brady being far superior (and maybe the intangibles show that, although I think that's pretty subjective) -- the numbers just don't bear that out. Further, we're looking at Jordy in hindsight -- at this time two years ago, if we were to go read those threads, IIRC we were gushing just as much about his potential then too. (And because it probably needs to be said -- I'm strictly talking about on-court production here. Jordy and his handlers or whatever deserve all the criticism in the world for leaving us in a bind, twice.) So all that to say: I think the coaches are being very wise in how they use Brady, such that he looks maybe better than he actually is, and is an asset to the team in the way he's been able to contribute without being asked to do anything outside his skill set. But I'd use that point to encourage some caution in how lofty we make our fans'-eyes expectations of him, lest we wind up disillusioned (which we saw with Jordy, and really, with countless others over the years). I really like him, and I think he'll be good -- but I don't think that will happen this year, and maybe not even next year. He's a project, which is what we all thought he was going to be when he came in, so let's be patient and let the project develop slowly and organically -- something I could say about this program in general.

I like Brady a lot and think he brings a ton to the table down the road. But anyone ever see him on the bench when he comes out after playing more than 2 or 3 minutes at a time? Dude is GASSED. I have no doubt that he'll keep developing and get there but if he struggles to breathe after 10 trips up and down the court, I can't imagine there's a chance of him playing starters minutes, much less at the very beginning of the game. I like the way he's been integrated in smaller doses, letting him get his feet wet, do some things that set him up for success, and then give him a breather. Think that probably gives him a better chance to gain some confidence (and hopefully endurance?) so he can deliver better results, rather than just throwing him to the wolves right off the bat. For all that we trash Jordy (and some of that is rightfully so), he came in with MUCH higher expectations put on him and failed to live up to that. Had we put the same kind of expectations on Brady, I don't think we'd be singing his praises like this...we expected nothing and he delivered something, even small, but I don't know that his actual production (not potential, I mean actual results) is all that much better than Jordy's at this point in a true freshman season (although someone can feel free to do a side-by-side comparison...my memory may be off). The lens is just different. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Sweet, totally forgot about that. Thanks!