The North Platte Lady Knights are still seeking consistency in January. Tonight they play their fifth consecutive road game of the new year as they take on the Midland University JV in Fremont. The Lady Knights are 11-7 after a win at the Colorado Christian JV on Wednesday night. They’ve alternated losses and wins in their first four games of the month, a trend they’ll hope ends tonight. ESPN Radio 1410 will have the action. Pregame coverage starts at 6:45 with the tipoff scheduled for 7 PM.

They may be banged up, but the Husker women’s basketball team keeps battling. They were rewarded on Thursday with a home victory over a ranked opponent. The Huskers topped 25th-ranked Michigan State 59-54 at the Devaney Center for their second win against a ranked team this season. Jordan Hooper sparked the Huskers with a game-high 25 points. Lindsey Moore joined Hooper in double figure scoring with 12 points. But it was Nebraska’s defensive effort that saw them through to the victory. They held the Spartans to just 32 percent shooting and kept them scoreless for a six minute stretch late in the second half. Nebraska improves to 14-6 and 4-3 in the Big Ten with the win. They’re back in action on Saturday night when they travel to Columbus to face Ohio State.

According to receiver Tim Brown, it’s no surprise that Jon Gruden’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers thrashed the Raiders 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII because Oakland was “sabotaged” by Bill Callahan, the team’s head coach at the time, who changed the game plan at the last minute.

Brown’s comments to SiriusXM NFL Radio on Saturday were reported by ProFootballTalk.com, which was provided audio of his remarks.

Brown said that when the Raiders got the game plan on the Monday before the Super Bowl, it was a run-heavy attack taking advantage of Oakland’s size advantage on the offensive line. However, Brown said Callahan scrapped the plan on Friday to the shock of the team.

“We all called it sabotage … because Callahan and Gruden were good friends. And Callahan had a big problem with the Raiders, you know, hated the Raiders. You know, only came because Gruden made him come. Literally walked off the field on us a couple of times during the season when he first got there, the first couple years.”

Brown stressed that he was expressing his opinion and had no proof that Callahan intentionally doomed his own team.

“You know, can you really say that? That can be my opinion, but I can’t say for a fact that that’s what his plan was, to sabotage the Super Bowl,” Brown said. “He hated the Raiders so much that he would sabotage the Super Bowl so his friend can win the Super Bowl. That’s hard to say, because you cant prove it.

“But the facts are what they are, that less than 36 hours before the game we changed our game plan. And we go into that game absolutely knowing that we have no shot. That the only shot we had if Tampa Bay didn’t show up,” he said.

Brown said center Barret Robbins, who disappeared from the team in the days before the game and did not play, begged Callahan not to change the game plan.

“Barret Robbins begged Coach Callahan, ‘Do not do this to me. I don’t have time to make my calls, to get my calls ready. You can’t do this to me on Friday. We haven’t practiced full speed, we can’t get this done,'” Brown said.

Brown wouldn’t correlate Robbins’ absence from the team with Callahan’s decision, however.

“I’m not saying one had anything to do with the other. All I’m saying is those are the facts of what happened Super Bowl week. So our ire wasn’t towards Barret Robbins, it was towards Bill Callahan. Because we feel as if he wouldn’t have did what he did, then Barret wouldn’t have done what he did,” Brown said.

Brown said “everybody knew Barret was unstable anyway” but the team couldn’t fathom Callahan would change plans at the last minute.

“So to put him in that situation — not that he was putting him in that situation — but for that decision to be made without consulting the players the Friday before the Super Bowl? I played 27 years of football. The coaches never changed the game plan the Friday before the game.

“I’m not trying to point fingers at anybody here, all I’m saying is those are the facts of what happened. So people look at Barret and they say all these things, but every player in that locker room will tell you, ‘You’d better talk to Bill Callahan.’ Because if not for Coach Callahan, I dont think were in that situation,” he said.

Running back Zack Crockett, who also was on that Raiders team and is now a scout for the team, said Callahan changed the game plan only because of Robbins’ disappearance.

