ADVERTISEMENT

I’m just proud

This team BATTLES. Down two starters against an experienced team pretty much intact after going to the final four last year and still find a way.

Everyone played a part today. Borg gets MVP, but Boo and Barnhizer played HUGE roles too.

It may get ugly Sunday (just being realistic), but I’ll go in hopeful cause that’s what fandom is about. Even if we lose by 50, I’ll be proud of these guys. They fight hard.

And that OT was PERFECTION. Reminded me of the 3rd quarter of our Holiday Bowl win over Utah. It all went right.

Don't Sleep on FAU

First off, we were clearly destined to play in Brooklyn based on the theme of the previews this year:
Login to view embedded media
That being said, while Lou and others have already started putting together some previews on FAU, I'm gonna do my thing here.

Interesting fact #1 about FAU: They are #1 in the country as far as minutes continuity - meaning they returned literally all but one player from last season's surprise Final Four team, and have replaced him with a player who was on the roster last year. No freshmen have seen any minutes for them this year.
Interesting fact #2: They haven't played a team as good as NU since December 23, when they beat Arizona by 1 in a 2OT neutral-site game. They have played 5 top-70 Kenpom teams this season, all at neutral sites, and went 4-1 with the lone loss to Illinois by 9.

Terrifying fact #1: They appear to play much better under the brightest lights. For whatever reason, they slept-walked through a large part of the conference season. They started off the year going 9-3 against the spread, but then had their own Chicago State, in a loss at FGCU that occurred the game after beating Arizona, which was the start of them failing to cover the spread in 7 straight games and 13 of their next 17. Their top players all shoot better against the best teams they've faced than against the rest of their schedule.

Now, on to the player previews.

We start with the star, Johnell Davis. One of the best shooters in the country at all three levels, and an excellent rebounder at his 6'4" size as well. He's not quite a point guard, though his assist% is the highest on the team. He's one of only 4 players in the NCAA tournament that plays >30mpg, shoots >45% from 2, >40% from 3, >85% from the FT line, a steal% of >2.0, and has a usage rate of >25%. Offensively, he's incredible, and he drives the team. Against the top 5 teams they played this year, he averaged 21.4 points per game on 56% shooting from 2, 56% shooting from 3(!) and 92% shooting from the FT line, along with 7 rebounds per game. If he does have one weakness on offense, it's that he's turnover-prone against top teams. He averaged 4.2 turnovers per game against the top 5, compared with only 2.2 turnovers per game against the bottom 23 teams. He will be a handful. Oh, by the way, another one of the 4 players mentioned above is Boo Buie.

Next up, Alijah Martin. A burly 6'2" guard who's taken a small step back this year. Last year he was the clear second man for FAU, this year he's taken a bit of a back seat to the large Russian. Regardless, like Davis, he's played his best against the best teams they've faced. Martin is a pure shooting guard; he takes the most threes of anyone on the team - 6/game, though only making 34.8%. He's a terrible midrange shooter, but pretty good at the rim and will try to dunk it if he can. He's the best defender on the team, averaging 2 steals/game against the top 5 teams they've faced.

Brandon Weatherspoon is another shooting/wing guard at 6'4", and the first one who has struggled more against the better teams. He's more of a three point specialist, but only shooting 26.7% against the top 5 teams and 32.3% against the top 10. The rare times he does shoot a 2 though, he's nearly automatic. Fortunately he only takes two of those per game, as he's one of a trio of guards that rarely shoots. He's also a solid defender.

Jalen Gaffney rounds out the starting guards. After playing 3 seasons at UConn, he transferred to FAU after seeing his minutes diminish. Last year, he played more of a backup PG role late in the year and in the tournament, as his shooting numbers were awful. This year, he's having the best season of his career, and - stop me if you've heard this already - he's played his best games against the toughest competition. Against the top 5 teams, he's scored 13 points per game on 50% shooting from 2 and 60% from 3(!), while averaging 5 assists against 0.8 turnovers per game. In the other 28 games he's played, he averages only 4.5 points per game on 46.7% from 2 and just 32.6% from 3, with only 2 assists against 0.9 turnovers per game, so hopefully we get the worse version of Gaffney on Friday.

