This team is much better when..
- Thread starter The Purple Knight
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Buie may have just played his best game as a Wildcat. Not sure I understand why there’s a call for him to be benched. His ceiling is so high when he’s on. The list of NU point guards who can score 27 points in a BIG 10 road game is extremely small. B-Mac didn’t reach the 27 point mark once his entire senior year. The Buie hate on this board is baffling. Is he an All-American? Nope, but there will be a lot of Tournament teams who would gladly swap PGs with us and if Buie hit the portal after the season his offer list would be bonkers. He’s not the reason for our struggles.
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The Greer love on this board absolutely baffles me. He is a so-so shooter who is not very aggressive with the ball. He doesn't make many mistakes, granted, but that is because he doesn't really try to do anything. He is also a HUGE liability on the defensive end. Buie is a playmaker. He can be frustrating at times when he jacks up the 26 footers, but also can be sensational at times and take over games. NU needs more of that, rather than less.
Agreed. He's the only player who can take over a game. MAYBE Chase Audige, maybe. But when Buie is feeling it he can give you 10-0 run by himself. I'll go one step further down the NU blasphemy path. While B-Mac is arguably the best PG in NU histroy, if you gave Buie Law, Lindsey and Pardon in the starting lineup instead of Beran, Berry/Roper we would be a tournament team. I don't think the gap between B-Mac and Buie is as large as people think. But the gap between having Lindsey as a fourth option vs. Beran is pretty massive. Go back and look at some of Lindsey's stats in conference games (my fav is when he dropped 32 on Iowa playing all 40 minutes and went 9-11 from 3).
My point in all of this is that I keep reading the narrative that the reason we haven't been back to the tournament is lack of a point guard and while Buie is not B-Mac, I don't think he's reason 1, 2, or even 3 for why we haven't been back to the tournament.
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Well, he is clearly out best option at lead/point guard. His speed is a problem for many teams (a lot of teams try to force him horizontal before he can get downhill on drives). His height makes it difficult to finish, so I would like to see him dish more, or work pick and roll plays with a big in the post. Without the ball, he probably blows by anybody on the court.
As somebody who changed his tune significantly about Buie during the offseason (from "he's not good" to "he's above average for the Big Ten") I can tell you that its mostly a matter of context.
He got stuck playing primarily on that crappy Nance / Beran / Kopp / Audige / Buie lineup that ruined us last year.
When Buie plays with certain guys, he plays better. Ryan Greer is at the top of that list. And Greer is far better himself when paired with Buie. Its because they both have point guard skills (i.e. court vision and passing) and we move the ball much better when they are both on the court. This gets Buie better looks off the ball. Collins has come around on this combination. He barely used it last season.
I should also mention that Buie gets better ball screens from Young than he does from Nance, giving him better looks.
I recall Audige taking over the game at Indiana last season, making shot after shot down the stretch. He willed the Cats to that win.
I'm sure this is heresy, but I liked Juice better than BMac.
Anyhow, I agree that Greer and Buie make an effective duo on the court.
Anyhow, I agree that Greer and Buie make an effective duo on the court.
I disagree on your comment on Greer’s defense. While we see he could not handle Mulcahy very well (though one bad call hurt his chances), he was put on Mulcahy because of Collins’ confidence in his defense. While he’s not big and fast, he is very solid technically, smart and tough. He is a much better team defender than Buie.
I was ready to criticize this with some KenPom stats ... and it turns out Buie's shooting percentages and offensive rating are higher than Mac's junior year, even though both have similar usage rates. You're onto something.
Glad to see the numbers back this one up. A few weeks ago I re-watched the 2016 Michigan game (Taphorn to Pardon) and I was really struck by how good the surrounding cast was around B-Mac. He had a solid game and scored 13 points, but Vic Law led the team in scoring (18 pts) and Pardon had a great game and came up clutch. That was just a great TEAM. I was also surprised to see that for his career B-Mac "only" averaged 13 pts and 5 assists. He also played with much better running mates (Law, Lindsey) than Buie ever has (Kopp/Berry).
Not saying it will happen this year, but we can absolutely be a tournament team with Buie as our PG. Rowan who?
