We’re #9….and #149.
- Thread starter Dugan15
- Start date
Sounds about right for CCC.
It really is a real shame. Consistently tough defense and high effort year after year. Kids play with grind and get stops. They scrap their way into games they don’t deserve to be in and frustrate the hell out of their close matchups.
And their offense is such a consistent train wreck and mess that all that effort and grit goes for zilch.
My understanding is that assistant coach Chris Lowery is known for his ability to teach players how to play defense - according to his bio when he was hired. Since he is in his first season at Northwestern, he must be having an impact.
Some of it is simply the abilities of the players themselves... Verhoeven, Nicholson and Barnhizer have picked up the minutes that were devoted to Nance, Young and Greer last season. The 3 new rotational guys are all willing defenders.
But Berry seems to have picked it up defensively too.
If it holds up that this is CL's impact, it really shows how important it is to manage the staff as having complementary skills. It's early to tell, but signs are encouraging that our defense is solid.
Funny thing is that we did not add any athleticism. It's not like a completely different roster. Verhoeven is not exactly a beast. But that is how defense often goes, the difference is good habits, not breaking down at some point while on defense, not lose your player, good timing switching, good rotation, etc.
I think the defense goes beyond any individual factors or assistants that can be cited in any given year since it’s been a consistent attribute under CCC. He knows how to build a good defensive program.
Well, all we can really say is that, based on Ken Pomeroy's analytics, Northwestern has been better on defense than offense under Chris Collins. Sometimes, significantly so.
If you are a big Ken Pom fan, you have to be excited, because his numbers say this is the 2nd best NU team Collins has ever had, just a bit behind the team that won an NCAA tournament game.
On the other hand, he's got us rated 11th in the Big Ten.
That last sentence might be a hidden part of the CCC epitaph as well. It isn’t impossible some of these teams were among NU’s best ever (faint praise) but damned by absurdly strong competition in this conference. We’ll never really know…
One polite challenge to this comment. I am a kenpom fan, but it is (as best as I understand) indifferent to wins and losses, as compared to points for / against on a per possession basis. The “Luck” stat gets at this I believe.
I would argue that one could look at coaching skill if we are persistently “unlucky” and lose the majority of our close games.
Go ‘Cats!
Oh, that stat is OBVIOUSLY catching a clear deficiency that CCC has beyond the offense itself (in an offense based sport, no less). I’m not saying CCC is a good coach, I’m just saying it’s a bummer that he is consistently a GREAT coach defensively and it’s sad that even an occasionally good or decent offense every couple years would make for really good teams.
Where have NU’s teams ranked defensively recently? I feel like there was an ill-fated desire to go uptempo which also caused the focus on defense to lag.
Re: ranking within the B1G, I think it’s fair to note that KenPom’s lofty conference rankings have not typically borne out in March.
Re: ranking within the B1G, I think it’s fair to note that KenPom’s lofty conference rankings have not typically borne out in March.