Before I rattle off today's hoops news, I realize that we have not been properly introduced. My name is Josh Pluta, aka huskerlibrarian, and I will be covering Basketball here on Corn Nation starting this season. I'm an Omaha native, and I have two degrees from the University of Nebraska (BA '02, JD '07). I've been following pretty much all Husker athletics for as long as I can remember, and I've been a student of college basketball (and basketball in general) since high school). In addition to covering hoops, I also will be continuing the "Corn Kernels" column each week during the seasons, covering the various lower-profile Husker teams.
Anyway, we now continue with today's hoops report...
- Coach Sadler added another big forward to the 2009 recruiting class when Brandon Ubel, a 6-9, 220 lb. forward from Overland Park, KS, committed today. There's not a lot on Ubel -- he hasn't been evaluated by any of the major recruiting services yet -- but he's from a championship high school team, and says that he averaged about 20 points and 8 rebounds a game for his AAU team. A big reason he chose NU? Brandon's sister Kayla throws discus for Husker Track & Field.
- Marquette will be coming to Lincoln on or around November 1 for a closed scrimmage, replacing one of Nebraska's exhibition games. The NCAA rules on scrimmages prevent members of the public from attending the game, and scores & stats from being released.
- Some scheduling tidbits: there's still one home game left to fill for this fall's schedule, and it looks like there is an effort to get a BCS-conference opponent for a home-and-home. Also good scheduling news is that it sounds like Minnesota is open to a 4-year series starting in 2009.
- Eshaunte "Bear" Jones, the late get, 6-4 guard who replaced the once-again-departed Roburt Sallie in the 2008 class, has cleared the NCAA Clearinghouse. No word on 6-10 German Christopher Niemann -- Niemann played on a German club team that paid some of its other players; 2 of his teammates lost a year of eligibility last season.
- In a side note, Teeng Akol, the 6-10 would-be 2008 freshman who cancelled his visit to Nebraska last week, committed to Oklahoma State on Monday.
Fall practice starts October 17. A full season preview will begin in mid-October.