2010-2011 Record: 19-13

Big 12 Conference Record (Standing) 7-9 (8^th)

Our Preseason Predictions:

Joe: 10th in the Big 12

Evan: 11th in the Big 12

Matt: 10th in the Big 12

Season MVP: Lance Jeter (Senior)

The obvious selection has to be Lance Jeter for this team, Jorge Brian Diaz got some consideration but frankly not a lot. Jeter led the team in scoring, minutes played per game and assists as well as being the team leader on the court from his point guard position. His final numbers of 11.7 points per game and 4.5 assists per game are not flashy but part of that comes from playing in the slow it down system of Doc Sadler. He may not always have been the smoothest player to watch but Jeter was a strong player especially when driving to the bucket.

Season Recap:

The Cornhuskers for the most part loaded up on creampuffs early in the season which allowed them to get some wins under their belts and get some confidence entering league play. Through eleven games in Big 12 play the Cornhuskers were sitting at 5-6 and it seemed like another lost basketball season in Lincoln, then came a win over #2 Texas. The win over the Longhorns made many Husker fans think the NCAA Tournament was a possibility, unfortunately that was looking too high. The team faltered down the stretch losing three out of their last four games in conference play before losing a heartbreaker in the Big 12 tournaments first round to Oklahoma State. They finished up the year in the NIT where the Cornhuskers put in a embarrassing last effort as a member of the Big 12 with a 76-49 loss at the hands of Wichita State.  

2011-2012 Outlook:

The Cornhuskers move to the Big 10 next year where the odds are they will finish towards the bottom of the standings in that conference there as well.

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Those that listened when Matt Patton was on Sports Talk with Richard Cross heard Matt discuss potential NCAA tournament teams from the Big 12. You probably nodded your head when he mentioned the Texas Longhorns, Kansas Jayhawks, Texas A&M Aggies and Missouri Tigers then probably paused when he brought up Nebraska Cornhuskers (unless, of course, you are frequent commenter Miguel Mejia).

But after Saturday's stunning defeat of Texas, let's take a look at the viability of the Corn entering the field of 64 65 68.

To date, the Huskers are 18-8 overall and 6-6 in conference. Their conference record lands them in a three way tie for fifth in Jeff Sagrain's third ranked conference in the country, though they have lost to both K-State and Baylor, meaning after tie breakers they are technically seventh.

Nationally the Corn are ranked by Ken Pomeroy 41st and 46^th by J-Sags. In Ken Pom's rankings, NU is listed just above purported "Bubble Teams" Michigan State, St. Mary's, Texas A&M, New Mexico, Xavier, Wichita State and Gonzaga. To boost their resume, they have two wins vs AP Top 25 teams, Texas and Texas A&M with one more to play, when they host Mizzou on March 1.

With four conference games remaining NU hosts K-State and Mizzou and travels to Iowa State and Colorado. Given that schedule, and their trend upwards, it should be assumed they will win at least two of those games and possibly three of the four.

Winning two would put them at 8-8 in conference play and give them 20 wins on the season. Assuming they finish 5 through 7 in conference standings, they would likely have a first round tournament game against one of the three conference bottom feeders, before hypothetically losing on the second day of conference tournament games. Again, this is a cautious stance, especially after they just got through giving Texas their first conference loss.

But, if the above holds, what you have is a 21-11 teams with at least two Top 25 wins. This, my friends, is the classic definition of a Bubble Team.

My gut feeling tells me that, as much as we hate to say it, NU's name doesn't hold enough water to get them in with that resume, especially if they finish lower than fifth in the conference. With a Strength of Schedule hovering around 120, the naysayers will claim their inflated win total is by playing sub par teams.

If they can finish the season 3-1, though, with one of the victories coming against Mizzou, then their RPI should catapult them into the mid-thirties, take them to 22-10 on the season and give them a hell of a lot better shot at dancing.

So sound the alarms, NU is on the Bubble. It's been a long time since they heard that simmer in Lincoln, so better prepare them for what it means.

The Doc Sadler led Nebraska Cornhuskers open their regular season on Friday night at home against the South Dakota Coyotes out of the Great West Conference. The tip time will be at 7 P.M. in the Bob Devaney Center.

The Cornhuskers were victorious in their two exhibition contests of the season versus Peru State & Bellevue, 75-43 and 82-58 respectively. The contest with South Dakota looks to have the chance of being a dangerous matchup for a team looking to build some momentum and fan support. Hopefully the Big Red fans can take a night to watch their basketball squad before the Nebraska football team takes on Kansas Saturday in Lincoln.

About Nebraska

Nebraska is coming off a disappointing season where they finished 2-14 in Big 12 play and are once again picked to finish low in the standings in their final season in the Big 12.  The Huskers return a large amount of players from last seasons squad in which the question has to be asked if that is a good or bad thing.

The Cornhuskers will be led by emerging big men Christian Standhardinger, who averaged 8.1 points & 3.8 rebounds last year, and Jorge Brian Diaz who averaged 8.8 points and 4 rebounds last season. Another large post presence,making his Nebraska debut, will be juco transfer Andre Almeida who is listed at 6'11 and 310 pounds.

On the perimeter, Lance Jeter returns for his senior campaign and will be flanked by fellow returnees Ray Gallegos, Eshaunte Jones & Brandon Richardson, all provide outside shooting ability. Two potential x-factors for how good Nebraska might be this season are the return of Toney McCray from injury and the eligibility of Oregon transfer Kamyron Brown. In McCray, you have a player coming back from elbow surgery who earned two Big 12 rookie of the week awards in his redshirt freshman season in 2008-2009. In Brown the Huskers have found a point guard who should be able to help distribute the ball as he led the Ducks in assists in both his freshman and sophomore seasons.

