Aleks Maric, a young Luc Longly.
 

At best. I was at the A&M game, and it was the first time I had seen him in person. He sucks. That's all everyone I was with could talk about all night. He's legitimately bad at basketball. No points in the first half? Four(and I only counted three) rebounds? He had fewer rebounds than a guy listed at 5' 9" for Christ's sake.

The worst part was watching him commit moody fouls and hang on the rim after dunks. And he looked like a malcontent jogging up and down the court and just didn't care for 3/4 of the game. Great guy to have carry a team.

Sure, he showed up and hung 41 in the next game. And there are all kinds of excuses to be made for him (everyone is else is short and/or awful, no one can get him the ball, etc.) but even on an off game he should rebound, right?

I understand why Doc had to get him to come back, but there is no way this guy is playing in the NBA.
 

He is a stiff with a nice touch. He would have had 45-50 last night if he hit free throws...K-State played 6-6 guys on him and refused to double team. It was kind of funny to see the looks on their faces--helpless.

He should be averaging 10 rebounds per...but he's not. I agree that he really isn't motivated and definitely disappears for entire games. Absolutely the only go-to option the Huskers have and watching a coach actually run plays for him is a nice change. Barry Collier is the worst coach in college basketball history.

He better brush up on his Greek for his pro career, but I think that his college career has been serviceable, no NBA potential, however.
 

i am not completely sure who anonymous is but it sounds eerily like Pete....anyway i couldn't disagree with you more. Is he first round NBA material, probably not but this guy is a beast and deserves far more credit than you are giving him. I seriously doubt he even thinks about coming out this year but he will get a chance in the NBA.

First of all the kid has an extremely bad hip injury and can barely walk the day after a game. Which is largely to explain why he doesn't just dunk the damn ball as much as i would like him to, but the guy is as strong of a 6'11 player as you will hardly ever see at the college level.

As to your comments about the aTm game...why do you think that many teams have been able to shut him down at times this year? Have you noticed the double and triple teams??? Ask Huggins, in the first matchup he ran as many defenders as possible at him everytime the guy touched the ball. But old Huggie Bear got completely outcoached last night. Doc's 4-out (4-hi) was the perfect adjustment to Huggins wing denial defensive approach, it took away the double team. If they played behind Maric used his strength to get to the low block, if they tried to front he pushed them up the lane far enough to open the hi-lo pass from the top. All of this was doable because of the size, strength, and footwork ability of Maric.

This wasn't possible against aTm because they are as good in the post as any team in the country, Jones and the Croatian provide 2 bodies nearly as big as the Aussie. There is a reason that aTm is as good as they are and that's because they are a matchup nightmare with the 2 big men.

As for your rebounding comments...he is avg 8 a game which is extemely solid considering they guy can't leave the floor.

Finally i am just going to guess you don't follow husker hoops much considering you questioned how much he cares...that's so laughable that it hardly warrants a response.

Please feel free to never come back to the Bob again and watch how much he "sucks," i am sure he will just "carry them" to another loss. When Doc turns this thing around next year i hope you aren't one of the bandwagoner's that gets tickets to watch them play in the Dance at the Qwest.

Give me a break...On the other hand i am sure Creighton fans would gladly accept you into their building, that fan base is built on bandwagoners and people who know nothing about the game of basketball but love to drink beers and be seen at a trendy venue.

I could go on and on, but i am to pissed to type anything else. Thanks to the big Aussie for the second best single game Husker hoops performance in history.
 

Pete i apologize for thinking you made that anonymous post. You may be right about him being an overseas pro in the end....but i am pretty confident this guy will have a chance to make an NBA roster in 2 years.
 

Er, actually, this is Jeff's brother Adam. Well, I'm still reeling a bit from hearing I sound like Jeff, but I feel like I should respond. I didn't mean to trash the guy and I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm not a diehard Husker basketball fan (though I've taken an interest this year because I love Doc) so apologies for saying the guy 'sucked'. You're right about how teams flock to him and how there's no one else to take off some of the pressure.
All true.

