Nebraska...not feeling Frosty anymore

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm so glad Big Red has joined the B1G.

[entropy]

At least you guys should dominate in baseball oh and womens bowling.

and don't forget, women's volleyball and women's track.. and not to bad at women's basketball and women's gymnastics.. and the women's softball team is ranked too

[Pasadena Blue]

Neb's been a great addition. I wish they could get their AAU status back.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I agree that Nebraska will have a tough time improving in the B1G. Indiana, Purdue, OSU, MSU, Michigan, and Illinois all have a lot of tradition and Wisconsin is a really good program right now. Even Iowa and Minnesota have been really good programs within recent memory. Penn State's stuck in the same boat. That's a lot of tough programs to compete against in climbing into the upper tier.

[SeanB]

Reminds me so much of our own basketball situation when we hired Tommy Amaker. We were so ashamed of the Fab Five that we kept a shmuck around for six seasons before finally getting Beilein.

I don't remember it that way at all. If you're talking about Ellerbe, I totally agree. With Amaker, not so much.

He was a pretty hot name coming off some success at Seton Hall, and there were quite a few folks who thought he might turn M into a Duke type of offense/defense program and were excited about his hiring. He even grabbed some decent talent. Problem was, his players never seemed to improve and his offense looked like a YMCA 12 and under league. Run around a whole lot and then jack up a crappy shot.

I do agree with you that he was here too long, but I don't think his hiring was an "eh, whatever" move.

[hack]

Amaker was hired before anyone found out if he was a flash in the pan who had gotten lucky in the tournament. The red flags were there, in the massive dysfunction of his team once he brought in that huge recruiting class with Eddie Griffin in it.

But I think that in its own way that hire was in part due to the phenomenon Hannibal is talking about. Michigan wanted the choir-boy part of Amaker's resume so much that they didn't bother realizing he was totally unready and maybe never would be. They saw only the parts they wanted to.

[Hannibal]

Amaker was kind of a meh hire at the time. He got a lot of mileage out of making the Sweet 16 once and then not doing jack shit other than that. I guess I don't have a problem with that as much as how long we hung onto him though. We gave him too much credit for just not being a cheater. IMHO he should have been fired the year after we won the NIT when the team tanked and failed to make the post season. But instead, we continued to flagellate ourselves like a guilty monk.

[SeanB]

M excels at self-flagellation!

As I said, I totally agreed with you regarding the length of his tenure!

[entropy]

Good article here.

By Thursday, college basketball will have infiltrated Nebraska. Kansas and Missouri will be there, the highest-seeded teams in the Omaha pod. Two-time champion Florida will be there. Virginia will be there. Purdue. Hell, even I'll be there.

Know who won't be in Nebraska?

Nebraska.

This is a problem, but not a surprise. Nebraska has played in the NCAA tournament six times in 74 years. All-time tournament victories: zero.

That's ridiculous, even nonsensical. Nebraska has one of the more complete athletic departments in the country, starring that monster football program that has won five national titles, but with lots more. The baseball team has three College World Series appearances in the past decade. The women's gymnastics team has made six Super Six appearances in nine years, and the men's gymnastics team is even better, with eight NCAA titles.

Wrestling? Nebraska has finished in the top 10 nationally 18 times. Track and field? The men and women dominated the Big 12, taking 22 of 56 indoor and outdoor titles since 1996. Three national championships in volleyball, too.

More on college basketball
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I would say Nebraska is good at pretty much everything but basketball -- but that wouldn't be fair to the women's basketball program, which reached the Sweet 16 in 2010, a season the Huskers started by winning their first 30 games.

Nebraska basketball: 30-0. That was 2010. The women.

Nebraska basketball: 12-16. That's this season. That's every season, or seems to be, for the men.

And the point here is not to rile up Nebraska basketball fans or embarrass Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne. What is the point? Well, you're not the only one asking. When I emailed the college hoops specialists here at CBSSports.com about my plans to write on Nebraska, one replied, "Why are you writing this? No one cares. Not even Nebraska fans."

(OK, it was Jeff Goodman.)

On Twitter, a Nebraska football fan told me that local radio shows refer to the women's team as "Husker Hoops ... We have to say men's hoops if that's who we're talking about."

Nebraska is trying to do something about it. An $18.7 million practice facility opened in October for the men and woman (and wrestling program), and a new arena for games will open in 18 months, a $179 million facility in downtown Lincoln. That's nearly $200 million committed primarily to men's basketball.

