Don’t leave out the “get your VCRs rolling” guy who had a stiffie for Mohamed Hachad?
I loved having Hachad on the team but he suffered getting caught up in the backwash from the guy’s constant shilling.
Will Chris Collins roll the dice?
- Thread starter PurpleWhiteBoy
- Start date
I loved having Hachad on the team but he suffered getting caught up in the backwash from the guy’s constant shilling.
So are you going to get his minutes from? Nance? Young? Last night Nance had 22 and Young 15. Nicholson clearly was not ready to justify giving him minutes last year and this year while he is better, still not worthy of more than he is getting when there are already not enough minutes for Nance and Young. This year 2-5. Next year hopefully 10-15 with Young moving up to 25 and the following two years ready to start with 20-25 minutes. Bigs are notorious for taking longer to develop. Often they added inches over a short period and it takes time to learn to get it all under control. That is why WIS set up the program they did and they were quite successful at it. Nicholson was brought in as a project.
If he does not get minutes next year and Hunger does, it will be because Hunger is more advanced as a true Frosh than Nicholson with 2/3 years in the program. But more than likely they will want to RS Hunger as they would have two 5s in Young and Nicholson ready to play. The following year we would then have Hunger and Nicholson. Injuries could change the program just like they could this year but that is likely the plan.
Even Pardon was origninaly scheduled to RS his Frosh year till injures to other 5s forced him into the lineup. And even though he showed well, we still would have been better off if he had not been forced into the lineup by injuries. By the way. Look at Young's development. Solid player at this point but we did not see him as a Frosh. Allow them the chance to develop Nicholson
Again he is not at the point that he deserves more minutes than he is getting as we have the luxury of two solid guys for the 5. You have not seen him in practice and Collins and company have shown that when guys deserve the minutes and they are available, they get them. And I would trust them in seeing guys every day long before I would you
When will you get it that FD game isn't just about beating FD and getting the 12 man extended minutes. It is about preparing the team to play the teams coming up on the schedule. If we only had one other 5 on the roster he would not be the 12th man and might get minutes but since we have 2 the minutes are not there. If no one else was getting minutes other than the starting 5, but that is not the case as the team is getting 15 plus minutes to 9/10. When they are ready to contribute, they get minutes. Nicholson does not warrant them yet as there are two guys ahead of him and he has not shown that he deserves them yet. It is about more than just being a tall guy on the roster
I will repeat the logic for getting Nicholson into games now.
Pete Nance is our best player and a natural power forward.
Ryan Young is our 2nd or 3rd best player and a natural center or 5.
The team performed much better last year when Young was at the 5 and Nance (or Beran) was at the 4.
Don't argue otherwise, that is a fact.
That means we should be playing Nance and Young together a lot. Most people with a basketball IQ seem to understand that. You play your best players.
There will be times when those guys have foul problems or get tired.
Nance's backup is Beran, a less talented player who is built the same, a natural 4.
Young's backup is ????
REBOUNDING is the primary predictor of success in the Big Ten.
So there should be some urgency to getting Nicholson ready to help.
It should have happened last year during those games where we were down 20 with 5 minutes to play.
Pete Nance is our best player and a natural power forward.
Ryan Young is our 2nd or 3rd best player and a natural center or 5.
The team performed much better last year when Young was at the 5 and Nance (or Beran) was at the 4.
Don't argue otherwise, that is a fact.
That means we should be playing Nance and Young together a lot. Most people with a basketball IQ seem to understand that. You play your best players.
There will be times when those guys have foul problems or get tired.
Nance's backup is Beran, a less talented player who is built the same, a natural 4.
Young's backup is ????
REBOUNDING is the primary predictor of success in the Big Ten.
So there should be some urgency to getting Nicholson ready to help.
It should have happened last year during those games where we were down 20 with 5 minutes to play.
Nance plays 4, plays 5 for 5 to 8 minutes. Young plays 5 for 28 minutes. Nicholson plays 5 for 5 minutes. I thought saying MN getting minutes depended on Young and Nance playing together made my view obvious. As it is, MN will not play in meaningful games.
It’s difficult because some of us have eyes and watch the games. Unless there is significant injury, MN will not play meaningful minutes this year. This will not change no matter how many times you post that he should.
Here is a fact MN is NOT a big ten player right now. No way no how. Quote the BS minute argument all you want. We are worse with him on the court. I hate doing this, because I want all of our guys to do well and I hope MN stars his last 2 years. If MN becomes a main cog in the rotation, PWB and the rest of the people supporting this ridiculous argument will get their wish of CCC getting canned. He is NOT ready. Anyone with any type of BB IQ can see this! Williams is way better today. This is just another way to ***** about CCC. If CCC pays MN 10 minutes a game, I will lead the torches and pitchforks crowd for his dismissal. CCC owes it to his players to do his best to win every game not at the expense of attempting to develop a player. Nance cares about this year, do your best to win this year. Any non -Fanboy that has been on higher level teams understands this. You play the game to win! Sick of this BS week after week.