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Over the next few weeks, I'll be taking an in-depth look at every school in the Big XII.  I'll focus on the past (i.e. last season's strengths and weaknesses), the changes (i.e. incoming freshmen, departing seniors, new coaches), and the future.  

See past previews: Iowa State

Nebraska is a football school through and through.  They have a rich football history rife with national titles, All-Americans, and conference championships.  Unfortunately, this leaves the basketball team under-husked, under-funded, and under-appreciated.  Not quite the recipe for success.  Not surprisingly, Nebraska's basketball team has suffered for it.  It's been 60 years since the Cornhuskers have sniffed a conference title (and 94 since winning it outright) in the great sport of basketball.  To add insult to injury, Nebraska sits on one of the more exclusive lists in college athletics: the Cornhuskers (along with Northwestern and South Florida) are one of three BCS schools to never win an NCAA tournament game (although they did win the NIT in 1996).

Unfortunately, last season was a step backward from recent NIT success: the Cornhuskers struggled (to say the least) during conference play, losing all but two games (they beat a floundering Oklahoma team and Texas Tech in Lincoln).  They did play well against Baylor and Kansas State but left with two defeats.  
To make matters worse, the Huskers lost their only double digit scorer, Ryan Anderson, to graduation.  Unfortunately, the recruiting haul was slim as well; Nebraska adds three JuCo transfers.  Unless someone steps up in a big way, there's not much hope for a big improvement.  

I see the Huskers fighting for one of the bottom three spots in the conference with Oklahoma and Iowa State this season.  There may be hope on the horizon, as they just built a new practice facility that is scheduled to open in 2011-2012.  It should help woo recruits.  But by that point they'll be well on their way to the slower pastures of the Big 10.    

At the start of the season, B12H.com ran a "Five Questions For..." segment asking the five most pressing questions of each team. In our continuing review of the season, here are the answers to those questions.

Five Questions For... Nebraska basketball

1)       Last year NU was the smallest team in college basketball.  This year they brought in some size, will that help?

Let's see... a guard, Ryan Anderson, led the team in rebounding with 5.3 rpg. That placed his 23^rd in the conference in rebounding average. The Corn center, Brian Diaz, placed 36^th in rebounding at 4 rpg. So, I'd go with ‘no' on this.

2)       Will Doc Sadler's JUCO coaching experience help the three incoming JUCO transfers adjust to division 1 basketball?

Quite honestly nothing Doc did helped in any way, shape or form. Let's just put this out there... they won 2 conference games. One vs OU actually before Oklahoma spiraled out of control, and one in OT against a Texas Tech team that won 4 conference games. If you add up the combined wins by teams NU beat (8) they would have placed tied for eighth in conference under wins.

3)       Nebraska hasn't had a winning record this decade.  Will they go 10 for 10 in losing seasons?

That was the lock of the century. I should have gone to Vegas with this one. The Huskers ended up 2-14 in conference and 15-18 overall.

4)       How will the team cope with two transfers leaving Lincoln?

Poorly. I hate to be so bearish on the Huskers, but come on, they were awful.

5)       Who wins more conference games, NU football or NU basketball?

NU hoops, 2 conference wins.
NU gridiron, 6 conference wins.

Overall hoops did edge out football in total wins 15-10, although they played 19 games in order to do so.

Now that the college basketball season is officially over, we're going to take a look back at each Big 12 school to discuss their season. The rundown will go in order of conference standing. See the complete schedule after The Jump.

What Went Right: Hmmm, let's see. The Corn ended up 2-14 in conference and 15-18 overall. With numbers like those, you can say with a fair degree of certainty that not a lot went right this year for the team from Lincoln. They did topple a USC team that almost went .500 in a pitiful Pac-10. The beat Tulsa, who had previously beaten Oklahoma St. The defeated Oklahoma, back before we knew how bad Oklahoma would end up being, and defeated Mizzou in the Big 12 tournament. There... I think I just listed each notch on the 09-10 Corn belt.

What Went Wrong: Como se dice "Everything else"? I don't want to sugar coat it a bit, the Corn was BAD this year. Offensively they failed to crack 60 pts on 12 occasions.  If you are going to try and slow down the game, you need to shut down the opponents scoring also, but they held the opposition under 60 pts only twice in conference play... and both were losses.

Team MVP: Ryan Anderson was the only Husker to average double figure scoring this season, netting 11.3 ppg. He also led the squad in rebounding at 5.3 rpg.

Key Losses: Hopefully I have enough space to type in all these names. Sek Henry, Ryan Anderson, Quincy Hankins-Cole, Myles Holley, Ray Gallegos. As you can see, between graduation and transfers the Huskers are going to be hurting next year.

Outlook Next Year: If you take the best talent out of a team without much talent, you kinda are in for a world of hurt. Don't expect Nebraska to finish any higher next season than it did this one.

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In a recurring piece leading up to the start of the basketball season, we will examine the top 5 questions surrounding each Big 12 basketball team.

Today, the top 5 questions for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

1)       Last year NU was the smallest team in college basketball.  This year they brought in some size, will that help?

2)       Will Doc Sadler's JUCO coaching experience help the three incoming JUCO transfers adjust to division 1 basketball?

3)       Nebraska hasn't had a winning record this decade.  Will they go 10 for 10 in losing seasons?

4)       How will the team cope with two transfers leaving Lincoln?

5)       Who wins more conference games, NU football or NU basketball?

Check back tomorrow when we will ask Five Question For... Oklahoma basketball.
Also check out Five Questions For... Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas State

Follow Evan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MizzouHoops