Some post Bradley thoughts...

[Medill90]

If NU had just squeaked by, rather than lose those two games, we'd be filling up this board with tournament predictions.

NU is a long team. Long teams are more difficult to do certain stuff against. Bradley had some size...a big 7 footer. NU didn't seem to care. That's going to help in conference play. Beran is long and jumpy.

What more can you ask of Young. He'll get better and better. I love that he has a bunch of moves that he works through in sequence depending on where his defender is. He's played a couple games against big defenders and been ok. I think, though, if he hesitates with the ball as he does from time to time, athletic Big Ten wings will block his shot from behind. Has to be quicker into his shot. But I think he'll adjust to the Big Ten size, speed and athleticism and be effective.

So, Spencer. How 'bout that handle. Last year AJ and Law were the PG's and that sort of sucked because neither is a PG. It is unfathomable to me that five games in, Spencer would be better with the ball handling than either of those two. He is and it's just incredible. He also penetrates and creates opportunities for others (this game especially, let's hope it continues).

Team defense. Up high 20's and less than four minutes to go and Kopp is in a guy's chest out past the three point line. If this team can stay focused on D for 40 minutes it can be decent and beat some teams it's not supposed to.

Bradley is better than this. It's unclear to me how much of this was NU. Bradley was favored by, what, six?

 

[Titanium999]

If NU had just squeaked by, rather than lose those two games, we'd be filling up this board with tournament predictions.

NU is a long team. Long teams are more difficult to do certain stuff against. Bradley had some size...a big 7 footer. NU didn't seem to care. That's going to help in conference play. Beran is long and jumpy.

What more can you ask of Young. He'll get better and better. I love that he has a bunch of moves that he works through in sequence depending on where his defender is. He's played a couple games against big defenders and been ok. I think, though, if he hesitates with the ball as he does from time to time, athletic Big Ten wings will block his shot from behind. Has to be quicker into his shot. But I think he'll adjust to the Big Ten size, speed and athleticism and be effective.

So, Spencer. How 'bout that handle. Last year AJ and Law were the PG's and that sort of sucked because neither is a PG. It is unfathomable to me that five games in, Spencer would be better with the ball handling than either of those two. He is and it's just incredible. He also penetrates and creates opportunities for others (this game especially, let's hope it continues).

Team defense. Up high 20's and less than four minutes to go and Kopp is in a guy's chest out past the three point line. If this team can stay focused on D for 40 minutes it can be decent and beat some teams it's not supposed to.

Bradley is better than this. It's unclear to me how much of this was NU. Bradley was favored by, what, six?

Agreed!

 

[ricko6543211]

If NU had just squeaked by, rather than lose those two games, we'd be filling up this board with tournament predictions.

NU is a long team. Long teams are more difficult to do certain stuff against. Bradley had some size...a big 7 footer. NU didn't seem to care. That's going to help in conference play. Beran is long and jumpy.

What more can you ask of Young. He'll get better and better. I love that he has a bunch of moves that he works through in sequence depending on where his defender is. He's played a couple games against big defenders and been ok. I think, though, if he hesitates with the ball as he does from time to time, athletic Big Ten wings will block his shot from behind. Has to be quicker into his shot. But I think he'll adjust to the Big Ten size, speed and athleticism and be effective.

So, Spencer. How 'bout that handle. Last year AJ and Law were the PG's and that sort of sucked because neither is a PG. It is unfathomable to me that five games in, Spencer would be better with the ball handling than either of those two. He is and it's just incredible. He also penetrates and creates opportunities for others (this game especially, let's hope it continues).

Team defense. Up high 20's and less than four minutes to go and Kopp is in a guy's chest out past the three point line. If this team can stay focused on D for 40 minutes it can be decent and beat some teams it's not supposed to.

Bradley is better than this. It's unclear to me how much of this was NU. Bradley was favored by, what, six?

I hope we bring effort like that on defense and in rebounding every game (as we also did against Providence, but was noticeably lacking against Radford, and I didn’t see Merrimack game but prob there too). If we do, we will at least be competitive and will be fun to watch on one side of the floor.

I think our offense is going to have some games where things click like last night, but is still going to have plenty of patches where things get ugly - namely on days where the 3’s aren’t dropping, or when Patty Spencer does not have a career game. Unfortunately I suspect the latter may happen more often if we don’t have a guy who can consistently create off the dribble (maybe it’s Patty? Though I’m skeptical).

Nonetheless, absolutely worth celebrating and enjoying the performances like Providence and Bradley when things come together. My expectations for the season were basically at the floor, so even though we’ve thrown up two duds I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised overall with the developments thus far. Just don’t get too bummed out when the inevitable setbacks come. Unless they learn to bring that rebounding + defensive effort and intensity every night, because of the inconsistency on the offensive side of the ball we will have our fair share of ugly outings too. When we get in a hole early against good opponents we might mail it in.

PS the spread was Bradley -3