Dererk Pardon is the MVP. He has really played well. Mac has been on fire, but Dererk plays with energy and made some tough shots inside when NU was climbing back from behind. Like his game tonight.
If NU Wins....
- Thread starter NJCat83588
- Start date
Man, talk about baptism by fire. He's gonna go into the B1G with just one game under his belt. I take back what I said in Turk's thread about 5th year big. He's not your typical redshirt. I'm not sure we should have been redshirting him anyways. Even with heathy Olah and JvZ, he can help us. Sure wish we'd been playing him all year.
And Barret Benson coming in next season could be even better. NU looks set for big men.
Or the year after that, when we make the jump to the NBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So wait, MacIntosh goes off for 33 points 8 assists 3 rebounds and a steal and you're giving the MVP to Pardon that had 6 points, 4 rebounds and a block. I mean the guy had 45% of our points.
OK, BMac gets MVP, but Pardon was runner-up. He really played a solid game and was key during the comeback.
Pardon was +19 in 23 minutes, vs Van Z at -4 in 17 minutes. Additional props to Skelly and Lindsey, both +13 in 12 and 23 minutes respectively.
When was the last time we could say that?
Really, the last time wasn't too long ago, but it is a cautionary tale about offer lists and perceptions, isn't it? We seemed to be set at the 4 and the 5 was when Luka Mirkovic, Kyle Rowley, John Shurna, and Davide Curletti were on their way. The first two had some very nice offer lists, and nobody would have expected Curletti to be a bigger contributor than Rowley or even Mirkovic as a senior. Mirkovic reportedly received an offer from Louisville while Rowley was reportedly offered by Pitt and UW among others.
Objectively speaking, however, Benson held offers from many Big Ten institutions. It's great to have an offer from Rick Pitino as Mirkovic did, but that's one evaluation from a powerhouse program in a different conference and we don't know the details (e.g., how hard Louisville recruited Mirkovic or if the offer came with any conditions like 'commit today or the offer is gone'). Benson's offers span almost our entire conference, our everyday competition.
We'll have to see how it all pans out, but it wasn't 25 years ago when we had a frontcourt presumably all lined up.
Sorry but Curletti and Shuma were not 5's amd Rowley was a bit of a reach, coming out after his 3rd year in H.S.
You did not read correctly. Previous poster said "big men." I said "4s and 5s." Regardless, Curletti wound up playing quite a bit at the 5 spot. Where the hell were you?
I was alluding to the previous poster who said, "When was the last time we could say that (we are set with big men)?" He said it as if we've never had a bunch of big men with potential. As you point out, it was very recent, which was my point. I said 25 years ago sarcastically. Do you think that I'm under the impression Curletti and Shurna played for us in the early 1990s?
Saying we were set and then naming off Rowley, Mirkovic and Curletti is a bit of a stretch. Shurna was a beast though...
So Benson and Pardon are sure things then? That's great news!
I was talking about the potential and perception when we signed that class. We exhaled and thought, "Well, we've got two 4s and two 5s all in one class and two of the guys had offers from Marquette. We don't need to fret so much about the frontcourt."
When we signed that group, we thought we had hit the mother load. I doubt the coaches were that naive but the board thought we had arrived.
I still want to be reminded who the knucklehead was who spent that summer screaming that Rowley was a program changer. If I remember correctly, it lasted well into the season.
It took all of one game against Robert Morris to understand he was a backup project and nothing close to a PO center.
It took all of one game against Robert Morris to understand he was a backup project and nothing close to a PO center.
I see your point, Yesterday'sCat. If any fan base knows to be cautious about premature superlatives, it's us. I will say, though, that I feel an awful lot better about Benson, Pardon, Ivanauskas and Skelly than I did Mirkovic, Rowley and Curletti (Shurna notwithstanding).
Are you really going to argue about the past with someone named YesterdaysCat? Seems you're starting at a disadvantage.
He wasn't saying that at all. You shouldn't pick a fight with me. That's all I'll say.
Benson's back to the basket game might not rival Eschmeyer's, but it could really open up things for our outside shooters. I've never really felt that Olah's post game comes very naturally (i.e., that he is comfortable with it).
Lol tough guy. How was that picking a fight? I was responding to someone else. BTW, does the name Purplicious ring a bell to you?
No, but if he is one of your enemies, it's no surprise because your horrible posts attract plenty of those.
Enemy? Nothing but love here!
My suggestion is for you to stop trying to provoke posters and to stop bashing players.
Was your use of the term "he" intentional or just an attempt to throw us off the trail?
Appeared to be set before they ever set foot on the court. Those guys were higher rated than any bigs we had had in a while so it looked like we were in pretty good shape. Did not really play out that way. That is the same thing that is going on here. "We will be set with these guys coming in" While it looks like a descent situation, we will see when they get here.
There were still some question marks. I remember the other D1 schools wanted Rowley to do a year of prep school. We landed him because we offered him a spot immediately and the chance to start from day 1. Curletti was no sure thing by any stretch. We expected Mirk to be good because he got an offer from Louisville. There was also Peljusic in that mix...he was a project from day 1, though I still don't think he was any worse than Curletti or Mirk.
The real problem was we never seemed to "develop" ANY post-player for so long.
People thought we were pretty set when they were signed as up till then the BC staff had been poor at recruiting bigs and that was a huge weakness in the program as we were always getting killed inside and on the boards. BC had been pretty good at getting wings but in the BIG, a team also needed bigs and finally it looked like we finally had some.
I think there were still some big question marks after they signed. Rowley and Curletti in particular. I don't think anyone figured on Mirk being as ineffective as he was though. Didn't BC basically bench him for the 2nd half of his senior year? I think Skelly would have been a high minutes starter at the 5 had he been on those teams.
Remember there were people saying Cerina was the best athlete on the team when he was initially injured/benched.
I think the bottom line here is it's definitely okay to be more confident in the recruiting and development of post players from our current staff than we could for the past 20 years.