Nice start. But tomorrow will find out if we’re any good.
- Thread starter Catfanincolo
- Start date
For what it is worth, Sagarin has our schedule so far rated as 352 out of 357.
Providence is certainly a big step up in competition.
Also worth pointing out, Michigan (at this point) in no longer an automatic loss for us.
Purdue has established itself as the best team in the league.
One more point, some teams like Villanova and Saint Bonnies are playing very short rotations. Basically 5 starters and one or two subs. We'll see if Coach Collins has settled on anything yet. Obviously I'm hoping for Nance, Young, Buie, Berry...
Providence is certainly a big step up in competition.
Also worth pointing out, Michigan (at this point) in no longer an automatic loss for us.
Purdue has established itself as the best team in the league.
One more point, some teams like Villanova and Saint Bonnies are playing very short rotations. Basically 5 starters and one or two subs. We'll see if Coach Collins has settled on anything yet. Obviously I'm hoping for Nance, Young, Buie, Berry...
I think if you check again you will see that it was Providence favored by 2 1/2, now it looks like the line is more like 0 to 1 1/2 depending on the sports book, anyway you look at it fairly even
The ESPN matchup predictor is showing Providence with a 60% chance of winning, but the line as NU -1. KenPom is predicting a 70-67 NU win and 61% chance of winning. Bart Torvik is pretty much 50/50 with us a 0.1 pt underdog. This will be a fun test.
I don't remember ever winning a preseason tournament. In the last Legends Classic we had that great win against Texas and the gut-wrenching loss to ND when we couldn't inbound the ball. Hoping for a better outcome this year. Go Cats!
I don't remember ever winning a preseason tournament. In the last Legends Classic we had that great win against Texas and the gut-wrenching loss to ND when we couldn't inbound the ball. Hoping for a better outcome this year. Go Cats!
Nine sports books, none of them have northwestern favored
No, games are pretty much in order of the time they will be played, scroll down to Providence versus Northwestern.
OK. Maybe the site is regional, but it is showing me everything from a pick’em to NU -2 (meaning NU is favored by 2). If you are reading that as NU is a 2 point underdog, give me Gonzaga getting 34 from Western Michigan.
The lines Have shifted, most of them had Providence favored by two last night, Providence favored by one this morning early when I looked, and most of them have northwestern favored by one now. Smart money going down on the Cats
The last time we won a preseason tournament was in Bill Carmody's final season, 2012-13, when we won the South Padre Island Invitational with wins over TCU and Illinois State. Unfortunately, that was not predictive of season success, as the team, then 6-0, went 7-19 from that point on.
We also won the Charleston Classic in 2011-12 with wins over LSU, Tulsa, and Seton Hall, and the Chicago Challenge Invitational in 2009-10 with wins over Notre Dame and Iowa State. Both of those seasons finished in the NIT.
Bill had some really good success early in some seasons but lack of depth killed him down the stretch in the Big Ten.
Carmody's luck that year was just terrible.
Likely 6th man Jershon Cobb was declared academically ineligible just before the season started.
The team's best player, Drew Crawford, was lost for the season after 10 games.
We entered Big Ten play with 7 players and 2 freshmen starters (Olah and Demps).
Still after beating Purdue, we were 4-6 in conference play.
The next game (iowa) starting center Olah got a concussion and starting power forward Jarod Swopshire was injured and done for the year.
We had 3 of our top 6 players on the court, Olah struggled post concussion and we lost the next 9 games.
And they fired Carmody. Not exactly the classy thing to do.
The depth we have this year allows him to substitute in waves without the normal drop off and keep everyone fresh. Something we have not had in a while
But don’t most teams typically trim their rotation to 7-8 guys once the non-con is over and conference schedule gets rolling?
The short answer is yes, normally.
It depends on the discrepancy in talent between the better players and players 7-10.
It also depends on the style of play.
I'd argue that we have 4 guys who deserve to play a lot of minutes (Young, Nance, Buie, Berry). It will be interesting to see what the coach does in a game that we aren't certain to win.
This team may not have to. The level of play in top 10 guys is pretty similar. I remember the Dayton teams under Gregory? They were so balanced and they just ran . They overwhelmed the opponents with wave after wave
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Yeah true Butler used to do it back in the day, too on some of those really good teams that had around 2010ish
My fingers are uncrossed. We’re better than last year, but I don’t see a tourney team here. Other than Young we are a very soft team. I realize Providence is an “older” team. (Per Eanet their average age is 23). But we are not strong enough physically (or mentally?) to run with the big dogs in the B1G, IMHO
How do you like your own post? That’s strong.
can I auto set a “like” on every post I make ?
