[Husker] requiem for Collier

[dryter at inebraska.com]

I was shocked to see the KSU victory over the Huskers in the LJS this morning,
and I wasn't.  I was shocked that TAMU beat up on the Huskers and I wasn't.  I
was shocked that TT beat the Huskers and I wasn't.

Turns out that every team in the B12 has some decent players and can come to
play on any given night.  I agree with Skylar Dodds that there have been some
apparent lapses by Collier such as giving the ball to Marcus Walker.  Or
perhaps that was a calculated risk that went wrong, after all, Walker can put
points on the board.

I didn't have any idea or expectations of how the BBall team would do this year,
but watching them it looked as if they had some potential and I sure hoped that
they would work some magic.  But as the season went on, it became apparent that
high expectations were not warranted.  At least three games (KSU, TAMU, TT) were
lost or the loss sealed due to turnovers down the stretch.  These are errors
that can be corrected.  I thought the effort was good after McCray left, and if
the coach/player relationship wasn't good that would be a different story.

Being as how I live and work in Nebraska and a significant portion of my income
goes to taxes, my vote for the tiny fraction of that revenue that supports the
basketball coach is to keep Collier.  I'm not going to try to defend him or
anything, I just think he should be given more time.  I don't want another
search, they're expensive as would be a new coach with any kind of recruiting
connections.  Collier took a couple years just to figure out the Creighton-NU
tradition.

I know that we are entitled to greatness by virtue of our um, well, anyway, we
are.  But until this state can at least put together a decent legislative
session that comes up with something more useful than an ill-advised reservoir,
or the City of Lincoln can design just one decent traffic pattern, we probably
should hold off on expecting high levels of excellence on the basketball court.

Derek