I didn't see either exhibition game but so far I am pleasantly surprised by this team. I guess LA Pratt was pretty bad in the preseason but he's been good in these three warmup wins. Nice drives, a threat from three and hitting his free throws. West is a star, we knew that, but Phoenix Gill has been a pleasant find. He is a threat from the corner with the three and has some floor skills Glad he hung in there this year. Karasinski hasn't played the last two games but we will need him going forward. Gelo made some nice shots tonight. Hope he can get confident with that because we will need him to score some. Rebounding is going to be a huge challenge for this team., but the defense has been pretty good otherwise. Will be very interesting to see what they do against DePaul Friday night.,
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Gelo needs to give up on the threes and work on his Brooks/Nick short game. He was decent within about 10 feet or so on his turn around jumpers. He should keep practicing the three, but man I wouldn't have him take a shot unless it's a blowout one way or the other.
The development and emergence of Phoenix Gill has been great to see. So happy for him. He seems like a great kid!
Basically the team has three good guards and overall pretty weak inside, Gonna be a long season
One of the things that has baffled me over the last few years is Collins failure to recruit a true rebounding big man. Not a tweener like Singleton but an actual guy who is athletic and goes out an grabs rebounds and that's his thing. I am fine with the 1-3 on this team and the core of a pretty solid team is there at 1-3, however, there is nothing at 4-5 and nothing on the roster to help this year and maybe next. Heck, even BU's center on NU would be an upgrade and that's more a comment on how bad the NU bigs are right now. This has nothing to do with Ghai sitting on the bench as he is so raw I am not sure if he helps but heck, there were points last night where I was thinking that even the threat of rebounder / shot blocker on the floor would probably help.
So three games in - here is my take - this is a roster that will struggle because they do not rebound at all. They may win a game against a good team if the 1-3 positions go nuts but they will be destroyed in conference play because they are so small. The silver lining is that this team is not as bad as I thought (regardless of record) and really one or two portal additions could solve 90% of the issues with the team, which 1-3 are: 1) rebounding; 2) rebounding and 3) rebounding.
They will have to hit a lot of threes to beat good teams. Krasinski needs to be healthy for that and maybe Hodge can give us some more depth up front and we need the Englishman back, even if he isn't that good, but yes this will probably be a long year when we get to Big Ten play. On the other hand, Collins and the staff have done a good job coaching this team through the first three games after the disaster that apparently was the Iowa State exhibition (I didn't see it) .
Not that I know this to be a certainty, but I believe the answer to that is $$$$
Often the top rebounders tend to be the PFs, But they need the centers to block out and hold position so others can grab the rebounds. We have no one that can do that, And the guy we brought in to do that (McEldon) decided to go on sabatical. So all we got is Soulis and he does not yet appear to be up to the task being more of a tweener. Other than that we are 6'8" and shorter.
You can do the shorter faster lineup but they have to be more proficient at scoring and need more depth than we have right now
Any team with competent big guys (so basically every team in the Big 10) is going to give us major problems. We don’t have the size or athleticism to defend around the basket, so it’s going to be a huge and constant challenge to stop guys down low and rebound.
Depaul will be a good year if we can be competitive with a major conference team. As others have said, it looks like our best hope is to shoot the lights out and work really hard to get enough stops on defense. There is so little margin for error.
Depaul will be a good year if we can be competitive with a major conference team. As others have said, it looks like our best hope is to shoot the lights out and work really hard to get enough stops on defense. There is so little margin for error.
Iowa state smothered the guards, which is what I see happening a lot in the Big10.
Wasn't it writ somewhere on these boards recently that a decent big man costs $3-4M nowadays?
EDIT: posted this before I saw the ones below yours.
1) I'm in the ballpark with you. I think poor Jake is going to get killed in the B10. And don't get wrong: It's not his fault. If I were an opposing coach, I'd just double him all over the court and dare someone else to beat me. So far, Pratt and Karasinski would be the only concerns, and I wonder if both are streaky.
2) I agree with what everybody says about the fives. The only minor hope I want to offer the thread is that the double-team switches are starting to improve and become more synced. I don't think that's going to swing things on defense. But
On the bright side, LA Pratt has scored more points in the first three games than any other player in Northwestern history. Jake West is off to a great start as well. Hopefully Karasinski can maintain his form when he returns. I like what Gill and Ciaravino bring to the table. Center position will be by committee. Let’s pack the house on Friday and make it to 4-0.
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+1 for getting Gello'sname spelled correctly.
-1 for Karasinski. As a fellow Polack I feel obliged to stick up for Jack, especially since I had an uncle named Jack (which was short for Francis, a forerunner of reverse Polish notation).
After watching some other BIG teams on TV tonight, we'd better enjoy a few wins now because the conference season will be ugly. Singleton and Paige would have made this team more competitive, for sure, but boy, some of these teams ae loaded.
I watched Illinois tonight and they’re stacked. Mirkovich is their best player and he’s out with a broken foot and they were missing another starter so they had to play almost exclusively freshmen and still almost won on the road at #16 Texas Tech. (Side note, it’s interesting, in the age of transfer portal Undie only took one transfer this year. Most their additions were high schoolers, with most of them not being very highly ranked. But he did a good job with the eval because those kids looked good last night).
MSU beat a top 10 Duke team. Izzo still has it. They’re really really good.
It might get ugly, but I'm hoping CCC goes ahead and just throws him in the deep end this year and take his lumps so that he will be ready next year.
One thing that Collins said in the last post-game presser is that he didn't play Ghai because the other team went "small ball". Not sure I fully understand or agree with that strategy. In the past, I don't remember Big Ten opponents not playing their big men just because we went out there with a "small ball" lineup - on the contrary, they would use that as an opportunity to punish us by abusing our lack of height with their big men. So why can't we do the same on the rare occasion when we have a size advantage? It would seem to be especially good to get Ghai some minutes/experience/confidence when he is the tallest man on the court. Anybody have an explanation on this for me?
In this case, I think it would do Ghai a disservice to get abused on the defensive end by smaller quicker guys that he can't guard. I think it would be a different scenario if you're talking about a 5th-year Matt Nicholson, who can dominate offensively and has enough awareness on defense to be able to handle a smaller quicker guy effectively, even if he can't fully keep up. Just my opinion though, not sure why CCC has gone with his approach.
I wonder if Ghai goes up against Federiko during practice, and that gives CC enough data he needs to assess if Symon can handle a small ball 5 at this point. Also, I'm intuiting that Ghai's pivot game is still emerging, and that he's not dominant there enough to compensate for the fact that he'd get outrun on defense by a small ball 5. Or put it this way, if he already was a finished product offensively, he'd be at another program.
I would disagree. I actually have issues with Collins' recruiting lately but in reality its more the product of Singleton leaving. I see the vision for the next 2 years of Jake West and I think that the issues can be quickly fixed through the portal as long as the core players stay.
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