Chase double pumped his breakaway dunk against Purdue. Definitely my favorite play of the year. The athleticism and the audacity.
Next Season’s Guards
- Thread starter acedog
- Start date
And for me the top 25 plays were at least 50% Nicholson dunks!
Audige was (or I guess still is) a superior athlete for Northwestern basketball. I don't think he was intimidated by many guys he played against.
I'm hoping Nicholson gets there - as an athlete he's pretty far along - but the tools need some sharpening and he's down to 2 years of eligibility.
Roper is another with great athleticism who may (hopefully) assert himself. I was surprised at how high he jumped for a dunk against Brown. If the team dynamic changes, he may become a scorer - his shot is not bad, just hesitant.
^ The thing about Chase is that despite his athleticism, he didn't drive to the basket as often as one would have expected and relied way too much on his streaky jump shot.
Anyhow, despite Audige's inefficiency on O, unless there is a good substitute on D, the team will miss Chase since the team's success was built on D, much like how the 2016 was (the 2017 team wasn't as good b/c they weren't nearly as good on D; efficiency on D dropping from 42nd all to way to 119th).
If Chase does end up coming back with Boo, the coaches should have Audige work on driving to the basket during the offseason.
Anyhow, despite Audige's inefficiency on O, unless there is a good substitute on D, the team will miss Chase since the team's success was built on D, much like how the 2016 was (the 2017 team wasn't as good b/c they weren't nearly as good on D; efficiency on D dropping from 42nd all to way to 119th).
If Chase does end up coming back with Boo, the coaches should have Audige work on driving to the basket during the offseason.
Last edited:
Yes, I don’t go back watching NU basketball all that closely pre -2000, but Chase is IMO NU’s best defender in at least the last two decades. We tend to glamorize the scorer in sports, but Defense still wins ( old man shouting at cloud). Couple his athleticism with his Defensive IQ and you have a star, not just a good player. The man has no fear and is the perfect Robin to Boo’s Batman.
There’s a reason why a guy who was a very inefficient scorer was a very very worthy Big Ten 2nd Team All-Conference player.
I've defended here that Chase is the most athletic guy NU has had this century. Over Law, even if there are aspects of Law;s athleticism that top Chase's.
But what Chase is not is a guy who searches and scores through contact. And that is often crucial to finish a fast break.
But what Chase is not is a guy who searches and scores through contact. And that is often crucial to finish a fast break.
I don't think Chase deserved to be Big Ten 2nd team. Buie did.
That one came down to Jahmir Young or Buie for first team.
Pickett was a mortal lock.
Young got the better of Buie when they blew us out.
So Young proved it on the court.
There are several guys I'd take ahead of Chase.
And I value defense.
But "missing a lot of shots" and "rebounding below your weight" are significant negatives.
The Big Ten put 4 guards on its 2nd team and only 1 on the first team.
That is a bit silly...
1 - Pickett, Young
2 - Buie, Tyson Walker
Honorable Mention - Hoggard, Spencer, Tominaga, Audige, Bufkin (no need to rate them)
Last edited:
He drives to the basket a lot he just can't finish he usually puts it off the backboard too hard. It was quite frustrating to watch how many times he missed that type of play
Neat. You didn’t get to vote and the coaches and media put them where they put them. So.
When I do the research and reach a conclusion, I really don't care what the media says.
The media likes stories and votes accordingly.
So...what? Some of y'all are way over-sensitive about discussing the team.
It's kind of odd that there was six guys on the coaches 2nd team and on the media first team. I was a little surprised Boo wasn't first team on both squads. I was a little surprised Chase wasn't 3rd team on both squads.
Anybody who thought Buie and Audige were equally good this year should not be voting...
Meh...they were good in different ways and extremely complimentary to each other. There were times throughout the season that Audige was the team's most valuable player, but that's different than all-conference honors. Being defensive player of the year in the conference is a huge accomplishment. The all-league honors were odd this year.
The only comparison in my life is Jitim. He seems forgotten at times, but he sure could play and sure inspired his teammates to play harder.
(Confirmed: he finished 03-04, so just barely within two decades. 2.3 SPG as a senior and, the thing that made everybody love him, 2.2ORPG.)
Last edited:
Most of Audige's best offensive games came against non-conference opponents - Liberty, Brown, UIC, DePaul...
He had a few games where he was our best player against a Big Ten opponent. Really it was the 3 games after the Covid pause - Wisconsins, Nebraska, Minnesota. all in late January. Before that he was our best player against Indiana when he had 6 steals. But thats it. My guess is that his heavy minutes wore him down - or as others have suggested, the league figured out how to guard him.
In the 2nd half of the Big Ten season (and the Big Ten tournament game) he made 25 of 77 attempts inside the arc and 17 of 63 attempts outside the arc. Thats 32.5% on 2's and 27% on 3's. Thats half a season of "pretty bad" shooting.
