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Misplaced Optimism

I have been watching for so many years I should have known better than to get sucked in this season. I feel bad for Watson right now as it is obvious he is in his own head. Guy deserves better after four years.

A couple questions, points to discuss:

How do you get out a program out of the cellar when you never have been good? The ingredients are recruiting, coaching and culture, all have an impact on results.

Miles approach has been to use transfers, almost exclusively, to augment some marginal talent with upside. The upside, Copeland as an example, you get some quality guys that can play now. Downside is culture suffers. I think the transfers are truly team players, but they also have an agenda thinking they can get to the show. When push comes to shove and the chips are down they go to the individual game. I.E Petteway, Palmer Jr. etc. After seven years we are still in this cycle and not very good culturally. (From my outside view) Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Same poor results, the team fractures under adversity as they go to a 'me first' mentality. It just isn't working. We aren't an NBA feeder school so our transfers are just not able to push us over the hump.

The other approach is to blow up the foundation. (The Frost approach) Start with a coach that can actually in game coach. Get guys that maybe aren't as talented but will play a 'team first' game. I am now in the camp that to make the Husker men competitive the foundation needs to be rebuilt. Get a team first group of guys and develop them over 3-4 years. It will be painful, but look how the WI, IA, NW and those team's do it. They aren't great draws for top tier talent, they develop good players that peak in year 3-4 of their careers. Borchardt fits this mold. The guy comes in and simply competes. He doesn't worry about stats or his game, he just plays hard and shares the ball. I think Watson and Roby could have been this type of fit but not sure what happened in their development. That is on the coaching staff.

Hopefully they play with the energy of the last game (Purdue) the rest of the way and try and salvage something this season. At least they are fun to watch if they show some effort.
 

My son and I were optimistic, and it wasn't misplaced. When the season started, it was all in front of this team. All the goals were there for the taking. There are still games to be played, and we will do our best to remain optimistic while understanding the mental mountain that his team is going to be climbing the rest of the way.
 
Sofa King said:
I must admit that I fell for what now appears to be a trap of misplaced optimism. This season feels like another disaster...and it is...but as I thought about it this weekend, the more it seems that our tourney hopes were simply a mirage of scheduling and perception.

We all know by now that last year's 13-5 B1G record was somewhat of a fraud based upon the fluke of scheduling. The tournament committee deemed it as such in excluding Nebraska and even the NIT committee made them a #5 seed.

However, I think many of us felt that the team was simply disrespected and this led to irrational expectations for 2018-2019.

And now, with the season in full collapse, we should also look back upon the earlier victories and revisit their significance. When you do, you'll see that 3-10 and 13-11 is about what we should have expected all along.

DONU beat Seton Hall by 23 on November 14. It looked like a great win at the time since SH was a tourney team last year. They are 5-6 in Big East, 14-9 overall and projected for the NIT.

DONU lost to Texas Tech by 18. That was supposed to be OK because TT was expected to contend for the Big12 title. They are 7-4 and 19-5.

Winning at Clemson was supposed to be a huge win because of Clemson's Sweet 16 run last year. Clem is currently 5-5, 15-8 and squarely on the bubble.

Beating Creighton by 19 and OKSt by 23 were supposed to be a sign of how good DONU had become. The Bluejays are now 4-7 and 13-11 while The Pokes are dead last in the Big12 at 2-8 and 9-14.

Then in early B1G play, the team collapsed in losses at Minnesota and Maryland and got rolled at Iowa.

And all of these results...including last year...included Isaac Copeland!

My point is that we stink. We weren't very good last year and, thus, the same players aren't very good this year, either. As fans, we willing bought a bill of goods that this team was/is talented and that they were going to finally win a game in the NCAA tourney. Looking back now, it's clear that this was all a case of extreme optimism and over-expectations.

Seven years in, the lack of talent and depth is unacceptable. Tim Miles seems like a nice man. He'd make an excellent neighbor and drinking buddy. However, he must be fired shortly after the final buzzer sounds at the B1G tourney on March 13.
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I definitely bought into the hype. But where we are at now is not what we should have expected. Those wins you explained away.... Every one of those teams is now about where they were expected to be preseason except Clemson. Every One. Well, except us. I think it was realistic to expect a top 5 finish in the conference and a win in the NCAA tourney. Season is a big disappointment but the original hype was justified.
 
