But other than that, I got nuthin'. Chicago State came in losers of 25 of their last 26 Division I games; their only win was against current #320 KenPom Western Illinois, in overtime. They made all those threes because our defense simply allowed them to do so.....
Well, at least we didn't lose...
- Thread starter mikewebb68
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I thought our defense was excellent in the first half. It wasn't horrible in the 2nd half, they just hit some deep shots, though we did give up some easy layups.
Our offense was terrible. You can't shoot 42% (29% from 3) against a crappy team like Chicago State. We should be able to get layups and easy putbacks. And we should never get outrebounded 40-33 to a Chicago St.
Our offense was terrible. You can't shoot 42% (29% from 3) against a crappy team like Chicago State. We should be able to get layups and easy putbacks. And we should never get outrebounded 40-33 to a Chicago St.
Not what I saw. CSU were making NBA distance 3's with a hand in their face. There were a couple of defensive break-downs for NU leading to easy buckets but CSU were unconscious from 3. And NU shot really poorly for the most part.
BMac's play continues to be a major concern. Something is definitely wrong. Remember when Tre was struggling last year? He shaved his head and broke his slump. Maybe Bryant needs to shave his beard off to break out.....
Not what I saw. CSU were making NBA distance 3's with a hand in their face. There were a couple of defensive break-downs for NU leading to easy buckets but CSU were unconscious from 3. And NU shot really poorly for the most part.
BMac's play continues to be a major concern. Something is definitely wrong. Remember when Tre was struggling last year? He shaved his head and broke his slump. Maybe Bryant needs to shave his beard off to break out.....
I don't think he played poorly last night. Seven assists against zero turnovers.
He did shoot poorly again which I know has to be frustrating him.
I think his shot will come around. He just needs to keep doing the other things well until that happens.
When there is a big or huge game staring at you (e.g. Saturday night v. Dayton) and you are playing a Chicago State team who NU has beaten numerous times over the past 10 years, it is possible that NU's focus was not at 100 percent. It is called a trap game in football and probably basketball too. Now NU has a chance to get a quality non-conference win on Saturday which is critical to their post season chances. Good coaches will push their team in practice after a tight battle v. a team like CSU and get his team totally tuned in and focused for a huge opportunity game on Saturday. Will NU rise to the occasion? Hopefully, so but this is why it is so fun as fans and watching a talented team like this year's team is. The ceiling is high and we get to watch if the team reaches its potential and learns from its late game issues that it had v. Butler and ND.
NU should just stop scheduling CSU. They add nothing as an opponent and bring very few fans, if any. If your going to play a local school, then how about Loyola or UIC.
Completely agree with this. Just a pointless game, other than giving CSU a few dollars to fund their program.
I hear you about CSU, but if you live in Chicago you know that scheduling this game is more about doing a solid for a woefully underfunded school on the far southside that is trying to help an underserved community.
Totally agree..at some point you would hope that CSU becomes the cornerstone of a revival in that part of Chicago. W/o getting too political the budget shenanigans have hurt CSU a bunch,
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Why would UIC or Loyola be any better? Isn't it on par with any of the 8 or 10 dog out of conference games all schools schedule each year(Bryant, New Orleans etc.). Cupcake games are there to pad the win total and are devasting if you lose, whether it is CSU, brown or UIC - for a program like NU they aren't going to be pulling in fans in attendance regardless.
NU doesn't have to play CSU to the exclusion of the other local teams. Well, we always play DePaul, too, and we have played UIC on occasion, but we just about never play Loyola. They're the closest school, must have just about zero travel expenses, and we never play them. Why not?
What 7th Circuit said times ten.
CSU cut out spring break and all the holidays last year so they'd have enough money to offer seniors classes so that they could graduate.
This year's incoming class numbers less than 100.
And the governor of Illinois in his third year has yet to offer a budget.
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UIC did have some solid teams in the early 2000s, and they did beat us. They haven't been so good recently.
Loyola is in a solid basketball conference (MVC) and, although they're not UNI or Wichita State, they did win the CBI a couple of years ago and they have a solid team this season.
Agree with this entirely. Our cold shooting and slack rebounding worried me much more than the defense. Very few of the threes CSU was hitting were uncontested. It was just ridiculous. Total prayers. Desperation-type shots. Over and over. That won't happen very often.
Getting outrebounded by a much smaller CSU team--often when we had two or three guys in position--was an outrage.
This second half looked a little like the DePaul second half in that our guys just appeared a bit disinterested and just wanted the game to be over. Then CSU got energized and we struggled to match their intensity. Fortunately, we were just so much better that we could overcome all of that.
If we had lost,I'd be upset but I sort of like being able to beat a teams based on talent even when we are not mentally prepared.
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Agree totally with that. (Except for using "dis" instead of "un;" sorry) And that their prayer-shot prayers were answered in direct correlation with their intensity level. This seemed like an NCAA tourney game for them.
Thanks for bringing this up - I meant to say this earlier. The rebounding was the part that frustrated me in terms of effort, and the reluctance to push the ball upcourt on offense outside of a handful of occasions (mostly in early 2H when I'm sure they were fresh off a scolding from CC). On the boards, it seemed that Sanjay was the only one who was really fighting, everyone else bailed out deep on O or put in about 70% effort on D. It's not that we didn't try at all for loose balls, they just wanted them more, and they got most of them. There were a number of occasions where Sanjay would tip the ball in the air once or twice, then would be outnumbered 1 on 4 down there so CSU would end up getting it by force of numbers.
