6/13/2018 basketball Edit

Moos: Miles not facing NCAA Tournament-or-bust season

Athletic director Bill Moos has high expectations for Tim Miles and Nebraska basketball, but he won't define success simply by wins and losses. (Associated Press)

Robin Washut • InsideNebraska

Senior Writer

Robin has been with HuskerOnline since July of 2008, focusing on Nebraska football team coverage as well as being the No. 1 Husker men's basketball team and recruiting writer.

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When Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos and head men’s basketball coach Tim Miles agreed to a one-year contract extension back in April, major questions still hovered around the program.

Since then, however, the Huskers were able to bring back their top two players from last year in seniors James Palmer Jr. and Isaac Copeland and also replaced assistant coach Kenya Hunter with former Northwestern and (briefly) Florida assistant Armon Gates.

As a result, the tenor of the offseason has shifted dramatically over the past couple of months, to the point where expectations of what NU’s 2018-19 season could hold have skyrocketed higher than ever.

But have those standards also raised for Moos, who opted to give Miles a bare-minimum extension through April 2021 rather than a long-term deal following last year’s breakout 22-11 campaign?

“We’ve got everything in place,” Moos said. “We’ve got our players back - I know there was some question on those players (Palmer and Copeland) - and we can be back in the conversation for a second straight year. And Tim knows.

“We had a conversation about the last time he got here (in 2014-15), it didn’t stay. I’m not saying we need to win 22 games again, that’s not easy. But to be in that upper end of the Big Ten, I think that’s important to establish a tradition and some attention in recruiting.”

So the message is clear: to reward Miles with a long-term extension, there needs to be sustained success and stability within the locker room and coaching staff.

That said, Moos stressed that he had not set any hard win/loss expectation for this coming season, nor is he viewing it as an NCAA Tournament-or-bust situation for Miles.

“I don’t do that, and I don’t say you’ve got to win so many games, either,” Moos said. “If he’d have won 22 games and had a bunch of guys that were renegades and flunking out of school and all that, he’d be gone.

“All of those things are being taken care of to my liking, and we’ve just got to continue to make the scoreboard look good.”

By essentially pushing a decision on Miles’ future back a year, some questioned whether it could hinder NU’s future negotiations with the seventh-year coach should the Huskers’ reach their full potential and return to the NCAA Tournament, if not win their first ever game in the Big Dance.

As far as Moos is concerned, that would be a very good problem to have.

“I don’t think so. That was not contested in the conversation (with Miles),” Moos said. “A year ago he was working on only three (years) and attracted some players. If we’re getting that stability and consistency, then we’re going to (extend) that contract out. And he knows that’s what I need to see.”