Jack Riggins said:
First, your response is funny and makes me laugh. See:

https://www.omaha.com/huskers/mens-...cle_0243dbf2-e2c3-572b-8be1-3905f9f419f7.html

He didn't HIRE me, he asked and these things (outside volunteers or consultants) need to be approved by AD. I have been a volunteer/consultant (same function, one paid and one not) to many coaches around the region and NU, business's as well. Moos approved, then cut it after a few months. This out-sourcing or having a second set of eyes with different experiences is a good practice and very common around the programs that are ELITE or trying to get there. Makes me questions lots of things going on around the Department in general. I have seen lots of interesting dynamics since SE and the arrival of Moos.

CLEAR AS MUD for you?
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Maybe Moos thought that if you were a volunteer for Miles it would be harder to hire you as the next MBB coach.
 



Knight said:
There was NOBODY here in Dec. I tried... there was just no one
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MWAV5YJ.gif
 
I quit drinking the :Koolaid2: 2 seasons ago. After debating with ColoRedo, I decided to take a wait and see position. Still looks to me that we should have gotten rid of Miles then.
 




Hopefully they play with the energy of the last game (Purdue) the rest of the way and try and salvage something this season. At least they are fun to watch if they show some effort.[/QUOTE]

I agree it is amazing they haven't thrown in the towel, so with some energy we saw at Purdue we have a punchers chance. It is slim, but there is a chance if the energy stays up to go somewhere and do something. That dynamic will be what I am watching and even tho it hasn't got results it is impressive they still are fighting. Good on em. That is the Nebraska Way.
 
Humbled by Life said:
I appreciate a view of the situation from the inside, so thank you Jack Riggins. I don't have any special knowledge or insight to the dynamics of the team, but I believe coach Miles has felt a lot of pressure the last 2 years. When last season started there were more than few that were calling for Miles head. As last season progressed they were pretty muted but you could feel their presence and knew they were waiting to pounce with a vengeance. If what you say is true about support for the MBB team,I would hazard a guess the AD is looking at appeasing the fan base more so than putting resources into making the program successful. This season has been wasted, possibly sabotaged so the administration can remove Coach Miles. But my caution to everyone is that 9-11 of these players may not be here next year. With the advent of the NCAA's willingness to allow transfers to be immediately eligible I could see the this team gutted next year. So sad it has come to this but as the cat with the machine gun will tell you The Red Phoenix must be burned to ashes before it can rise again.
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I think this is prolly a fair assessment, and is just part of major college sports. MY only interest is that Coaches and Players get the support they need regardless of WHO or WHAT it is. I unfortunately have seen that "lack of" since SE arrival. I will hope AD figures it out sooner than later, cause it does effect the product we see. The RED PHOENIX is a really good quote!
 



Miles is a poor basketball coach at this level. Period. End of story. The best that can be said of his tenure here is that he has landed a few talented transfers (nothing wrong with that...everyone has to play that market now) and that a couple of those transfers have gone batcrap crazy for a couple stretches. I'm talking about the 10 game run that got them in the dance in year 2 and...well, last year's Big 10 season was more than a "run"...but was it?

13-5 was a mirage. Yes, NU played well but the Big 10 was down and the schedule was favorable. As was mentioned previously the whole world outside of Nebraska took it for what it was...fortunate crumbling of the Big 10 scheduling cookie.

He is Doc Sadler with a twitter presence. He should have been let go two years ago after finishes of 12th, 11th and 12th. His saving grace was that Eichorst had no political capital to be firing anyone at the time.

Despite going 13-5 last year the guy in 49-70 in the Big 10. That is absolutely freaking awful.

Point being...he sucks as a coach and therefore nobody should have been all that surprised that this team fell flat on it's face.
 
ColoREDo said:
What is worse are the posters who never came to the board back in December but like to come troll now that things have gone off the rails.
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Though that tends to be the case with NU basketball fans every season. And probably most fan bases that are football before basketball.

Granted, it looks worse when the fans show up in droves out of nowhere to say "Miles sucks!" But other seasons, they show up in February when we pull off some big upset.

I confess, even I get burned out frequently in chatting Husker Hoops. 10-15 years ago, our little group here went on and on in this forum. Pretty much the same group for several years.
 

HuskerWeatherman said:
Though that tends to be the case with NU basketball fans every season. And probably most fan bases that are football before basketball.

Granted, it looks worse when the fans show up in droves out of nowhere to say "Miles sucks!" But other seasons, they show up in February when we pull off some big upset.

I confess, even I get burned out frequently in chatting Husker Hoops. 10-15 years ago, our little group here went on and on in this forum. Pretty much the same group for several years.
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I miss huskerwirejay. lol
 
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