You are not crazy. Juice and B-Mac both averaged 13ppg for their career. B-Mac averaged 5 apg while Juice had 4 apg. They both aveaged 2 rebounds per game. Juice actually has a better career FG% than B-Mac (43 vs 40) and a better 3 point percentage (37 vs. 34). This year Buie is averaging 15/5 and shooting 40% from the field and 37% from 3. I agree that in the NU pantheon (if there is such a thing) Juice is underrated if you believe that B-Mac was the greatest guard to ever play at NU.
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He would have my vote. Held the NU points record until Shurna broke it. But B-Mac is the all-time assists leader and was a team captain when we finally went to the tourney and scored 25 against Vandy. I'm fine if someone wants to argue that it's B-Mac, I would just disagree.
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One thing about both Juice and BMac is that they were money from the free throw line when the game was on the line. I think Juice once made more than 30 in a row and we all remember BMac vs. Vandy in the NCAAs. Buie is a good free throw shooter but he has missed a few late in close games (almost cost us dearly against Rutgers, and I think he had a big miss vs. Pitt in that one point loss last year).
That's a good observation and a fair point. Buie is 76% from the line for his career, and B-Mac is 85%. That's a significant difference. Buie is shooting 80% this year so maybe he can continue to improve.
Juice set the conference tournament scoring record for in 2011, scoring 35 points against Minnesota and hitting 8-8 FTs.
My memory was of him making even more than that, but it’s probably that they were just bunched down the stretch.
He was a fun, fun Cat.
That was the season that NU won two NIT games before losing to Klay Thompson’s Washington State team. Klay had had a weed thing a few days prior and, if I recall, it was not know whether he’d play until morning of the game.
That was a great memory! Thanks for linking to the box score, crazy that we were starting Mirkovic AND Alex Marcotulio. Man, if Carmody could have ever just recruited a few solid rotation guys he would probably still be coaching in Evanston.
I watched Billy play, but I was a child and don't remember much about those days other than playing in the dirt and the jump pit behind the bleachers. I've heard great things about him and assume he was the best. I've only really been watching the cats consistently since about 1999, and in that time frame Juice is my favorite. He was too short to be effective in Carmody's 1-3-1 (if he was 5-10 I'm Andre the giant), but I liked everything about his game otherwise. I like BMac too, I'm not knocking him, I just like Juice more.
Choose your fighters:
2011 Juice-Marcotullio-Crawford-Shurna-Mirkovic (Cobb, Curletti off bench )
2017 BMac-Lindsey-Law-Lumpkin-Pardon (Taphorn, Skelly off bench)
2022 Boo-Audige-Roper-Beran-Nance (Young, Berry off bench)
2011 had the best offense we've had in the Kenpom era but couldn't play defense, 2017 had the 2nd-best defense in the era and the 2nd-best offense under Collins, and this year has the best offense under Collins but a middling defense. Who wins?
The 2022 team would have a 7 point lead on the 2017 team at the under 4 timeout, and then find a way to blow the game.
The 2011 team would lead the '17 gang by a point with under 2 seconds left, but Taphorn.......The 2022 team would have a 7 point lead on the 2017 team at the under 4 timeout, and then find a way to blow the game.
2017 is the most balanced and phyiscal team. Pardon/Lumpkin would feast on the boards.
Based on history (the good kind) NU ‘22 would probably give a mind-boggling foul in a tie game with <30 seconds left.The 2022 team would have a 7 point lead on the 2017 team at the under 4 timeout, and then find a way to blow the game.
I was at the 1977 upset vs Michigan, my sophomore year. That game just came out of nowhere, and was such a blast! I still remember the dust clouds that would come up as fans walked to their seats. Our new arena is light years more fun for watching a game.
Years later, I walked into my tennis club’s locker room, and as I turned a corner found myself staring at someone’s waist (I’m 5’9”). I looked up to see this guy putting on an NU sweatshirt. I had an NU t-shirt on, so I said, you played on our basketball team, right? He said, “Yeah, my name’s Luka Mirkovic,” and shook my hand. We then talked for another five minutes - real nice guy. He said he was back getting an MBA, although not at NU because it was so expensive!
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Was Cobb ever really healthy? In this scenario, he is a freshman who missed 7 games out of 34.