Nebraska Basketball Blog for April 2009

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
April 29, 2009 at 1:54 p.m.

Dagunduro gets mention on FIBA.com

Just going to throw out a couple Web sites for basketball fans to check out:

? Assistant coach Walter Roese sent me this link with a nice mention of Ade Dagunduro on the international basketball site FIBA.com. Walter will likely get some mention on there this summer as he coaches the World University Games team for Brazil. He’ll take his squad over to Serbia in July.

? Another interesting site some fans may want to check out is statsheet.com. This is one of the most comprehensive sites around. While it is not an official stat site (like the NCAA or conference Web sites), whoever is updating the stats, trends and news on this site does a solid job, and I know a couple people on the basketball staff enjoy pouring through the numbers here.  

Don’t forget to follow Doc on Twitter (www.twitter.com/Coach_Sadler). He now has 45 followers as of this afternoon. If you're not following him yet, join the rest of the Tweeters out there who found out who he beat at golf yesterday.

Enjoy the rest of the week. And Go Big Red.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
April 27, 2009 at 12:06 p.m.

Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series announced for 2009-10

Seems like it may be a news-filled day today. After the academic announcements, now we've received the release for the 2009-10 Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series from the league office.

According to the release, the Cornhuskers will be in the series' first game of the year, playing at USC on Sunday, Nov. 29. For fans who are traveling to Colorado to check out the football team on the Friday after Thanksgiving, it's a quick hop from Denver to LA if you want to see the Huskers at the Galen Center. It should be a good game.

The rest of the matchups look intriguing as well. Check out the fill release from the Big 12 here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
April 27, 2009 at 11:36 a.m.

Congratulations Huskers

A quick congratulations goes out to all the Husker student-athletes who were honored last night and this morning for their outstanding records in the classroom and the community.

On Sunday evening, nearly 250 medallions were awarded for academic excellence at the Student-Athlete Academic Banquet, including four to men's basketball players Nick Krenk, Cole Salomon, Paul Velander and Andrew Wicklund.

This morning at the HERO Leadership Recognition Breakfast, awards for community service and excellence in Life Skills were given out to 30 student-athletes, including Krenk.

Congrats to all of the award winners for their outstanding achievements this year and keep up the tremendous work. Go Big Red.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
April 24, 2009 at 11:39 a.m.

Do you Tweet? The coaches do, now.

It’s been a pretty quiet week with coaches in and out, which makes it nice for me to be able to get a little work done ahead of time on some other projects.

One thing I’ve started doing is helping the coaching staff get set up on Twitter so they can get connected with you guys, the fans. I just met with Doc about an hour ago and got his page set up, so if you want to follow the staff, their Twitter pages are:

@Coach_Sadler
@Coach_Mathews
@Coach_Anwar
@Coach_Roese
@Chris_Croft_NU
@Jim_Shaw_NU
@NUhoopsblog

Right now as they get started, I’m guessing they'll only Tweet a couple times a month in the offseason, but most of them seem genuinely interested in doing it on a more regular basis during the season. Chris Croft and Jim Shaw are already into it pretty good, Tweeting at least a few times a week. And I’ll be Tweeting on the blog page as well.

Right now I’m also working on writing some stuff for next year’s media guide. I’ll try to give more of an update on some of the incoming guys next week and a few interesting tidbits as a follow up to last season.

As you can imagine, finding info on some of the international signees we’re starting to get is tough, but I had a little inside help earlier this week. Christopher Niemann stopped by my office on Monday and helped me look up (and translate) some stats and honors on his former teammate Christian Standhardinger, who has really exploded onto the scene. He averaged 22.6 points and 8.2 rebounds per game this season and was the league's November Youngster of the Month for his outstanding play.

By the way, Christopher is getting around fine, doing well in his rehab and said he is planning on staying around this summer to strengthen his knee. He’s anxious to get on the court again and play in the Big 12. For me personally, I’m excited to see him back on the practice court, because he and Brian Diaz were really going at it at the end of the regular season before the injury. They will be fun to watch as they progress next year.

The players are just wrapping up their NCAA-allowed workouts with coaches in attendance, and today is the last one before the start of school in the fall. From here on out, it’s on the players to get better. They’ll still lift with our strength coach, Rusty Ruffcorn, but otherwise, they need to pull each other together. This is a point where a lot of leadership comes into play for next season.

This time of year is also when the rest of the staff over in basketball gets a little time to work on other stuff. Chris Croft, the team’s director of operations, is working on next year’s schedule (good article he sent me here). He and Jim Shaw, video coordinator for the program, are also getting ready for summer camps. Here’s some camp information if you know any youngsters who want a fun time while learning a little bit (think they may even learn a good defensive posture and how to take a charge?).

I’ve dropped a few notes to former players overseas and hope to get them to write a few lines and help me get some stats for a blog in the next couple weeks. If you want to hear about anything else, you can always email me at nuhoopsblog@hotmail.com.

Thanks for checking in and Go Big Red.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
April 15, 2009 at 9:01 p.m.

Velander Named MVP and Banquet Tidbits

Just got back from the postseason banquet at the Lincoln Station. Quite an awesome turnout with nearly 325 people on hand for the two-hour, 15 minute banquet.

Each of the four Husker seniors were honored in some way by Coach Sadler, Athletic Director Tom Osborne and Associate A.D.'s Marc Boehm and Dennis Leblanc. It was obvious to everyone in attendance that the seniors were the core of the squad this year. Doc even got a little emotional talking about what they've meant to him personally and what they've done to set the foundation for the future at Nebraska.

