Pritchin' with Pritch: Husker basketball has chance at NCAA tournament
Nebraska Basketball maybe isn’t as popular as Nebraska Football, but right now if you took a vote, basketball might be catching up a little.
Last year, Coach Tim Miles team had a 22-win season against 11 losses, but didn’t get into the NCAA tournament. That isn’t unheard of because NU basketball hasn’t made very many trips to the NCAA tournament, and they have never ever won a tournament game. This season it would appear that just maybe the Husker men have the opportunity to take that next step and at least make the tournament bracket.
The Huskers are entering unchartered territory, and the team has high expectations and hopes to prove all the naysayers wrong. There are many, however, projecting the Huskers could finish near the top four of the Big Ten Conference this year, and Nebraska is also being projected as a possible NCAA tournament pick.
It is pretty easy, however, for some sports writer to say this is the year, but preseason hype doesn’t mean a thing if a team does not play to their potential.
Last year, the Huskers had one of the best seasons in school history. The 13 conference wins were the most in school history, but even doing that the Huskers were not invited to the Big Dance.
Coach Miles has a good schedule this year and hopefully that will help the Huskers make the NCAA. Even though there is a chance for the Huskers to be one of the big stories of the season, there are still skeptics.
The Huskers are a little short on depth even though they have four pretty good players returning. The Huskers have, in the past, often been their own worst enemies when high expectations have been placed on them.
I have always thought Coach Miles has been one big post player away from having a really good team .When he recruited Jordy Tshimanga it appeared that maybe a big post player had been found, but it didn’t work out and Tshimanga ended up transferring to the University of Dayton, leaving a pretty big hole in the Huskers front court. Tshimanga wasn’t great, but he was getting better.
But that is water under the bridge and the Huskers will have to adjust and row the boat with the oars that are coming back and want to be there. The Huskers also lost a couple good players to graduation in Evan Taylor and Anton Gill.
What the Huskers do have returning are Isaac Copeland, Isaiah Roby, James Palmer, Thomas Allen and Glynn Watson, all who are projected to be starters. Now if they can develop some of the other players to come off the bench and produce, maybe they will be the contender that some people are talking about.
The schedule is pretty demanding because the Big Ten is a good basketball conference. The Huskers also have some good non-conference games and some that stand out are Cal State Fullerton, Creighton and Seton Hall. Those are all games at Pinnacle Bank Arena. All of those teams made the NCAA last season so defeating them would go a long way in the eyes of the NCAA selection committee.
The season opener is not that far away and I know I am looking forward to getting to as many of them as I can. This season also is one that probably is a key year for Coach Miles. I thought he would be a good hire because he had success at Colorado State making the NCAA a couple of years and had four Nebraska kids who played a lot. I hope he has a great season, for him, for the team and for the fans that fill PBA.
Husker Football
I told myself I wasn’t going to say any more about Husker football until they won a game. Last Saturday, we went to a wedding and listened to the game on the radio as we traveled to a church North of McCook.
When we got out of the car to go into the church, Nebraska was up by 10 with five minutes to go and I thought this one is going to be the first of many for Coach Frost. When the wedding was over and I went to the car to get my phone and check on the game, I could not believe the Huskers lost.
Apparently they found another way to blow off a toe. Same old stuff. Pretty good offense, but it fails when needed the most. Penalties galore and end result, another loss.
I read somewhere that since 2006, there have been 1,613 seasons played by teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. In 2018, Nebraska is currently No. 1 at 96 yards in penalties per game and No. 2 in the number of penalties per game at 10.2.
Story continued after first win.