To round out the starting lineup, we have Vlad the ImpOwler (sorry, sorry, I'm trying to delete it). Coming from the hinterlands of Russia, he played his first season in the hinterlands of Lubbock, Texas at Texas Tech before transferring to FAU. Standing tall at 7'1", on a per minute basis, he is the top scorer on FAU. His problem has been being able to remain on the court, especially against the top teams. Against the top 5 teams, he averages 4.2 fouls per game. In all other games, only 1.9 fouls per game. When he has faced a team with a starting center that's 6'10" or taller, he averages 13.8 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks. Against starting centers 6'9" or shorter, he averages 17.3 points, 6.3 boards and 1.5 blocks. He is an incredibly efficient scorer both at the rim and in midrange, but does not shoot 3s. He also draws a ton of fouls like some other center we've faced this year whose name I'm not going to mention, and much like that center, he's a mediocre FT shooter, at about 65%. He's also an excellent shot blocker. Really wish we had Nicholson for this one.

To the reserves we go. First up, Nick Boyd, who was a starter for the first 3 games before getting injured, then started another 11 conference games in a row before moving back to the bench for the last 7 games. Boyd is a 6'3" guard whose game is similar to Martin's and Weatherspoon's, so there's not much to add here.

Next, we have 6'0" Bryan Greenlee, who played garbage time minutes for the Gophers in 2020 before transferring to FAU. Similar to Boyd, he started the first 4 games before being benched in favor of Gaffney, but then returned to start the same 11 games in a row that Boyd did, before returning to the bench aside from a start on Senior day. Greenlee hasn't recovered the shooting touch he had last year when he was a 41.2% shooter from 3, as he's only making 34.2% this year. He's pretty average.

Giancarlo Rosado is the backup center at a hefty 6'8" 247 pounds. He was playing 15.4mpg before he got hurt in the middle of the season and missed 7 games. Since his return, he's only playing 9.7mpg, which is good for FAU because he's pretty terrible in all areas except, oddly, assists. In the last 9 games, he's only averaging 2.4 points, 1.4 boards, 1.1 assists and 0.9 turnovers compared to 7 points, 4.1 boards, 1.6 assists and 1.4 turnovers. We'll need to really attack them when he's on the court.

The last member of the rotation is Brenen Lorient, who is the only FAU player that didn't see the court during the NCAA tourney last year. He only averages about 8mpg, mostly in a PF role, though occasionally will play center. He's shown some good rebounding and shot blocking skills in his limited minutes, but not a whole lot offensively.

Stylistically, the two teams are pretty different. FAU is content to play out possessions on defense and wants to force teams to beat them off the dribble, as their A/FGM ratio is the lowest of any team in the tourney, while we like to force teams to pass it around hoping to get them to make a bad pass that we can steal. On offense, they like to go fast, so we need to prevent the transition opportunities and force them to play in the half court, and they like to crash the boards, but hopefully our height at the other four positions outside of center can prevent them from getting second chances. Meanwhile we're content to go slow and run our offense until we can get an open 3-point shot or Boo does his thing.

I don't know how this game is going to turn out. Interestingly, our defense has been significantly better away from home while our offense has been significantly worse. My hope is that Boo does what he's done all year when the attention is at a peak and balls out, Brooks and Martinelli combine to shut down Davis, 'Borg does his thing and repeats his tourney performance from last year, and a strong pro-NU crowd gives us the boost we need to get to the finish line. I'm ready to enjoy it though, however it shakes out.

Don't sleep on the Owls.

The Big Ten's All Transfer Team

Here are the players who were recognized by Big Ten coaches...

