So, a few days ago I put this tweet up which came with a ton of opinions:
I just don’t know what to think, what had me thinking was the fact that these 11 wins are the most in the Hoiberg era. That’s really not that great of a stat. Especially when you look at the fact that the coach he replaced never once had a season where he had less than 12 wins. We have been pretty bad up until this point (or including now) under Hoiberg.
But we look different this year. One of the things that I actually appreciate about Hoiberg is it looks like he knew he needed to change some things. He had the start worrying more about defense than firing 3’s, and I actually appreciate the product on the floor. We beat our in-state rival for the first time in however long. We beat Iowa and Ohio State, took formerly #1 Purdue to OT. There’s a lot of positive.
I’m just not blind to the fact that this is year 4. While I agree that we would be way better if we didn’t lose two of our starters to injury, it’s also year 4 so you should have some equity built up already. Fred doesn’t. Further, your two leading scorers from your best team won’t be back next year in Walker and Griesel. And those two guys are instrumental in this teams “success” this year. How will we be able to keep advancing/improving with losing arguably our two best players?
What I fear is having something happen like what happened with Frost, where you bring him back another year and it just goes sideways early and you lose an entire season as a fanbase. Trev is going to have to have a really good script if he keeps Hoiberg around. And you are only as good as what you can get. While i’ll agree that if you just throw money at things you can typically get a good coach, i’m not so sure we are going to get someone “better” than Hoiberg. And just what if he finally figured out how to win in this league?
Is it acceptable it took 4 years? Probably not. And with that said it should be easier to turn around basketball than football. But my gut tells me Hoiberg stays another year with a tourney birth or at least a bye in the B1G tournament a minimum expectation. I had roughly 100 replies to what we should do with Hoiberg, another few wins would go a long way to helping Alberts’ position. I just only see another 1 or 2.
Good luck Trev, this will be a tough one.
Jaden Rashada’s Insane NIL Deal
In case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s a quick summary of what happened down in Gainesville. A high school QB recruit committed to the University of Florida for an NIL deal worth over 13 million dollars. Contract details here:
Roughly one engagement per month I see, autograph 1 thing a month, 1 twitter post a month, here’s 13.85 million. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And there were so many red flags:
First of all, he signed for a deal worth way more than any other kid in his class that included a Manning.
His dad and family then hired an NIL that was ran by a sophomore in college…
And lastly, they signed a deal with the wording “the contract also states that the collective can in it’s sole and absolute discretion terminate the agreement without penalty or further obligation”
I am shocked that this whole thing went sideways. The kid ending up signing with Arizona State for this recruiting class. If you want to read more about this debacle, here you go:
https://theathletic.com/4149181/2023/02/06/jaden-rashada-nil/?source=emp_shared_article
Boeheim
Things are getting so bad with NIL ridiculousness Jim Boeheim went completely off the rails this past weekend:
Former coaches lumped in with his disdain, entire teams just pushed out in front of the bus. I mean, the dude is just losing it. My thing is you don’t have to deal with it, you can always retire. You’re 78. Don’t get me wrong, it’s out of control. But just because you paid for people all the time when it wasn’t legal, and now that it is you’re struggling to stay relevant, isn’t other peoples problems.
Last NIL thought
By the way, what happened to Rashada is exactly why “just take NIL scholarship instead of football scholarship” won’t happen. They didn’t even fulfill their NIL obligation to the kid before signing day. Quit saying that’s what’s going to happen to get to 85.
Thursday we will go over who I expect to start at QB for Nebraska and what I think the Nebraska season wins expectation should be.
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I wish I could’ve seen a fully healthy team this year for basketball. I personally would be fine with giving him more time. I get the fact that one could use the Frost argument(he’s had enough time to turn it around) and that’s valid.
The difference for me is I don’t nearly have the same level of expectation for basketball, and also don’t have faith that we would find someone all that much better.
I personally would be fine other way
I’m right there with you actually. My expectation isn’t as high for basketball, but I also don’t think that should mean we should settle. Not saying we are right now, but I would really like to give someone a fair chance. A healthy team this year is probably sitting at at least 14 wins right now, and an outside shot at a tourney birth. My problem is, Walker and Griesel leaving, I just don’t want to be in the 2022 football spot where the fans lose a year.
It was said that AD Trev Alberts kept an OML (Order of Merit Listing) of his preferred replacement coaches, if/when he had to fire Scott Frost as our football Head Coach.
Do you think Trev has an OML for men’s basketball? If so, who do you think is on it?
I do think he has it for football, mens basketball, and actually volleyball as well. But he will probably just go on Cook’s recommendation for the latter.
For me, I think he at least reached out to see interest for some other candidates but I don’t think this is like football where he has 2 or 3 really good candidates jumping to interview with him. However, he probably has some mid-major guys wanting a chance. Are they better than Hoiberg? I have no idea.
I live in the Spokane, WA area and Gonzaga basketball is huge here. This area is similar to Lincoln in size and demographics and quite a long ways away to attract talent. If you look through the years Mark Few has had a great team in a relatively weak conference. Made it to the dance a lot but took many years to get to the Final Four. He had to tweak and tinker slowely over the years to get the process down. He was able to develop into a great coach. I have always thought that the idea of just canning coaches after a few years was a bad idea if you can’t attract the talent that you need. But if there was development and adjustment and working on it with some improvements then someone should get a chance to stick around. I really liked Miles and didn’t want him to go. But with Hoiberg, he tried his intitial ways and fell flat, he has been making adjustments and I agree they have been in good games when fully healthy and one needs time to recruit and develop past 6th man to replace injuries. And the Big Ten has some really good teams and coaches, its going to hard to break into top 5. I don’t have an issue with keeping him a for a couple of years, unless you have reached out and a phenom coach is jumping at the bit to come to NE.