NU Big 3 Men’s Sports Actually Worst Year Since WWII

An updated formula made for better context and worse results

"This again?"

Yes, but it got slightly worse.

Some pointed out the flawed methodology in Monday's story. Maybe we need to start signing our names when using the HuskerMax account so I can credit the idea to one of my colleagues.

As my unnamed HuskerMax counterpart says, the original formula allowed baseball to weigh too heavily in the formula. Baseball has more games than baseball and football combined, so each win and loss gave a disproportionate percentage to the total.

This time, we looked at the average of the win percentages.

(Football win% + Basketball win% + Baseball win%) / 3 = Year win%

This didn't make things better for Dear Old Nebraska U.

The 2019-20 year would make the list at .367 but the baseball season was cut short due to COVID-19.

The big three Nebraska men's sports finished with an average win percentage of .332. Not good, but not the worst year ever!

The honor goes to 1941-42 with an average win percentage of .325.

Compared to the non-weighted results, the top (bottom?) four remained the same, but in a shuffled order.

You have to get to No. 5 on the list, the 1951-52 year, before finding a sport that did finish above .500. That was the 1952 baseball team going 13-7.

In 1930-31, two sports actually finished at or above .500. Football went 4-3-2 while basketball split at 9-9. Baseball, though, managed just two wins in 12 games.

The COVID-19 impacted 2019-20 year ended up at .367 but is left off the list due to baseball not finishing its season.

As I stated at the end of the first run-through: Next year should be better; it can't get much worse.

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