“He may have known something we didn’t know,” Crockett told ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike in the Morning” of Brown.

Crockett said “everybody was in shock” when Robbins left the team because he made all the offensive calls. He agrees with Brown that “with the offensive line we had, it was going to be a downhill game” if the original game plan was used.

Oakland rushed the ball only 11 times in the Super Bowl loss to the Buccaneers, and two of those attempts were by quarterback Rich Gannon. Gannon attempted 44 passes in the loss.

Robbins was diagnosed as bipolar after that incident but regained his spot in the starting lineup the next season after undergoing treatment at an alcohol rehabilitation center. However, the Raiders released Robbins in 2004 after he tested positive for steroids.

In addition to stays in alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs, Robbins has had several run-ins with law enforcement.

Brown’s comments about Callahan came just days after he questioned the Bears’ hiring of coach Marc Trestman, who was the Raiders’ offensive coordinator when Brown was on the team.

“I don’t want to say it was a joke, but I just never saw Trestman as being a head coach,” Brown said last week on “The Waddle & Silvy Show” on ESPN 1000 in Chicago.

Brown had posted nine straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons with the Raiders entering 2002, the year Trestman took over as the team’s offensive coordinator. In that 2002 season, Jerry Rice emerged as the team’s leading receiver and Brown finished with 930 yards.

“The year he took over as offensive coordinator is also the year my reign with the Raiders ended because he made Jerry the No. 1 receiver instead of myself,” Brown said. “The year before I made the Pro Bowl and caught [91 passes for 1,165 yards] … and the year afterwards, the year he takes over, I think I came like 50 yards from catching 1,000 yards in 10 or 11 straight seasons.

“Hey, look, I’m not a selfish player, but come on, if I put the work in, make this happen for me. We had some interesting words about that part of it.”

Brown is one of 15 modern-era Hall of Fame finalists for the class of 2013. The Hall’s 46-member selection committee will meet in New Orleans on Feb. 2 to make its selections.

Callahan is currently the Cowboys’ offensive line coach.

The NFL reinstated New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton on Tuesday from his season-long suspension as a result of the league’s investigation into the team’s bounty program.

The league said the decision to reinstate Payton was made after a meeting between the coach and commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday in New Orleans.

“We had a very productive discussion,” Goodell said in a statement.

“Sean fully complied with all the requirements imposed on him during his suspension. More important, it is clear that Sean understands and accepts his responsibilities as a head coach and the vital role that coaches play in promoting player safety and setting an example for how the game should be played at all levels. We are committed to delivering football that fans love and the safety players deserve. Coach Payton agrees and I look forward to working with him going forward to do that.”

The NFL said Payton is allowed to attend Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala., this week and resume his duties with the team.

He’s dead and was disgraced, but that doesn’t mean that some people still don’t love legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.

Tuesday marks the first anniversary of his death from lung cancer at the age of 85 and some residents of State College, Pennsylvania plan to remember him with a vigil downtown at a mural that includes a depiction of the coach known as “Joe Pa.” Paterno’s family doesn’t plan to be there and continue to keep a low profile.

Paterno was fired in November 2011 as a result of his role in covering up the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal. However, some supporters feel that Paterno got a raw deal and he should be remembered for his 46-year tenure at Penn State, which included his focus on academics and philanthropy along with football.

The Husker men’s basketball team hopes to start a winning streak as they host Illinois tonight at the Devaney Center. Nebraska is fresh off their first Big Ten win of the season, a 68-64 road win at Penn State on Saturday. They were lifted by a career high 29 points from Shavon Shields and the return of Brandon Ubel, who scored 12 points after missing the previous two games due to injury. The Huskers are 10-9 overall and 1-5 in the Big Ten. The Illini came into conference play riding high but have struggled to a 1-4 start in the Big Ten, including a 14-point loss at Northwestern last Thursday. They have a 14-5 overall record. The Huskers split their two meetings with the Illini last season, including a 23-point win in the two teams’ first ever meeting at the Devaney Center. Tipoff tonight in Lincoln is set for 7:36.