I always like my own work
. Actually meant to add an additional comment, not to “like” my original post. My bad.
You might be right, but for what it’s worth this team feels significantly stronger to me, both mentally and physically. That’s comparing the team I saw in person last night to the team I saw in person at Rutgers in February 2020.
It’s frustrating to constantly come out on the losing side of 50-50 games. But this team didn’t fold even when the win probability was probably less than 2%. We may struggle to mount aggressive comebacks (especially without our best one-on-one player, Audige) but we should be in a lot of games. Just have to close for a change. That’s where we will see if they are tougher or not.
"Our best one-on-one player last year, Audige" was actually a net negative for the team last year.
Remember, its a team game.
If he improves his game, then sure he can help.
He is able to score on guys guarding him one on one, but he turns it over and misses shots too.
I understand that, but no one else on the team could do what he did against Indiana in December 2020. Like others have said, would love to see him embrace the sixth-man role and provide a jolt of energy on offense and defense to the second team when he returns.
Can't wait until he's back. I'm hoping that sitting for the first handful of games and observing will allow him to better understand his role.
I think he had one year remaining on his contract and they bought it out paying about $1.65 mill.
I think his fate was sealed when we lost in overtime to a mediocre Minnesota team in the first game of the conference tournament the year before. Cobb came back after being injured and scored 24 points. Shurna had 21 points. We had also had Crawford, Sobolewski and Hearn and we still lost. We truly had no depth. Shurna played all 45 minutes. Sobo and Crawford played 42 minutes. Marcotullio and Curletti were the only other guys to play. We got outscored 14 to 7 in overtime. I don't want to speculate but maybe our starters were tired. It really was a shame that Carmody couldn't recruit more than a couple of decent bench players.
As I look back, fatigue may have been one of the biggest reasons why we lost a lot of close games against good teams.
He was fired because he was there 13 years. Many years longer than he deserved. It was time. Way over time.
My point is that they were pretty good, close to an NCAA tournament team, for the 4 years of Shurna, then they had the year of so many major injuries, losing 3 of their top six guys, then they fired him. That was possibly his best team, but it fell apart.
Carmody took the program from a laughingstock to a level that many people on here have stated was "good enough for them." (annual NIT contender).
2011-2012 was probably his best team, maybe 2010-2011. But I'd agree that the team he cobbled together with Swop was a good NU team before the injuries.
Back to the original topic ...
Does anyone have a better idea what kind of team this is? I'm not sure I do.
The Audige absence doesn't help. I'd bet he would have been good for a 3-5 swing vs. Providence.
Also, there have been a couple instances where people used yesterday's game as a reference on how to improve things going forward.
I thought Georgia was a pretty mediocre team (generous term) that played lousy. The Cats would have been down by much more to even a decent team after their usual, maddening slow start.
I want to say the second half Cats can play with 3/4 of the B10.
But then they start EVERY game down 5-10 points. Until they get that corrected, they are going to have a rough time against decent teams.
But it should be correctable.
Does anyone have a better idea what kind of team this is? I'm not sure I do.
The Audige absence doesn't help. I'd bet he would have been good for a 3-5 swing vs. Providence.
Also, there have been a couple instances where people used yesterday's game as a reference on how to improve things going forward.
I thought Georgia was a pretty mediocre team (generous term) that played lousy. The Cats would have been down by much more to even a decent team after their usual, maddening slow start.
I want to say the second half Cats can play with 3/4 of the B10.
But then they start EVERY game down 5-10 points. Until they get that corrected, they are going to have a rough time against decent teams.
But it should be correctable.
If Beran starts the game with Nance, we tend to fall behind.
Audige looks to me like he can split time with Simmons at the 3 spot.
Its tough to sort out the 3 position. Kopp played a ton of minutes there last year.
Collins has not played Williams there at all.
Greer and Buie are guards.
That leaves Audige, Simmons (a natural 3, in my opinion), Berry and Roper.
Of those, Audige is the most physical.
Audige looks to me like he can split time with Simmons at the 3 spot.
Its tough to sort out the 3 position. Kopp played a ton of minutes there last year.
Collins has not played Williams there at all.
Greer and Buie are guards.
That leaves Audige, Simmons (a natural 3, in my opinion), Berry and Roper.
Of those, Audige is the most physical.
Thats true. As I think you pointed out to me, Collins did play Nance, Young and Beran together quite a bit two years ago. Not one second last year, though.
Whether Barnhizer can contribute now, I can't say. He is a natural 3 thats for sure. I guess, according to many on this board, if Coach Chris Collins isn't letting Barnhizer play, then Barnhizer is not good enough to play. Makes life very simple.