Doc said that this group was made up of, "seniors who form a championship base for this program down the road." He also applauded the coaching staff, the work ethic of the whole team and thanked the administration and fans for their unending support. And he went out of his way to give thanks to the wives of the staff who make their home lives run so smoothly despite being on the road recruiting and playing so much.

One point I thought Doc made that was impressive was when he was talking about how hard the team played this year. He said that everyone noticed that and could easily see it, but he noted that it was important to remember that it was also a talented group. They had a lot of talent to be able to overcome their deficiencies to the point of winning 18 games and getting to the post-season. It's not said enough but it's true that they had to have talent to get to 8-8 in the Big 12 considering the shortcomings (no pun intended) they had to face.

On the academic end, Dennis Leblanc said the team's GPA was nearly a 3.0, which is impressive for a whole team. He handed out academic awards and said that Ade and Nick would graduate in May, Chris Balham in August, Velander in December and Harley next May, all within five years of starting college. Pretty impressive group if you ask me.

The last award of the night was the Jack Moore Award for the team MVP. Doc said that everyone on the team could have earned this award because of the effort everyone put on the floor but in the end he choose Paul as this year's recipient. Another sound choice considering what he's been through and what he gave to the program.

Overall, it was a great way to send out the seniors and end the 2008-09 season feeling good about the accomplishments earned. But there was also a bit of an air by the seniors cheering on the returning guys to do better next year and get into the NCAA Tournament. One last time pushing the team to go further.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
Date: April 15, 2009

Getting Ready for the Postseason Banquet Tonight

Well, tonight’s the final piece to the 2008-09 season as the team gets together for the postseason banquet. We’re expecting a tremendous crowd as nearly 300 Rebounders Club members, fans and family members have registered. After going to a number of events down at Lincoln Station in the Haymarket, I can tell you first-hand that the setting will be perfect as a great send off for a special group.

For anyone who can’t be there but who wants to know the scoop first, I’ve set up a Twitter page for this blog and I’ll send a message as soon as the Jack Moore Award winner (MVP) is announced, as well as if there are any other little tidbits that may be interesting during the night. If you want to be the first to know, check out the Twitter page at www.twitter.com/nuhoopsblog.  I expect to use the Twitter page on game days next winter as well, so start following it now.

Coach Sadler and the staff will be here tonight since we’re in a dead period as the spring recruiting signing period starts today. I’m not sure when we’ll have the National Letters of Intent from prospective athletes, but they can start signing as early as today.

A lot of times it’s typical for coaches in any sport to want to wait until all the signings are finished during the period. Baseball sometimes even waits until after the period is completed, like 2-3 days later.

I remember a few years ago in the fall, we didn't release our basketball recruiting class until the last day of the period because we were waiting on a player (Marcus Walker) to sign his papers. But that's the fall and that period is only one week while the spring period this year goes until May 20 -- more than a month. I'm not positive yet when we'll get them, but if we have any NLI updates, I’ll make sure to post here as soon as I can talk about it.

I got an email from someone yesterday asking for updates on a few of Nebraska’s former players still playing in the professional leagues. With Tyronn Lue (Orlando) and Mikki Moore (Boston) about to start the NBA playoffs, I think that’s a great idea so we’ll try to get something in the next week about them. And I’m going try to touch base with a few of our Huskers overseas and see what they’re up to, so check back here frequently.

Thanks for checking in and Go Big Red.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Jerry Trickie
Date: April 13, 2009

Huskers.com is Kicking Off a New Feature
Hey basketball fans, welcome to the start of the Nebraska Basketball Blog.

Since Huskers.com is already your place to come when looking for all kinds of information about NU hoops, hopefully we will add a little more spice to what you find by starting this blog. In these posts, we'll try to have some useful tidbits each week and I'm sure you'll find some timely news from the world of Nebraska basketball right here throughout the offseason and into the start of 2009-10.

But first things first. Who’s writing this blog?

Well for the most part, this blog will be written by me, Jerry Trickie. I’m an assistant media relations director for the athletic department and I handle all the media relations duties for the men’s basketball team. So, since I’m around the players and coaches nearly every day throughout the year, it’ll be my job to try to provide you some of the happenings from the team, along with information that you will hopefully find interesting.

Along with me, we may have occasional posts from other media relations staff members, and on occasion may get a few words from a coach or player. And who knows, we could even get a blog or two from our radio broadcast team as well.

My goal for this blog is for you to be able to get some insight into the program. Will it be every behind-the-scenes detail a dedicated Nebraska hoops junkie wants? No, probably not all of it. But this blog will hopefully be a place where we can shine a little spotlight on some of the things that we may normally not highlight on Huskers.com.

Later this week, for example, I’ll plan on Wednesday to write on the blog first, before it’s released to the media, about the winner of the Jack Moore Award at the year-end basketball banquet. It will be here before anywhere else. We’ll also have a normal release about the banquet on Huskers.com that night as well, and hopefully I can add a little background to the festivities right here after the fact.

And who knows? Maybe (hint, hint) we’ll even post right here first when we're ready to announce that we have a signed National Letter of Intent at the basketball office during the signing period (after compliance and coach has approved them, of course).

During the offseason we’ll try to get a post once a week. Sometimes it may be more than that, and there may be a time or two where it’s a couple weeks between posts (hey, everyone needs a vacation, right?).

But we’ll do what we can to get you some offseason hoops news as frequently as we can. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line with questions you may want to see answered or topics we can ask coaches and players about here on the blog. The address is NUhoopsblog@hotmail.com.

Make sure to bookmark this page and check back frequently. And Go Big Red.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------