What's happening at Nebraska isn't apathy, because $200 million ain't apathetic. Osborne showed that some more last week by firing coach Doc Sadler with more than $3 million still owed to him. Osborne fired Sadler because he was a lot like Barry Collier, who was a lot like Danny Nee: Just good enough to win about half the time.

And again, at the risk of repeating myself, it just doesn't make sense. Don't give me the "football school" argument. Florida was a football school with a total of eight NCAA tournament appearances in 2001, when it built a $10 million basketball facility -- and five years later the Gators won a national title. One year after that, they won another.

Don't give me geography, either, because Nebraska borders Kansas and Iowa -- and the flagship universities in those states have done just fine in basketball. Creighton also has done just fine, and Creighton is in Omaha. This isn't about Nebraska, the location.

It's about Nebraska, the plan of attack.

The plan has changed in recent years, with the practice facility now open and the arena now under construction and the popular coach owed more than $3 million now out of work. If I didn't know any better, I would say Nebraska is about to go all-in for men's basketball, but the final step is the biggest. Without it, the $200 million will be a waste of money -- gold wrapping paper over an empty box.

The final step is the coach, and this is where Nebraska historically has gone chintzy. Sadler, for example, earned $900,000 this past season. Now then, $900,000 is a lot to you and me, but it's nothing to a college basketball coach. Who would come to Nebraska for so much below big-time market value? Danny Nee from Ohio University in 1986. Barry Collier from (then-humble) Butler in 2000. Doc Sadler from UTEP in 2006.

For too long, Nebraska has shown no imagination, no gumption -- no money -- when it comes to hiring men's basketball coaches. And Nebraska has the NCAA tournament record to show for it. This time around, the school is being urged by Maryland coach Mark Turgeon (and by a state columnist) to hire former Nebraska assistant Scott Spinelli, now on Turgeon's staff.

Which would be more of the same. Nobody unproven is going to come into Nebraska and convince great high school players to do what very few great high school players have done before, and play for the Cornhuskers. It will take a very good coach, maybe even a great coach, to break through decades of mediocrity. So how is Nebraska going to convince a great coach to do what very few (if any) great coaches have done before, and coach the Cornhuskers?

By throwing money at him.

Money-whip somebody until he says yes. Somebody like Shaka Smart or Brad Stevens, assuming they would say yes (or even listen). Somebody like Scott Drew, assuming the same. But it has to be somebody with a big name, somebody recruits want to play for -- and whoever he is, that guy will be expensive.

Good thing Nebraska can afford it.

The Huskers are getting richer in the Big Ten, and the football program is printing money already. It turned a $30 million profit in 2010, and now's the time for Osborne to throw some of those millions at a big basketball name. See which one catches it.

Or Nebraska could do what Nebraska has always done, and hire the cheapest successful mid-major coach it can find. Next time the NCAA tournament comes to Nebraska, assuming he hasn't been fired already, that coach could sit next to me on press row.

[entropy]

Posted by: Brian Christopherson on March 14, 2012 at 11:13AM CST

Funny. Rick Kaczenski isn't even the new guy. That designation goes to defensive backs coach Terry Joseph, who just joined the Husker staff last week and will meet the local media for the first time after this afternoon's practice.

Kaczenski? He's old news in comparison. After all, he was hired waaaay back in December and even did whatever he could to help during Nebraska's bowl practices in Orlando.

Still, the defensive line coach and his players are still in the process of figuring one another out. To that end, Kaczenski said the first two spring practices went about as well as could be expected, and allowed players to relieve some of the anxiety and nerves.

"And it gave an opportunity to not only figure out how they work for me but also how I can work for them, and how we're working together," Kaczenski said.

The coach said the extended individual drill sessions of the early spring practices have been particularly beneficial. "Because we're not in pads, you have more time to teach the drills, to go into the details of the drills. So once you get into the pads, it's bang-bang-bang, it's quick."

A member of the Iowa staff the previous seven years, the 37-year-old Kaczenski held a lengthy session with reporters after Monday's practice.
One thing he said he wants to make sure early in these spring practices is that everyone has an understanding of the basic concepts, and not take for granted that even a veteran player knows something he maybe doesn't.

"Coach (Bo) Pelini and the defensive staff said, 'Hey, take your time. Make sure these guys know what we're asking them to do,'" Kaczenski said. "Let them know what the emphasis is on every single drill. And then also it comes down to not what we know, it's what they know. You got to kind of assume that they don't know anything going into it so whether they're a fifth-year senior or a guy going into his first spring, you got to teach them all the same."

