Tipoff: 5:30 pm CST

Location: Mackey Arena - West Lafayette, IN

Television: Big Ten Network

Live Stats and Internet Radio: Huskers.com

Radio: IMG Husker Sports Network | KLIN 1400 in Lincoln - KFAB 1110 in Omaha - KRVN 880 in Lexington

Play by play - Kent Pavelka Color - Matt Davison

I'm still shaking my head, for two reasons.

1. I picked one of the worst possible games this season to miss. I was even in Omaha, with my brother in law...but we decided to take our wives out for dinner. The dinner was crap, and I had to miss what I can only imagine was pure delight- seeing Nebraska lay down the wood..and do whatever they wanted against Myers Leonard and the "Fighting" Illini.

2. Doc Sadler, after essentially falling off the cliff, he has still managed to cling on for dear life by a pinky finger. Summer 2012 will probably still be spent searching for Nebraska's next basketball coach, but the win over Illinois certainly throws one of the strangest kinks into a quite bizarre season for Doc.

Purdue is up next, and I was able to get a brief exchange going with Travis over at Hammer and Rails. Read after the jump, and follow the link for my answers to his questions on the Big Ten, and Nebraska's game tonight.

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Steven M. Sipple of the Lincoln Journal-Star got an interview with Bo Pelini on recruiting. One of the more interesting idea was bringing in outside research professionals to evaluate his staff. I personally had never heard of that, and it sounds like a good idea in theory. Of course, sometimes these "market research" people come back with wrong conclusions ("Legends and Leaders", "Heroes Game", etc.) due to faulty, incomplete research. This might be different because I can't believe that Bo wants a whitewashed truth, but rather an honest evaluation. It doesn't do Pelini any good to be told that his staff is doing well when they are not. The end results will speak for themselves in the end, and there's no hiding from it.

What I found refreshing is how Pelini wants to evaluate "toughness" in recruits. One of the things Pelini hopes to learn is how to better talk to potential recruits and evaluate the mental character of each potential player. Things like that seem to never be brought up when recruits are being evaluated in the public eye. But deep down, if you listen, you can get a good idea of the mental makeup of a player. I remember listening to some interviews with Harrison Beck back in 2004 when he committed to Nebraska. Recruitniks were celebrating his verbal, while I was dismayed with what I was hearing him say. I saw immaturity then...and then we all saw it during his brief Nebraska career.

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In a Sunday morning interview with WCCO-830 AM radio in Minneapolis, Minnesota hockey head coach Don Lucia discussed the viability of Husker Hockey transitioning from a club sport to a division 1 sport in the Big Ten conference.

You know what, there's been some talk [about Nebraska adding hockey]. Personally, I think it'd be a natural. I think that when you look at how well the junior team has done there (they draw over 4,000 fans a game) I think its a sport that they could add to make money on. And that's gonna be the big thing with hockey, you're gonna have to add a women's sport and a men's sport...but that's an area I think that they have the facility that they could draw. I mean, look what they draw for their women's volleyball team and football and basketball and everything else -- they have very passionate fans there. I think it'd be a natural, and they are within the footprint of junior hockey down there, and I think they could really make it a go...

Husker hockey has been rumored and discussed for years. Back in 2006, I thought there were two hurdles that needed to be cleared before Nebraska could add a hockey program: a facility and Title IX. Fast forward to today, and there seem to be solutions to both hurdles...but does that make a hockey program likely in Lincoln?

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We couldn't help but notice a consistent theme lately to Nebraska's offseason storyline recently. Many Taylor Martinez stories are being written and by our way of thinking way too many to have all been done by humans.

"Ha, so you noticed!"

So said good friend Martin Lennon, the Director of Infinite Monkey Excrement at the Infinite Monkey Foundation.

"They sense a theme and they run with it. I know it looks like they get stuck in a rut, but they're just running through different permutations of the same thing."

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The Big Ten didn't do so well in the opening weekend, going a combined 15-18.

Four teams ended up with winning weekends.

All the Big Ten teams but Nebraska competed in the Big Ten/Big East Challenge in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's a whole gob of baseball in one spot between mostly cold-weather teams.

I've already stated the BT/BE Challenge needs to die and be replaced by something such as a Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge as the B1G has already cuddled up with those mostly West Coastie dudes. The B1G would probably get mashed in baseball, but if they want to be big boys, they need to play the big boys.

The Challenge ended up in a 15-15 tie.

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Returning: Andrew Green, Jr. (starter), Ciante Evans, Jr.; Stanley Jean-Baptiste, Jr.; Josh Mitchell, So.; Dijon Washington, So.; Antonio Bell, Sr.; Jase Dean, Sr., Corey Cooper, So.

Incoming: Mohamaed Seisay (enrolled for Spring semester)

Alfonzo Dennard is off the the NFL, leaving Nebraska with huge question marks at cornerback. This will be a position to keep an eye on this spring, along with the safeties. After the jump, the CN team looks at cornerbacks.

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Time: 1:00 p.m. CT

Location: Peoria Sports Complex, Peoria, Arizona

Television: None

Web Streaming: None

Radio: Husker Sports Network (Greg Sharpe and Lane Grindle)

Live Stats and Internet Radio: huskers.com

Last night things were going pretty well as the Huskers took a 8-5 lead into the ninth inning. Nebraska brought in Tyler Niederklein to close out the game, but unfortunately he ended up giving up five earned runs, five hits, and a walk in only a third of an inning.

Baseball is such a cruel game.

Time: 8:00 p.m. CT

Location: Peoria Sports Complex, Peoria, Arizona

Television: None

Web Streaming: None

Radio: Husker Sports Network (Greg Sharpe and Lane Grindle)

Live Stats and Internet Radio: huskers.com