Audige is a great defensive player and streaky offensive player. His elite defense and ability at times to get hot and win games for us helped us exceed expectations to make to the ncaas. His play was deserving of second team all big ten. Not really a debate
He is a great defensive player, but I would disagree whether it is debatable. I mean, the coaches and media differed on it so there is obviously room for discussion. Shocked to see Hunter Dickinson on the media first team and Derrick Walker to make the coaches 2nd team and not even make the media 3rd team.
Regardless on all of it, the Cats don't make the tourney without Audige and am super happy to see him recognized for his efforts.
"Not really a debate..."
Well, all I can say is - there are homers everywhere who cannot be objective.
Audige did not deserve 2nd team All-Big Ten.
As an individual player he needed to play good defense just to be "average' in the league, because his offense is below average. That is just the truth.
And NU would not have made the NCAA without Nicholson. Same goes for Barnhizer. Does that make them all conference too?
I know it can be hard to find new ways to say it, when you're saying the same thing over and over... and over again, but saying "That is just the truth" has never helped any argument.
18 pts a game and DPOY. How is that not 2nd team all B1G? I get it Audige has extremely high defense IQ but doesn’t see the court well offensively and is streaky. He still was the best perimeter defender in the conference and was 11th in scoring. That’s deserving of 2nd team all B1G.
Chase doesn’t play good defense, he plays elite defense. A difference maker. He shoots a lot because he has to with the make up of this team. Chase’s offensive is not below average. The opposing Coaches literally game planned to stop Boo and Chase on offense. Barney developed into a consistent threat at the end of the year and part of that was the opposition focusing on the other two. I know we will get the shooting percentage retort for Chase, but if you don’t guard him, you can get burned. There are 2-3 guys that play for NU in the rotation that you really don’t have to pay more than modest attention to.
I have been trying to make the point that there are two sides to a player and both are equally important. That is why I wasn’t crushed with the loss of RY or Kopp. Neither could guard. At least RY was a very good offensive player and brought value. Chase will be a MAJOR loss.
Audige didn’t play “good” defense, he played incredible, game changing, team changing defense
I will assume that we can all agree that to level the playing field, we should only use conference games for the stats we are discussing. Games against Top 100 teams, etc. Some filter to eliminate games against terrible teams.
I'm also going to assume we can agree that a fair evaluation requires adjusting for playing time.
Audige averaged 13.4 points per game in conference. Slightly less if you include the Big Ten tournament game. He played 35.3 minutes per game. More than most players. 8th in the conference in minutes per game. So obviously he had more opportunity to score points, get rebounds, steal the ball, get assists, etc.
Those are facts. Hopefully we can agree on the facts.
This is extremely subjective. My point was that because Audige was below average offensively he would have to be good defensively to be considered an average Big Ten starter. He was better than a good defender, we can agree on that.
I think it helps to remind people that they don't get to make up their own facts. The truth is the truth. To hold a legitimate discussion, people have to "face the facts" or provide other evidence to counter them.
To address the point more clearly. There is more than one way to compose an All Big Ten team. Some just take the 5 best players, regardless of position/role, and declare that group the First Team. Then they take the next 5 and say thats the 2nd team. The alternative, which I prefer, is to differentiate and rate the players based on position.
But regardless of approach, everybody knows (or should know) that Zach Edey, Trayce Jackson-Davis and Jalen Pickett were the 3 best players in the conference. Kris Murray had a very good year, so he slots in as the 4th player. The First Team needs a guard - So who gets the nod, Buie or Jahmir Young of Maryland. Its close, but Young deserves it based on their head to head confrontation.
So who are the 2nd team candidates? Buie is obviously in. Hunter Dickinson as well. That leaves 3 spots for Matthew Mayer and Terrence Shannon of Illinois, Kobe Bufkin of Michigan, Tyson Walker, AJ Hoggard and Joey Hauser of MSU, Brice Sensabaugh of OSU, Jalen Hood-Schifino of Indiana, Andrew Funk and Seth Lundy of Penn State, Keisei Tominaga and Derrick Walker of Nebraska, Cliff Omoruyi, Cam Spencer and Caleb McConnell of Rutgers, Filip Rebraca and Tony Perkins of Iowa. And of course, Chase Audige.
So we can debate the merits of those 18 players, if people would like to do so.
If a player averaged 25 ppg but was a mediocre-to-below-average defender, would anyone have a problem leaving him off the first team? And if his defense was so bad that he's not a first-teamer, there'd be no way to keep him off the second team, right?
Now, I have no idea how much Audige's defense is worth. It's easy to say 25 ppg if we're talking about offense, but what is his defense worth? Impossible to say without some serious analytics beyond the stuff we normally talk about. If his defense could somehow be the equivalent of averaging 20-25 ppg on offense, then how bad does he have to be on offense to not be the first team? About as bad as he was on offense this year. As in: decent scoring, bad percentages. An elite defender + decent scoring - poor shooting = second-team All-Big Ten.
