Out With A Whimper And Not A Bang

Well it's officially College football season for me now. Nebraska's basketball season came to an in with a 82-71 defeat to New Mexico in Albuquerque tonight. The NIT is the college basketball equivalent of the Independence Bowl. It's a chance for teams who have had decent but not great seasons to go out with something for themselves to hold their heads up high about. And just like the Independence Bowl and for the very same reason the officiating in the NIT can be down right dreadful. Tonight it was flat incompetent. NCAA tournament, NIT tournament I really don't care the kids competing deserve at the very least competent officiating. What Nebraska and New Mexico got tonight were apparently three guys the NIT committee found on the street in down town Albuquerque wearing will work for foods signs. How do officials get jobs, let alone post season jobs who don't know the basic rules? These three clowns actually made the three clowns Nebraska got last year at Mississippi look good And I didn't think that was possible. Next year God forbid if the NCAA committee deams us not to be worthy of a NCAA tournament bid I would hope we tell the NIT to go fuck themselves. The Kids deserve better even in the NIT.

Now that I have said that... The good news is Nebraska played better tonight than they did Wednesday though they couldn't really play much worse could they? In fact I was proud, just as I have been all year.,at the way they kept fighting and kept competing through out the game but truth is on the road in an NIT game you need to play your best ball to get any sort of win Nebraska did not. They just didn't make key plays when they had too and their defense was shockingly sub-par tonight. Some of that no doubt was do to the 3 stooges working the game and the fact that they fucking called everything whether or not there was actually a foul there, But for a key stretch in the game the intensity wasn't there. To start the second half Nebraska played dreadful basketball and their deficit swelled from 5 to 19. After that Nebraska played the better basketball of the two teams but it was too late. The lead never got below 7. Inspite of the horrid officiating I think the team that deserved to win won. The truth is Nebraska though they played hard just didn't play well enough to get the job done.

So Nebraska finishes it's season with a record of 18-13. And I have to say as 18-13 seasons go this one was really pretty special. Nebraska was the smallest division one basketball team in America but out worked just about every team they played. And any season we beat Creighton is great season. I do believe they ran out of gas at the end of the year however. Next year they have some size coming in but they have to replace a couple of key guys. Wait till Next year is a popular refrain from Nebraska basketball fans. Whether or not Next year brings a NCAA tournament team or another team that works hard competes but just isn't quite good enough I know not but one thing I do know. I don't want anything else to do with the NIT.