PlayerTeamAwardPrior TeamPrior Conference
Boo BuieNorthwesternFirst Teamn/a
Zach EdeyPurdueFirst Teamn/a
Terrence ShannonIllinoisFirst TeamTexas TechBig 12
Marcus DomaskIllinoisFirst TeamSouthern IllinoisMissouri Valley
Braden SmithPurdueFirst Teamn/a
Jahmir YoungMarylandSecond TeamCharlotteAmerican
Tony PerkinsIowaSecond Teamn/a
Tyson WalkerMichigan StateSecond TeamNortheasternCoastal Athletic
Keisei TominagaNebraskaSecond TeamRangerJUCO
AJ StorrWisconsinSecond Team
Saint John's
Big East
Kel 'el WareIndianaThird TeamOregonPac 12
Payton SandfortIowaThird Teamn/a
Dawson GarciaMinnesotaThird TeamMarquette, UNCBig East / ACC
Rienk MastNebraskaThird TeamBradleyMissouri Valley
Brooks BarnhizerNorthwesternThird Teamn/a
Ace BaldwinPenn StateThird TeamVCUAtlantic 10

There are 16 players listed - the best 16 guys in the league. Ten started somewhere outside the Big Ten.
Six players were recruited out of high school - two each by Chris Collins, Matt Painter and Fran McCaffery...

This is Boo’s weekend

If all goes right, and as expected, by Sunday, Boo will spend four days as the most popular athlete in America.

I am so excited for what’s possible.

We are all lucky to share the air with this Wildcat legend. I’m excited to see and especially hear all the purple in Brooklyn.
Go Cats Go Cats Go

(If all does not go well, we’re still lucky. How exciting.)

2023-24 NET ratings thread

The first 2023-24 NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings have been released. NET is the primary formula used by the committee to determine tournament participation and seeding. All games are divided into quadrants, and the number of wins and losses in each quadrant is important, with Quad 1 wins being particularly helpful and Quad 3 and 4 losses being particularly harmful. I'll update this every week with NU's status.

NU has debuted at #48 in the NET ratings. That's bubble territory, but our current resume would definitely have us in the tournament, just probably on a lower seed than last year.

QUAD 1 (1-1)
H #5 Purdue - W
N #40 Mississippi State - L

QUAD 2 (1-0)
H #42 Dayton - W

QUAD 3 (2-0)
H #77 Northern Illinois - W
N #192 Rhode Island - W

QUAD 4 (2-0)
H #240 Binghamton - W
H #265 Western Michigan - W

Obviously the Purdue win is going to be a huge part of our resume going forward, and we have no bad losses in these first 7 games. This week features a Quad 4 home game against a dreadful Detroit Mercy team.

Article by Boo on TrueNU

Unintentional rhyme by me there

Practice session at Barclays

We’ve got about 50 people in the stands. Energy from the team seems really good. Barnheizer making all his threes from what I can tell and Nicholson has gone full “mob boss” with the tracksuit and undershirt 😂. Let’s go ‘Cats!

Also, if you still haven’t bought tickets… if you can afford it I highly recommend going first level. The second level looks STEEP.

Is it time to book vacation days in March?

I’m very tempted to lock in March 21st and 22nd as vacation days. Should I do it?

The only spots that I won’t be able to make work are Spokane, Utah, and Omaha.

If we land in Brooklyn, Indianapolis, Charlotte, or Pittsburgh, I’m going to plan to attend live.

Memphis is a maybe.

And if we somehow miss the dance… I’ll be able to watch all the games from my comfy schmumfy couch.

Should I book the days off from work and life this early?

Purple turnout in Brooklyn

Anecdotally, I know a lot of people going to the game on Friday, and we have a pretty big NY/northeast fan base overall. I think we will have a very solid turnout! If I had to guess, it’ll be smaller than the epic turnout of Salt Lake, but could be on par with Sacramento (which was strong), or even better.

If we can get past FAU, we will need every voice we can muster in the next game…but first thing’s first.

OT: Sports Illustrated is dead

The entire staff has been fired.

Sign of the times, I guess. But that’s a brand that should’ve been too strong to die.

Getting *my* subscription with *my* name on it when I moved to NU felt incredibly adult. Read it cover to cover just about every week.

I wonder how long SI Vault will remain.
ADVERTISEMENT

Filter

ADVERTISEMENT