Still, it's pretty easy to tell when a guy is phoning it in and Marik does it about half the time. There is a difference between acting frustrated and caring.

Even when he's scoring he doesn't seem aggressive on the boards, sets lackadaisical picks, and is not a passer. Look, I know he's the best player on the team, but I'm just saying watching that A&M game was an eye opener in terms of him ever playing in the pros for me. He wouldn't have gotten drafted last year, might be a second round pick (if anything) this year, and by the end of his senior season would be a 24-year-old rookie in the NBA.

Again, I understand you probably know way more about this than I do, but I'm just telling you what I think. He's got size, but what kind of stat line could he possibly put up playing against dudes that are just as big and way more athletic in the NBA? Per 40: 8 points, 6 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 block? That's a street free agent. And I think that's being generous.
 

TJ--What injury? This guy has been lazy for three years. He never gets back on D, in fact he sucks at D period. He's awful. He doesn't care about it at all and is too slow to do anything. He should be getting at least 2 BPG and he's right around 1. Also, most games he gets doubled but only averages .7 assists per? WTF? I know his teammates are garbage but that's ridiculous...His assist to turnover ratio is .25, nuff said.

The league is already full of 6-11 foreign guys that suck at D, but the difference is Maric can't shoot from outside of 15 as well as they can.

Also, I think you unfairly attacked Anonymous just for saying Maric sucks. The guy is not THAT good that one reasonably couldn't think that he was awful. W Kentucky, Kansas, The first K State game, A&M, etc were ridiculous. And if you were trying to recruit people to Nebrasketball, ripping them for not liking a prototypical, prodding white guy is not the best way.

My final thoughts are that he's our best option, has some touch, is lazy, and will not play in the league. I've already thought about Maric way more today than I had planned. Looking forward to your response.
 

Nevermind, if Anonymous is my brother then continue to rip his ass because he never goes to games. I can assure you with reasonable certainty, however, that he will not jump on any bandwagon next year.
 

It's true. I only jump on bandwagons that involve Dan Marino or anemic Indie rockers. Preferably both.

Anyway, last word on Maric (whose name I misspelled above, completely invalidating anything I have to say on the subject) is that guys who make it in the NBA seem to either:
A) Have more talent than everyone
B) Try harder than everyone
C) Fill a niche role off the bench
D) Have one specific skill that translates (scoring, D, whatever)

Does Maric fit any of those profiles? He seems like a classic college player who looks good on a bad team to me.
 

First of all, it appears after reading my response it may have come off a little harsh...

Let me try to calmly state my case here....first of all to answer Pete's question, Maric has a pretty severe hip injury that basically inhibits him from practicing much at all. At first report around Xmas time (you may remember that he sat out 1 game and barely played any min. in a couple other games around that time) it was a hip flexor. I've also heard reports that he has a cracked bone in the hip socket...to be honest i really don't know the exact problem, but i do know that Doc has mentioned he is VERY limited in practice. A grad asst. coach told me he only does about 1/2 the drills that the rest of the team does and that the guy spends a ton of time daily in the training room. He is not near as mobile as he was last year. Hopefully he doesn't play on the Australian national team all summer again this year and can get it healed.

As you may know he "tested" the draft waters last year and i can tell you that the report he got back from the NBA told him he was a late 1st round to early 2nd round pick this year. Who knows what he will be projected next year but i will be shocked if at the very least he doesn't sign a free agent contract.

I am not sure that he will be 1st team all bix xii this year but he will be close. I just think the guy is a ton better than you give him credit for. The one thing i will give you, is that he is not much of a passer and he does turn it over far to often (most of his are due to double teams, seems like guards doubling down pick him way to much).

Finally, I still can't believe you guys are calling him lazy...slow? definately, but lazy???? Find me one other big man his size in the country that plays the minutes he does. I would be surprised to hear a coach on the staff agree with you that he is lazy.
 

for the record i was wrong on a previous statement, the NBA draft people told him he would be a mid to late 2nd round pick...
 

AdRock! Welcome to the blog!

Dan Marino sucks, by the way.