Hey, there’s an, albeit short, opinion from you on the free basketball board!
Kudos to you on posting, or liking, based on more than being childishly triggered by anything PWB says. Growth!
If you put Matt Nicholson in a 6 foot semicircle under the basket against either Robbie Beran OR Elyjah Williams, Nicholson would presumably outplay them both.
Thats the job we are talking about. Rebound. Defend the post. Score once in a while. Slug it out with Cockburn, Dickinson and Edey and the other beasts of the Big Ten. Put a body on them. Foul Cockburn. For 5-6 minutes, as needed. Thats what backup centers are supposed to do.
Purple Pile Driver, I'm disappointed in you. Why are you so desperate to keep Nicholson on the bench? Give him some minutes with Pete Nance or Robbie Beran and see how it goes. There is nothing to fear! New Jersey Tech won't beat us! Prairie View won't beat us! If we are getting smoked by Michigan, put Nicholson in there. Save Nance and Young for another game... its really just common sense.
I'd love to sit in on some of our practices. Maybe somebody has... I just envision Coach Collins running scrimmages of Nance, Beran, Buie, Simmons and Berry against Young, Williams, Roper, Greer and Barnhizer over and over, reinforcing his belief that Young should sit on the bench because his team keeps losing.
And when he subs Nicholson in for Young, its even worse!!!
Rebounding wins in the Big Ten.
Thats the job we are talking about. Rebound. Defend the post. Score once in a while. Slug it out with Cockburn, Dickinson and Edey and the other beasts of the Big Ten. Put a body on them. Foul Cockburn. For 5-6 minutes, as needed. Thats what backup centers are supposed to do.
Purple Pile Driver, I'm disappointed in you. Why are you so desperate to keep Nicholson on the bench? Give him some minutes with Pete Nance or Robbie Beran and see how it goes. There is nothing to fear! New Jersey Tech won't beat us! Prairie View won't beat us! If we are getting smoked by Michigan, put Nicholson in there. Save Nance and Young for another game... its really just common sense.
I'd love to sit in on some of our practices. Maybe somebody has... I just envision Coach Collins running scrimmages of Nance, Beran, Buie, Simmons and Berry against Young, Williams, Roper, Greer and Barnhizer over and over, reinforcing his belief that Young should sit on the bench because his team keeps losing.
And when he subs Nicholson in for Young, its even worse!!!
Rebounding wins in the Big Ten.
Just because the best teams in the BiG had the best rebounding margin last year (not sure about other years - may be an anomaly - have you checked that?), does not mean we should play any/all 7-footers. Unbelievably faulty leap in logic.
PwB, I am not desperate for MN to stay glued to the bench. I just want CCC to develop the team the best he can for this season. I just don’t believe MN playing against NJIT helps us this year. He could come in today to give 5 fouls to Kofi in 10 minutes. Certainly, playing in blow outs makes sense. However, I don’t see a defensive stopper in the making from the limited time he has played. He is the definition of Raw.
I agree with you about rebounding. I also believe this not an area of strength for NU. However, I don’t agree that MN is a difference making in this regard THIS year. When, Young came in after his Red Shirt year, you could see right away that he would help NU win games. Obviously, Pardon contributed right from the start after a planned RS year was derailed. MN is nowhere close to those two at the same stage of their career. Why would CCC not play his biggest player when I am sure even he acknowledges we are likely to be out rebounded against better competition? To me the answer is obvious, he is not quite ready. My hope is MN learns from banging with Young in practice to be a contributor next season. I don’t know MN and I am not at practice. I am sure MN works hard and it’s difficult for him not to be in the rotation. However, all is not lost and he has time to develop. I don’t think most are writing MN off at this time, but they see he needs time.
I am sick of losing. I believe giving minutes to the other players better prepares us to win games this year. The margin of error is very low for this team. We don’t out talent most B1G teams. As you know, I started the season predicting fewer B1G wins than you and many others. I have liked the way this team has played in every game. Boo looks good. Berry has taken a big leap, Williams will be valuable in many games. Roper and Simmons are B1G players that will improve with more experience. Pete his now unquestioned Leader and I Believe our former player that transferred out will be addition by subtraction. Have to remain healthy and then we have a shot to get close to the middle of the conference. Then this is at minimum a bubble team.
Most people with basketball IQ understand that basketball is not played in a 6 foot radius around the rim. Also I’m not sure MN would be better than them at rebounding either. He needs a lot of work to give NU quality min. This is fine he’s a young big and has time to build a B1G body and to work on the skills necessary to succeed.
He doesn’t have the athleticism that others have so he’s gonna really have to hit the gym hard. (Idc are much he weighs dudes not strong enough). He needs to work on post work, rebounding, and outlet passing. He also needs to get more comfortable and that can all be achieved in practice. He has the size and he’s not a horrible athlete so there’s potential he’s just a project
Guys don’t develop in games. It’s not like he has all the ability and there’s mental hurdles that game min can help. He needs to work on his game period.
