LINCOLN — Doc Sadler is squarely in the hunt for this year's "Man, I wish I hadn't said that" award.

Three weeks ago, after Nebraska needed a basket with 10 seconds left to beat Division I nobody Florida Gulf Coast by one point at home, I asked the Huskers' sixth-year coach about his team's readiness for Big Ten play.

"Come the 27th of December, we will be ready. I promise you," Sadler said. "Our guys are too good and have practiced too hard.

"They will be ready to play the best game they have all year."

Gulp.

The 27th of December was Tuesday, a date which could come to live in infamy for Sadler.

Nebraska's 64-40 home loss that night to No. 11 Wisconsin, according to the emails and phone calls I've received since, has become the jumping-off point for some of NU's most die-hard fans.

Longtime friends and acquaintances who have been going to games since the 1970s said that blowout pushed them so far over the edge that they can't come back. And they are telling their friends not to attend anymore, either.

One particularly ardent fan — as eternally optimistic a Husker basketball backer as I've ever met — called from his car to say he was on his way out to eat wearing a Creighton shirt.

It's no secret that some high-profile former players also are growing queasy.

They scratch their heads at the offensive dysfunction. They question the defensive stubbornness. They wonder why Florida Gulf Coast and Central Michigan are more athletic than Nebraska.

Yes, they acknowledge this team has dealt with injuries. But they are adamant that a sixth-year program has had plenty of time to recruit well enough to endure such episodes.

Another cold slap in the face: Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan has told Big Ten friends that he likes his team but that it is one of the lesser-talented groups in his 11 years. Yet the Badgers dismantled 8-4 Nebraska.

For folks to climb off the bus after one conference game seems rash. So let's check some trend lines that might predict reasons to believe or leave:

• Number of wins against teams with winning records. Out of eight, Nebraska has two (11-4 South Dakota State, 8-4 TCU).

• Home losses. Nebraska already has three, and will be an underdog Saturday at the Devaney Center against No. 16 Michigan State. The last time NU lost four home games before New Year's Day? Never.

• The Big Ten statistical rankings. The league tracks 16 major categories. Nebraska is ranked in the top half of the league in two: free-throw shooting (first) and defensive rebounding (third).

That's the worst showing in the Big Ten. Also, the Huskers are 10th, 11th or 12th in eight categories.

Sadler said Thursday he's not dwelling on the Wisconsin loss, but noted that the injury situation — No. 2 scorer Jorge Brian Diaz and No. 4 scorer Dylan Talley have missed the past three games each — has stifled his offense and hamstrung him in making changes.

"In postgame, somebody asked about my substitutions," Sadler said. "What's my options? I tried to get some guys rest early in the game when it was close, and things didn't happen."

Whatever happens this season will occur in the growing shadow of the $179 million Pinnacle Bank Arena, now under construction in downtown Lincoln.

Hang around the athletic department long enough and you'll hear somebody utter the words "momentum into the new arena," which opens for the 2013-14 season.

That means the pressure already is on to sell the 36 suites, the 20 loge boxes, the 900 club seats and as many season tickets as possible in the approximately 15,000-seat building, which has about 1,500 more seats than the Devaney Center.

Yet momentum doesn't build off a 24-point home loss, the worst in Sadler's six years at Nebraska.

It doesn't build off scoring 40 points, the fewest at home since posting 39 in a pre-shot clock-era game in 1984 under Moe Iba.

And it definitely doesn't build if the hardcore loyalists stop caring, which has to be Nebraska and Sadler's biggest fear of all.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com

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