It's really all about the subjective parts, not the facts. How much did his defense help? How much did his shooting hurt? Second-team seems about right.
In the same way that doofuses say (accurately) “[x] is worth what someone is willing to pay for it,” or Bill Parcells said “you are what your record says you are”, Chase deserved to be a second-team All-Conference player because the relevant voters chose him for the honor.
Sometimes* message boards are dumb.
*okay, always, except when it’s Lou reporting on a sideline reporter’s aroma
Sometimes* message boards are dumb.
*okay, always, except when it’s Lou reporting on a sideline reporter’s aroma
Oh come on. By that logic, every Academy award winner deserved their award.
And yet, The Golden Globes go to a completely different set of people or movies.
Or Luke Hunger got injured because he deserved to get injured.
Or Tesla deserved a $400/share stock price because thats where it was trading.
People are often mis-informed and make bad decisions. That is one thing we know with 100% certainty.
Facts yes, but as important as the facts you put in are the conclusions you leave out. You say more time to get easily measurable stats. Playing 35.3 minutes per game means he kept weaker defensive players on the bench. That's also a fact. It's not just about facts. it's about which facts you choose to value.
This is the opposite of a fact. Young outplayed Buie in one home game. Buie led his team to victory in 5 more conference road games than Young did. Buie led his team to a second place finish while Young's team finished (I think) 6th. Buie's team finished 11 spots ahead of where they were projected. Young, I don't know exactly, but less. The writers, at least, felt that all of this outweighed one random, possibly flukish performance. I don't know how a follower of facts could hand-wave all that away.
I don't know how you'd define the "opposite of a fact."
I'm saying that it was close between Buie and Young, but IN MY OPINION, the FACT that Young completely outplayed Buie in their single head-to-head battle is the FACT that sways First Team in Young's favor.
That should have been pretty obvious. It isn't like I'm basing it on that one game. That game was, for me, the tiebreaker.
Using aggregate stats (like points per game) to compare players, without adjusting for playing time, is improper.
It's a bit unfair to type "This is extremely subjective" and then immediately follow it with something extremely subjective. What does "below average offensively" even mean? As far as I'm aware, "offensively" isn't a measurable anyone uses. My opinion is that Audige nets out pretty appropriately as a third teamer, but I think it's pretty flimsy argumentation to say that "facts" state that Audige is below average offensively. He certainly wasn't below average in counting stats. He was below average in efficiency, but he was above average in the ability to stay on the court.
Imagine being a “fan” of a program and arguing against the merits of your own players. How sad.
Imagine being a “fan” of a program and arguing against the merits of your own players. How sad.
Its called being objective.
below average offensively = less efficient on offense than the typical Big Ten starter.
Every major stats guy uses efficiency to determine a player's value on the offensive end.
Made 2 pointers, Made 3 pointers, missed shots, Offensive rebounds, turnovers, free throws and assists.
That is not subjective whatsoever. I'll post some numbers when I have time.
That's actually called being less efficient on offense. You should use the name it already has instead of subjectively giving it a different name.
Most stats guys understand that efficiency usually wanes as usage increases...and even then Audige is in the top half of B1G players in PER. Not sure how that translates to "below average", but looking forward to seeing your stats.
Did somebody hijack your account?That's actually called being less efficient on offense. You should use the name it already has instead of subjectively giving it a different name.
Most stats guys understand that efficiency usually wanes as usage increases...and even then Audige is in the top half of B1G players in PER. Not sure how that translates to "below average", but looking forward to seeing your stats.
This is beyond nitpicking.
I will get you some numbers.
But we need to agree that "below average" on offense means "scores at a lower rate than the average Big Ten starter." Otherwise I can post the numbers and you'll just move the goalposts.
If you thought that was nitpicking, you aren't as into fact-based precision as you claim to be.
And why would it be me moving the goalposts when you are the one redefining what you said in your original post. Now you want "below average offensively" to mean "scores at a lower rate than the average Big Ten starter"? Why stop there? Why not make it starters who play more than 30 minutes a game? Why not make it guards who play more than 30 minutes a game? Guards who are secondary ballhanders on their team? Who are taller than 6'1"?
Looking forward to those stats.
I never changed my definition! You claimed "below average" was subjective!
This is what I am going to do.
I will only look at Big Ten players.
I will only include games gainst the Top 100 teams, which includes reasonably good non-conference opponents, but may eliminate Minnesota.
I am going to filter down to guys who played at least 50% of their available minutes. Then, I'm going to filter out the highly efficient big guys by eliminating any player who didn't try at least 20 three pointers and at least 20 (50?) two pointers.