This will probably be my last post about MN for a bit. I’m tired of the board being filled with posts about the last scholarship guy off the bench.
So we are both fans, we both want success for the Cats, we both suffer when the Cats lose 5 games in a row, not to mention 10... I like our team... I think we "could" make the tournament this year. Our chances of doing that improve if Nicholson gives Collins some decent minutes and more options in the frontcourt.
In other words, my hopes for Nicholson are just that - hopes. He is not the drooling, plodding baboon that his detractors want to make you guys believe. I think he has talent and size that can benefit us and would like to see it developed.
Just for fun, I looked at our player stats thru 4 games...
Points per 40 minutes
Pete Nance 32.0
Ryan Young 32.0
Matt Nicholson 24.0
Boo Buie 20.0
Ty Berry 15.0
Casey Simmons 13.9
Robbie Beran 13.6
Elyjah Williams 9.3
Rebounds per 40 minutes
Matt Nicholson 16.0
Pete Nance 15.1
Ryan Young 10.5
Elyjah Williams 8.7
Robbie Beran 8.0
Nicholson and Nance are tied in shot-blocking with 4 per 40 minutes.
He and Ryan Young are shooting 75% from the floor.
On the other side of the coin, Nicholson leads the team with 8 turnovers per 40 minutes!
Nicholson leads the team with 12 fouls per 40 minutes!
Kid's a natural born leader.
Okay…you’re definitely trolling. I get it now. Thanks for clarifying. I’m done playing along as well.
Just having some fun with the actual statistics so far, Call it "trolling" if that makes you feel better. I just thought it was funny, given the "Don't let the big kid play" campaign.
This is a year we have built toward. NU is potentially a bubble team because of the depth that we have and Nicholson has not worked his way into that depth. He came in as a project and while he has made some progress, not enough to be in the mix for significant minutes. This is not to say he won't get there but if other guys remain healthy, it will likely be more next year and beyond. Nance and Young are getting the minutes because at this point, they need them for development.
You're dreaming. In a game situation, he is not really playing against the positions that Williams or RB play. The guys he would be playing against are the likes of Nance and Young and both would eat him alive (as they likely do in practice). And in general, the job of a 5 is not necessarily to rebound but to block off guys so others can get the rebounds and in the limited minutes we have seen from MN, he is not really there defensively or blocking out.
James has shown he is pretty adept at developing BIGs so I for one, trust he will get the job done with MN as he has in the past. When MN starts getting the job done in practice we will start seeing him more in games.
The next three games are against P5 type opponents. That is what the first 4 games have been setting up for. They were important to get guys into game condition and get used to playing with each other and get down figuring where guys are and timing and that is a heck lot more important than getting 20 minutes for the 12th man
Last year was a RS year so he was not going to get those minutes you suggest If you consider Nance and Young to be a couple of our best payers in a year that we should be reasonably good, practice time against them will help him develop a lot more than minutes against a low level opponent
And he would be playing against Nance and Young and getting eaten alive.
As far as Williams not being as good as Beran, he is just getting to know his place on this team. He has a record of having scored 1000 points so once he figures thing out and starts reacting rather than having to think, we should see something.
More like my campaign for Edward T. McCants. Mind you were it not for an off-campus incident, Edward T. McCants may very well have been a superstar for us, as his accomplishments as an All-American HM and Conference MVP would suggest. The Edward T. McCants saga goes down with the Rex Walters and company mass migration, and the Geno Carlisle transfer to Cal, and the Kevin Coble early retirements as situations (but not the Miller Kopp addition by subtraction move) that make you wonder what could have been for NU Hoop.
People also like to forget that I did not run a campaign for Hunter, but merely suggested that it wasn't a given that he would never see the field for us again as some so called experts aggressively asserted. In fact I said it was probable that he wasn't going to start. We were all wrong on that point (except for the Wrassler who may have been the only one prescient enough to make that prediction). But, at least I was not a pompous *** to suggest it would not be possible, and that anyone who suggested otherwise didn't know what they were talking about.
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There were some other minor defections, at least as promising supporting cast members: Nick Knapp (heart condition), Larry Gorman (myriad injuries - back?), Matt Moran (homesick), Ivan Tolic (other injuries).
What we will see is that Williams is not as good as Beran.
Takes some people longer than others.
We will assume that Nicholson gets to practice against Young and Nance.
Collins may also have him stand in a corner with a dunce cap on. We don't really know.
Young is at least "above average" at his position. Nance is a touch better at his position. I'd say at this point he looks like a "good" power forward in the Big Ten.
So we can safely assume that Nicholson gets outplayed (overall) by those guys in practice.
We can also safely assume that Beran gets outplayed by Nance. However, we don't know if Collins ever puts Beran against Nance. He may always pair them on the same side in scrimmages.
What we cannot assume is that Nicholson would get outplayed by most centers in the Big Ten.
All we know is that he's not as good as Nance and Young.
Yes we can assume that he would be outplayed by most centers in BIG. I would suggest all starting centers at this point
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