I'm with the group that thinks that outside of maybe ~3 easy buckets inside and I think 2 open 3s we didn't play bad defense. I mean we were a little bit slow to close out on some of those, but they were shooting from way deep, and most of them were still at least somewhat contested. They just got hot.
"At least we won"
(PS for those who mentioned us dropping in Ken Pom - that thinks we should have won this game by about 25-30 based on the per possession stats, and since we didn't, their rankings interpret it as about a 20 pt loss relative to where we were ranked before, hence we drop 7 spots. You can compare to NO, which we were expected to win by 20-25, and beat that by about 20 points, so rose I think 6 spots. It takes in all new data points and then tries to find the best values for all 351 teams that minimize the total error. That's an oversimplification, and obviously I don't know the specific details, but is roughly how their system works.)
My compliments to CSU. They fought hard to the end and put on a shooting exhibition. We were lazy in not going inside when our threes were not falling. Macs three near the end of the game was the kind of clutch shooting we need from him in a close game. Alls well that ends well. Bring on Dayton.
You guys are right about NU trying to help CSU out of their money mess. I lived in the city and remember well when they first opened and in fact know a guy o led their fund raising effort to build a new gym. In fact I have two distant relatives who were professors there awhile back. Maybe play them as an exhibition game and giving them the gate or guaranteeing a similar payout amount that they received yesterday. They need help, ASAP and maybe the governor will get off of his agenda and fund public schools and universities according to the state constitution.
Maybe they should sell the huge mansion in my neighborhood that the president stays in, and is really nowhere near the campus.
Couple of things......One I still contend that if all the CHicago teams worked together in one way or another it would help all the teams and make Chicago a hotbed of college basketball again.. Two LU did indeed get some attention including a top 25 vote from Feinstein. They have a nice team but small and some significant injuries like the Cats.....three LU and NU had a practice scrimmage this year....four it would be cool to have a game where everyone could take the L.......
They do a lot of 1 or 2 passes and then look for a spot up shooter - which is fine if they are hitting. Would like to see them work the ball more and not just on the perimeter. Inside game is suffering without Pardon.
It is clear that NU misses Dererk. I have not seen his "inside game" offensively however. He does a nice job with pick and rolls and running the floor on the break, but mostly scores off offensive rebounds. NU mostly misses his defensive presence and rebounding.
So the argument is that we shouldn't play them because they are so bad beating them (by 4?) doesn't do you any good? How is that different though than half of the non-conference schedule? Don't you need some supposed guaranteed wins to build confidence and your win total and give you time to work on things? I see no harm in playing CSU. If you want loyola, UIC northern Illinois etc why not replace MVSU, eastern Washington, Bryant etc.?
Eastern Washington and Bryant were part of the Legends Classic. Those tournaments often come with such games.
Also, worth noting that EWU's RPI is 81 right now. UNO's is 84. Bryant's is 155. On the other hand, DePaul is 183 and CSU is 247. I'd not be mad to excise MVSU from the schedule.
Coincidentally, Wake's is 13. That's looking like a big-ticket win. These standings will change in conference play, of course. And though plenty of folks don't care for RPI as a metric, it's still the lingua franca right now and merits attention.
I'm at a loss to find where I said anything of the sort in any of my posts.
I didn't mean to quote - was just trying to understand the idea (not yours) that scheduling CSU is not worth it
I think there are just too many games on the schedule. I like 18 Big 10 games. But I'd eliminate 4 OOC games, namely the ones scheduled just to guarantee wins. Get rid of weeknight games when school is on break (like last night). Give the players a chance to rest, go to class and stay healthy. At least during Big 10 play you only play 2 times in 7 days, and have one or two off dates scheduled. Why jam in all the OOC games? All you do with the extra easy OOC games is risk injury. No one enjoys watching them, as evidenced by the lousy attendance at most venues.
Why the extra games? I suspect it is for TV revenue as well as for the extra incremental ticket revenues. I think these games dilute the product and that the quality of play would be better if the player were fresher and not playing meaningless games.
I'm sure it is money - also gives these lower conference teams a payday to travel and take a loss. I think it makes even more sense in football to just play 12 big ten games each - gives you a better sense of who the real big ten champion is. Why do we need to see Illinois state or duke instead of Michigan or penn state.
Presenting a budget is the job of the legislature and Madigan has made sure it isn't happening
Part of the rebounding is understandable in that we were missing so many shots. But them getting as many O Rebounds as they did was troubling
The idea is to get to 20 wins and plying more games helps. Part of it is that the tourneys count as one game no mater how many you play and only allowed so many games. BTT is an example. Can play up to 4 games but only counts as one for allowable games. Used to only be allowed one of the preseason tourneys every couple years and now they get them each year.
Absolutely. Even rewatched it to attempt to identify the defensive breakdowns, of which there were many...
Shouldn't give up 64 points, imo, to a team that routinely scores in the 40s and 50s against D-1 competition.