Star forward Nick Martinelli scored 29 points, a career-high for him in conference play. Here are our takeaways from his monster game and Northwestern's second straight road win in the Big Ten.
Martinelli's masterpiece leads NU over Minnesota, 75-63
- Thread starter mshelton33
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Star forward Nick Martinelli scored 29 points, a career-high for him in conference play. Here are our takeaways from his monster game and Northwestern's second straight road win in the Big Ten.
This is just a fabulous report Matt. You've anticipated and answered all of my questions, which is certainly not easy at this stage of the season.
Good stuff as always Matt.
I've noticed a trend lately (perhaps it's mostly my imagination, though not last night) where Berry takes a lot of shots early in the game and then disappears as a shot-taker. He got an and-one with 5:12 to go in the first half yesterday and then only took one more shot the rest of the way. I'm sure it'll be a standard "we take what the defense gives us" answer, but it may be worth asking Collins about it if the trend continues.
I've noticed a trend lately (perhaps it's mostly my imagination, though not last night) where Berry takes a lot of shots early in the game and then disappears as a shot-taker. He got an and-one with 5:12 to go in the first half yesterday and then only took one more shot the rest of the way. I'm sure it'll be a standard "we take what the defense gives us" answer, but it may be worth asking Collins about it if the trend continues.
Not to take anything away from Mart, dude is freaking amazing and a delight to watch, but, just like with OSU, did MN even have a plan for him?
We had Mart/Barn/Leach available and Purdue had a very clear plan for two of them. I'm not sure I saw any adjustments from OSU or MN. Terrible coaching IMO.
We had Mart/Barn/Leach available and Purdue had a very clear plan for two of them. I'm not sure I saw any adjustments from OSU or MN. Terrible coaching IMO.
I,m not much of a BB wiz but your comment makes me wonder if the solid play of NU's young guys is a distraction to planning agains NU right now. There are a lot of unknowns and not much tape to study. They know what Mart can do but if they don't research and plan for what the young guys can do they have shown they can play.
Yours is a good point, but you are up against the top scorer in the league, so much about the team is unknown, but Mart is not.
I understand the choice is about what to focus on, and what to leave as vulnerable, knowing it's often hard to just address every strong point of a team. Kind of like UConn last year let Edey eat and focused on shutting down everyone else.
For the second game in a row I just saw nothing, no help adjustments, no double teams, just straight up guarding him like you do everyone else, no significant effort to cut passing lanes to everyone else if he got the ball either (let him eat but make everyone else's job harder). I see more of an effort to not help on Berry than anything with Martinelli for the past two games.
Ben Johnson is not the best coach in the league. Diebler is still new. Let’s see what happens next game, McCaffrey is definitely going to have a better game plan. Cronin on ucla also very smart (500 wins), so these next two will be tough competitor coaches.
Mart’s white guy overbite, hockey hair, and galumping feet are like a bat signal to other teams that you don’t need to double him.
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How are we gonna stop that Josh Dix guy on Iowa? I’m tired of him crushing us.
Great write up. Masterpiece from Nicky buckets is right. Alongside his size, hands, and strength plus elite toughness and motor, he has both an elite selection of unorthodox go-to moves AND an elite understanding of his own game. He is just almost always shooting from one of his go-to spots with the preferred move from that location. Such a hugely efficient player at getting his looks.
I share the optimism about some of the young guys, specially scoring next year. Ciarvino is definitely developing as a wing contributor and Mullins is changing my mind about him as a useful rotation guy. Windham I’m less fully sold on that this article, but he’s developing enough that he can definitely be at least a piece of the ball handling needs next year.
I still think we enter the offseason with needs similar to last year: one more strong ball handler/PG and an impact big.
I share the optimism about some of the young guys, specially scoring next year. Ciarvino is definitely developing as a wing contributor and Mullins is changing my mind about him as a useful rotation guy. Windham I’m less fully sold on that this article, but he’s developing enough that he can definitely be at least a piece of the ball handling needs next year.
I still think we enter the offseason with needs similar to last year: one more strong ball handler/PG and an impact big.
In the last several games, Berry, Mullins, and even Windham have all done damage from three. Then, in game, four different Cats hit a three when left open.
A superficial assessment of the Cats offense from a bad coach perspective might focus on shutting down the three point line and leave Garcia the problem of stopping Nick.
A superficial assessment of the Cats offense from a bad coach perspective might focus on shutting down the three point line and leave Garcia the problem of stopping Nick.
Other guys hitting open shots is the way to keep the Martinelli roll going. That has happened the last two games and that is what did NOT happen in the second half collapse against Nebraska.
In the Nebraska game, NU was 5 of 17 from the 3 point arc in the first half.
We got a ton of offensive rebounds off those misses.
We were 9 of 21 inside the arc.
In the 2nd half, we were 2 of 3 from outside the arc.
Berry made his first two attempts of the 2nd half, but missed at the 14:31 mark and NU never attempted another 3 pointer.
Either Nebraska shut us down on the perimeter OR we decided to try to pound the ball inside.
We were 10 of 31 inside the arc in the 2nd half.
To be honest, it seemed like vs Nebraska we kind stopped running much of an offense. We went into slow down mode too early where we'd basically just dribble around up top with a halfhearted ball screen or two until 7-8 on the clock then have Martinelli or someone else force it on a drive and Nebraska would help with a double team. Sometimes that offense works, but it was not working the last 12 minutes or whatever it was.
If we don't run much motion on offense and don't start making any move to attack the basket until the clock is running down, it's a lot harder to create good looks from 3. I don't know that the lack of 3 point attempts was necessarily due to a decision to pound it inside, it was more a result of the decision to try to run the shot clock down before initiating the offense. The natural result was that we got more contested 2's.
To be clear, while I don't like it until much later in the game than CC usually goes to it (i.e. like vs Minny, if we are up ~10 with 3 mins to go), that strategy does work sometimes - Martinelli can be a wizard at scoring off late shot clock isos (again, see Minnesota game). But Nebraska was collapsing with help to prevent him from scoring and we weren't able to find good shots in that half, particularly once Nebraska got momentum on their side. Hopefully a learning experience for the coaches and team.
All about forcing the other team to defend a larger amount of space. That happens when you hit outside shots.
In the second half, you could see the guy chasing Berry was often literally holding onto Berry's elbow. I think the refs called one foul on that when they both hit the deck on a moving pick that wasn't called.
I saw Garcia on him almost exclusively. I guess they thought he could handle Mart himself - not!