Sunday, March 12, 2006

Awaiting the Barry Collier Announcement

In this morning's Omaha World-Herald, Steve Pederson said that he plans to sit down with Barry Collier and then make an announcement to talk about the "future of the program". Does that quote sound familiar?

Tom Shatel commented on several possiblities for Barry Collier, and I think the following is the most realistic: "Pederson is going to make a change, but he's going to do it deliberately. Pederson is still smarting from the roasting he took after firing Frank Solich in 2003. Remember, there were as many critics of how Pederson fired Solich as the fact that he was fired."

In any event, Pederson did say that this would all happen before the NIT game, which is scheduled for Thursday night at Hofstra. What do I think will happen? I still believe Collier won't be back as Nebraska's coach next season. Whether that's the right thing or not, I don't know. I see arguments on both sides. But almost every sign I see points to "gone". I expect the press conference either tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday. I don't think they'll delay it too much closer to game time Thursday. I think it's all a done deal at this point, and here's hoping that it goes much smoother than the Solich dismissal.

The NIT Brackets are now out, and it's interesting that they put Nebraska and Creighton into separate brackets, so they couldn't meet until the semi-finals in New York. Creighton's game is scheduled for Friday night, but the Qwest Center is booked with Arena Cross. So will Creighton lose their home game, or will they get bumped to the Civic?

By the way, how close to the NCAA tournament was Creighton? Hint: They only managed a #2 seed in the NIT...

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