Letter from Doc Sadler

It has been an eventful first month of conference play in the Big Ten, and we are coming off one of our best efforts of the season at Iowa last Thursday night.   We fell behind early, but showed a lot in battling back for a big road win. When we were struggling offensively, we were getting some stops and were able to get rebounds and that led to some easy baskets at the other end. The other thing I thought we did a great job of in the second half was being aggressive, especially in getting to the free throw line.

Brandon Richardson had an outstanding game with 25 points on 9-of-10 shooting and was named Big Ten Player of the Week and we were proud of his effort. He is going to be able to tell his family one day that he was the first Husker basketball player to earn Big Ten Player of the Week. Brandon is one of our best shooters and has the ability to score for us, but we need to keep him being aggressive. He may be the only player who I have to tell to shoot the ball more than he does.  But as we saw at Iowa, when Brandon is playing well, it is usually a good sign that our team is playing well.

It has been a challenging Big Ten schedule and there is a reason it's the top-ranked conference in the country. Ten of the 12 teams are in the top 100 of the RPI, including eight in the top 50, as we start February. The one thing you know is that every night is going to be a battle, no matter who you are facing. In talking with people around the league, they say this is as good as the Big Ten has been in a long time.

While you can't control things like injuries or if your shots are falling, the things you are in control of are your effort, enthusiasm and attitude, whether it is in practice or games. Even when we were struggling and battling injuries with Jorge and Dylan, our players gave great effort and a lot of the credit goes to our seniors, as Toney, Caleb, Bo and Brandon have brought a great attitude to the court.

Another overlooked part is the job our scout team guys have done in practice. Although they aren't seeing as much playing time as they would like, the role they play in helping us prepare is vitally important. We are seeing the strides our freshmen are making going against our starters every day and they push them to play at a high level.  Since we have had our regular rotation back six games ago, we have had opportunities in almost every game, as two of our three losses went down to the final minute.

With five of our last nine games on the road, our remaining home games take on even more importance as we enter February. After Thursday's game at Northwestern, we return to the Devaney Center to take on Minnesota (Feb. 5, Noon) and Michigan (Feb. 9, 7:30 p.m.). We also have Illinois at home on Saturday, Feb. 18, and close our home schedule with Senior Night against Iowa on Feb. 29.

We know that in order to have success the rest of the way, we have to protect our home court. You are a big key to our success at home, and we thank you again for your support and look forward to seeing you at the Devaney Center.

Go Big Red!
Doc