A sick kid kept me away from UNO's hockey game against Michigan Tech tonight. Sounds like I didn't miss much as the Huskies won 2-1 in overtime. Judging from the radio coverage, UNO was undone by a combination of a neutral zone trap by Michigan Tech and poor ice conditions. The trap has been an Achilles heel for the Mavs under Dean Blais, negating the speedy game that Blais prefers.
The poor ice conditions are likely the result of the Creighton basketball game played earlier in the afternoon. Creighton likes playing these afternoon games at 2 pm, which only gives MECA three hours to convert the CenturyLink Center from basketball to hockey. UNO sports information director Dave Ahlers noted with disgust during the second period that some people don't think UNO needs it's own arena.
People like me, for example. He has a point, I suppose. If you conveniently forget that UNO's arena is planned to support both basketball and hockey, just like the CenturyLink Center. And, of course, if you forget that the proposed arena couldn't handle the fans that showed up this weekend. Last night, over 8,000 were downtown and tonight, more than 9,200. Yet UNO is only planning to build a 7500 seat arena.
So UNO wants to build a too-small arena that their hockey team still has to share with a basketball team. Yep, that's a good idea. Not.
Did get to watch some of the Nebraska basketball game tonight while listening to hockey. You have to admire how hard this team plays most nights for Tim Miles. The Huskers have dealt several ranked B1G teams fits, though we have to remember that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. We knew going into this season that Nebrasketball was going to be outmanned this season. And they are.
I don't read a whole lot into this season. Doc Sadler's teams played hard too. The real test of Miles will be when he gets B1G caliber players on the court in Lincoln. And until we get that, I'm still not completely sold on Miles.
Is that harsh? Probably. But so is the reality of Nebraska trying to compete in Big Ten basketball.
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