Am excited to see how this plays out. Lots of potential depth. Maybe press? How will freshman do (and who plays)? The transfers? Who starts? Seems like more than usual tough preB1G games. Will the newbies learn our D quickly?
Less than 2 months!
- Thread starter Zazzy
- Start date
No.
Singleton a lot, Kropp some.
Page and Reid will start, Green will get decent minutes.
Reid, Windham, Nick, Singleton and Page
No.
Singleton a lot, Kropp some.
Page and Reid will start, Green will get decent minutes.
Reid, Windham, Nick, Singleton and Page
No.
Agreed even if not sure Singleton will, at least initially, start over Mullins.
I think it's guaranteed that Green, Ciaravinno and Kropp get minutes. The big question is how many and if any others crack the rotation: Gill, Clayton, West, Bennerman.
If the last few seasons are an indication, the last mentioned will not see minutes. The first will get limited action except for 1 or 2 guys.
I'm looking forward to Nick's shooting 45% from three this year, after a summer of really hard work at it.
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This was really fun and cool to see, especially when 3 of our freshmen said they want to be pros.
I love the shirt Jordan is wearing in those pics.
"Nobody cares. Work harder."
"Nobody cares. Work harder."
I think you mean deepest and before we get crazy giddy, let’s see all the newcomers play a few games.
Well, yeah. Deep probably better descriptor. Our starting 5 on our first tourney team probably had more talent.
Deep ay not mean anything the way CCC rides his starters until the inevitable fatigue injuries start to accumulate.
Deep does mean something when the inevitable injury(ies) occur though. A starter or two WILL go down this season, happens every year.
Maybe he never had the quality depth to do anything else?
It wasnt too long ago when it was difficult to hold a 5v5 without a warm body walk-on or assistant coach… a far cry from ”iron sharpens iron”
The increase in talent AND depth on this year’s squad is remarkable, and a real foundation to support exponential growth compared to years past for this program.
Singleton will start. Hearing good things!
Very different player than Mullins, and we will need an inside presence
My current assumptions (based on outside observations, and longtime observation of Collins):It wasnt too long ago when it was difficult to hold a 5v5 without a warm body walk-on or assistant coach… a far cry from ”iron sharpens iron”
The increase in talent AND depth on this year’s squad is remarkable, and a real foundation to support exponential growth compared to years past for this program.
- Looking at the "Top 10 Projected Contributors" on the Northwestern page over at Torvik - collectively, that may be the highest ceiling of a roster ever in the Collins era.
- The benefits of that include higher standard of competition during practice, which hopefully will manifest itself in games.
- Despite this increased depth, Collins will not deploy a full-court press a la Nolan Richardson's Arkansas "40 minutes of hell", or assume hockey-style line change substitutions. I intuit that he leans on who he perceives are his best players, and they'll get 30-32 minutes a game. (Hope Nick has been working the cardio this summer.)
- If the team appears to "play fast", that's based on transition play sparked by turnovers. I fully expect the Cats to continue to be deliberate as that's a Collins' staple (even Boo's senior year, arguably the best offensive team in recent memory - 340th in pace).
- The non-conference schedule looks more challenging than in years past, and assuming that the roster is fully healthy - he'll identify his desired rotation and drill into that to prep for B1G, rather than use it as a time to experiment.
I agree with your assumptions. Do you think that the pace is based on the fact that CCC won't go deep into his bench so he has to save their energy?
Good question - CCC has been on record saying that he likes his guys taking open shots - even if it's early in the clock. However, in practice, the 'Cats have tended to be deliberate - and perhaps that's because they need to run sets to get open looks?
From my own mental model - slower is a more conservative approach because you're limiting the amount of possessions in a game. In turn, by running offensive sets that move the ball "east-west", you're forcing the opponent to spend energy playing defense.
Now it seems more teams in-bound quickly off of made baskets, and push with pace - that hasn't been my recollection of how the 'Cats prefer to operate. Maybe that changes with guys like Reid running point?
Seems to me that the slower pace benefits less athletic teams who can find an advantage in scheme and complexity and as you say wears down the opposition because the offense generally knows where the ball is going and the defense has to expend more energy to keep up.
Gradually, over CCC's tenure, NU has become more athletic IMO. It will be interesting to me to see if this allows him to pick up the pace and play more off the bench.
Yes, generally speaking, the less athletic and less deep a team is, the more it should benefit from controlling pace.