Fred, Fred, Fred.....

[Chief Wiggum]

I think players have a lot to do with it. Who on the team is a NBA player?

If I remember right Fred won less than 10 games when we did have a NBA player on our team. Twice.

 

[WHCSC]

We don’t and some that is because the Jayskers . There BB money goes to Creighton.

Never thought of this angle before. Makes sense.

 

[scarletred]

Never thought of this angle before. Makes sense.

Not every Husker fan is a Jaysker either.

 

[Harry Caray]

I think players have a lot to do with it. Who on the team is a NBA player?

Rutgers has 2 of the Top 3 picks in next year's NBA Draft, and they are not even going to make the NCAA Tournament this year (unless they somehow catch fire and win like 10 of their last 12 games).

You have to build a complete team to win at a high level in this league. We saw with McGowens that one NBA-caliber player doesn't make that much difference if the rest of the team sucks.

Still, I don't think it makes sense to fire Fred, I'd rather use the $10 million it would take to buy him out and invest that in bringing in a well-rounded group of transfers/recruits. The group he brought in this year just does not have a lot of athleticism or scoring ability.

 

[mgbreis]

He gone

I would've vehemently disagreed with you a week ago, but now I think you might be right. I don't think Nebraska will fire him but I think there's a chance he pulls an Erstad and exits stage left. Sam is done, Gary and Williams are gone, it's an uphill battle, the roster needs another big reset.... he might just walk away.

 

[st3f0]

I completely forgot he signed an extension after last year.

 

[Bugeater]

It can be done, Danny Nee recruited NBA type players and a lot of his teams were pretty good. Just an aside to make everyone feel a bit better, Nebraska leads all time against colorado in men's basketball, so they've got that going for them.

 

[V-Doub]

No one replaced Tominaga. Still have Gary and Williams doing their thing, but no one else has really stepped up. Essegian has not. Every now and then he will hit 3 in a row like last night, but then air balled the most important one. Need another elite scorer to even be on par with what we were last year, which was just ok.

We had multiple people who could hit 3s last year. Tominaga, Mast, Wilcher and Williams.

This year… Essegian and Williams are about it. Berke will get an occasional 3 but if we’re gonna count him we have to probably should count Hoiberg and Gary too. And then you’d have to count them for last year as well. IMO, none of Berke, Hoiberg or Gary are good enough shooters to be considered a real threat from 3.

 

[Zeke2005]

Im not sure what the answer is, but I might argue that weather does affect recruiting.

I was thinking about it last night after watching USC's athleticism. Why don't we have that? Well could it be that the climate in california is just a bit nicer than Nebraskas? And if kids have to choose between on average program in California, and the other average or below average program in Nebraska what are they going to choose?

It's really tough to recruit to a bottom dwelling program in state that doesn't have much to offer for 20 somethings.

We really aren't much different than South Dakota. IF it wasn't for the Big 8 and Nebraska football our university would be a tough sell.

Nebraska is similar to Iowa in terms of what there is to offer yet Iowa state is rather successful and the Hawkeyes have decent years as well. Creighton has a good program in this nothing to do state. Anything to do in Manhattan Kansas? Yet K State is successful

 

[V-Doub]

I think players have a lot to do with it. Who on the team is a NBA player?

None. But as others have said you don’t “need” NBA caliber talent to be a really good team at the college level. Probably be 30ish + teams in tournament that don’t an NBA caliber player on their roster. And some of those teams will win games in the tournament.

Don’t get me wrong, you recruit and take NBA level recruits when you can. And we definitely need more talent/better players. But you don’t need NBA guys.

 

[goldencohusker]

Not one. But I would settle for 5 really good guys even if not NBA quality. But we can’t seem to find five or six high quality players. Crap, even a fvcking little school like Butler made the final four a few years back. If Butler can do it why can’t we? This is the question that I keep asking myself. Why is it so damn hard to recruit really good basketball players to NU?
My answer? Our tradition of losing holds us back and hamstrings our coaches. A lot of folks in this thread think I am just being a defeatist nitwit for saying that. Ok poindexters, what is your theory then? That every coach we have had have just been mediocre coaches who can’t recruit? And if we can just get the “right” coach (finally!) all our problems will go away?

Danny Nee proved you can recruit good talent to NU. His teams from the early 90s were athletic, big and deep - fan's today would be going ga-ga if Hoiberg could put together rosters like Nee had. Nee was a better recruiter than he was a coach, and how some of his best teams didn't win a game in the dance is a reflection of that - they certainly weren't losing those games because of talent. Maybe times have changed and it is harder to recruit to NU, or maybe Collier, Sadler, Miles, and Hoiberg are simply not the recruiters that Nee was.