Can The Crown Be a Launching Point for Nebrasketball?

On Tuesday's episode of HuskerMax Today, Kaleb Henry and Nick Handley discussed Nebraska men's basketball's trip to Las Vegas for the College Basketball Crown, including if this even can be a launching point for the program going into next season.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation

Kaleb: There's still something to play for, like you were saying. What kind of a launching point can this be? I know there's a lot of guys are leaving. Nebraska's got seven guys who walked on senior day, and Fred Hoiberg has said there's at least seven guys that won't be back next year.

Two right up front are Juwan Gary and Brice Williams. Those are your dudes. Brice had 30 points. But Connor Essegian had 17 points in the second half. You got a lot of minutes from Cale Jacobson. Is he going to take a next step?

And you wonder where Sam Hoiberg was. He kind of got turnover prone throughout this year in a way he maybe hadn't been because he was getting a lot more starts. He was getting more minutes. But is Sam able to take that next step?

Nebraska guard Brice Williams shoots a free throw against Arizona State in the first round of the College Basketball Crown. — Nebraska guard Brice Williams shoots a free throw against Arizona State in the first round of the College Basketball Crown at MGM Grand Garden Arena. | Nebraska Athletics

You went really small ball because... Arizona state is playing with like seven guys. So you barely got minutes from Morgan and Meah and Berke in the second half. And if Berke comes back, that's a guy you want to see take another step. Where can that step be going into next year? How can you get a launching point out of this week in Las Vegas?

Nick: The short answer that I have right now, and it's not going to be earth-shattering at all, is I really don't know. I don't know if there really is a huge jumping-off point when it comes to this. I think the impact of this, in my opinion, is going to be more what it can, first of all, provide financially, if you can make it all the way to the end and get that payout.

But also, this is where I don't like the format and I just wish that there was a page taken out of what football does when it comes to all of those little things of supporting the young players and the freshmen, being able to have freshmen eligible for bowl games where it doesn't impact their eligibility.

Braden Frager (red) sends a lay-up. | Amarillo Mullen

I would have loved to have seen a guy like Nick Janowski. I would have loved to have seen a Braden Frager. I'd love to see those guys be able to have some type of contributions in actual game minutes. Now, are they practicing? Sure. But just in preparation for these games, are they getting game reps.

Where I think if you're not going to be in an NCAA tournament setting, but you're still playing in the postseason, what you just laid out there, Kaleb, is the future. The guys that won't be here and the guys that will be here that were actually playing in the game. Well, what about the guys that are on that roster that you hope at some point, because this coaching staff was able to recruit at a good clip, that those guys could start getting some of those game reps. That's what I think these types of tournaments that don't really have any type of banners that you can hang, or even if you do hang, nobody's going to be intimidated walking in and saying, "oh, you were the College Basketball Crown champion."

I think what it can impact is those young players getting those valuable game reps, going through the preparation, going through the scouting report, going through warm-ups, and then actually coming off the bench and playing and having to uphold that scouting report. Those things, to me ,I think are valuable any moment or any opportunity that you can give these freshmen. But I understand why you don't because you're trying to preserve redshirts and everything that comes with that. So that part of it is kind of disappointing. I do wish basketball could get on a similar page as football when it does come to that.

Sam Hoiberg (back) and Ahron Ulis (front) lead the team out of the tunnel prior to their scrimmage. | Amarillo Mullen

Kaleb: If you go that same route because, first of all, football, anything postseason, anything after the conference championships, does not count towards your redshirt. Think about some of the guys, that if you were for Notre Dame this last year, you could have played eight games total and preserved your redshirt. Four during the regular season, four in the college football playoff.

Because you get the four in the regular season, that's a third of the season. If basketball were to do this exact same model, it would be 10 regular season games and then anything after the conference tournament. What's wrong with that? I don't think there'd be anything wrong with that at all.

Nick: I think that that would be easy to execute. There is that extra motivation when you're getting up for these types of tournaments. If you're a coaching staff and you want to see what some of these young guys can do and you want to see what they can do and a quick turnaround, a tournament setting, because now all of a sudden you've got a Monday game and then Nebraska will turn around and play on Wednesday. Okay, that's a tournament setting type.

Braden Frager celebrates a Red three pointer. | Amarillo Mullen

You get to see how those young players play. They get some game minutes, but then they recover, they respond, and then they have to play in the next game too. So I think those opportunities that you can give those young players that haven't had that otherwise this season gives you a little bit of a gauge of what you can expect.

You're also trying to figure out the roster of the guys that you just talked about there, Kaleb, of what Nebraska's going to have to replace. You're looking at do you need to recruit over some of those freshmen? When it comes to the transfer portal, because that's going on right now.

All right, well, let's look in the transfer portal. Do we like what we have in Janowski? Well, have we seen enough of him? Do we need to recruit over him or are we good with him? What about some of the other guys that didn't get a lot of minutes or none at all? Do we need to recruit over them or do we feel good about what we have? That entire evaluation is going to be, could we get them into some games without impacting their redshirt or their eligibility for that season? I think there are ways that you can improve the overall postseason when it does come to the young players.

You can watch that conversation below.

And watch the full episode, including discussion on Nebraska baseball and football, below.

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