[WM Wolverine]

University of Iowa is really close to Illinois, a hot bed of basketball talent. Nebraska is a good distance farther from the good talent in the midwest which there is a lot of. Nebraska has a better shot at that good talent though then they did a couple years ago...

Odds are stacked against Nebraska, with a lot of good to excellent basketball programs in the B10 (MSU, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin & Illinois) , the new arena will help but what is critical is this coaching hire. If they make a terrific hire, they can be a solid B10 program; like say Wisconsin and potentially build off that. Competing against established programs like those listed above is likely a losing battle unless you make a home-run hire.

[entropy]

Lincoln, Neb. - The Huskers completed their final spring practice prior to spring break Wednesday afternoon, practicing for just over two hours in full pads on the Ed and Joyanne Gass practice fields. The team and staff will take next week off before resuming spring practices on Monday, March 26.

Following the practice, Head Coach Bo Pelini met with the media to discuss his thoughts on what he'd observed in the first three practices of the spring.

"I thought we had a good first three days of practice, a good start to spring," Pelini said. "If we can continue along this path, with the tempo and attitude we've had up through the first three days, we'll get a lot done this spring."

Pelini also said the coaching staff plans on taking a much-needed break next week along with the players.

"As a staff, we really haven't had much time off," Pelini said. "Next week, I'll give the staff off. The next couple days, we'll get prepared for the practice when we get back. You know, (secondary coach) Terry Joseph will get a chance to go home and see his family, which he hasn't seen in a couple weeks."

Joseph, who joined the Husker coaching staff last week, also spoke with media members after practice, discussing the dynamic of the secondary after the change and how he had addressed that with the players.

"The great thing is they are all young people, and they adjust well," Joseph said. "What I told them me being their new coach is, I don't want them to trust me right now. I'll earn their trust."

Joseph added that his players understand that he has authority over the secondary, and that the game plan comes down from Coach Pelini through him.

"One thing I did make clear is when I came in is I'm the new secondary coach, and we're going to do it the way I want to do it. That's coming from the top down and the way Coach Pelini wants to do that. And I think they understand that, and they respect that."

The Huskers will now take a 12-day break in conjunction with the university's official spring break before returning to campus. The team will practice an additional 11 times beginning on March 26, which will culminate in the annual Red-White Spring Game on Saturday, April 14 at 1 p.m. Continue to check back to Huskers.com throughout the spring for all your spring football updates.

[entropy]

Break time (sort of)
Posted by: Steve Sipple on March 14, 2012 at 8:55PM CST

A little spring cleanup blog:

Break time!

Nebraska on Wednesday completed its third football practice of the spring. Because NU students are on spring break next week, the Huskers won't practice again until March 26.

However, senior tight end Ben Cotton noted the players have a lifting and conditioning session to go through before this coming weekend. The players will receive workout instructions to use during the break. What's more, players will be expected to study their playbooks.

"The motivation's still there," Cotton said. "You have a lot of guys fighting for positions right now, and they're going to try to find an edge while they're away from the stadium. That's a really good thing about this team. Players are going to compete when they're away from here."

A couple other housecleaning items:

-- Redshirt freshman Ryne Reeves of Crete is in the thick of the competition at center, battling behind junior Cole Pensick and sophomore walk-on Mark Pelini, among others. But Reeves may not stay at center.

"He's done well over the first couple days," Pelini said. "We're trying to figure out whether he's going to be a center or guard right now. That kind of remains to be seen how that all works out."

-- With Austin Cassidy graduated, the Huskers are looking for a new holder for field goals and PAT's. Kicker Brett Maher said he is "feeling confident" in the group getting the most reps, which includes sophomore receiver Tyler Wullenwaber (Utica), sophomore receiver Tyler Evans (Waverly) and senior cornerback Jase Dean (Bridgeport). Backup quarterbacks Tyson Broekemeier (redshirt freshman from Aurora) and Ron Kellogg III (a junior from Omaha) have also taken snaps.

[entropy]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBeIEOQEiVM&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]Husker Tribute: Mike Rozier - YouTube[/ame]

[entropy]

And the Big12 destroyed this..

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb1X5HSo1zU&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]History of Nebraska vs Oklahoma Rivalry - YouTube[/ame]