FYI...

‘Cats To Be Highlighted on NCAA March Madness Confidential


EVANSTON, Ill. – Northwestern men's basketball has been selected as one of six teams to be featured on NCAA March Madness Confidential. The Wildcats will be highlighted by crews from TNT Sports and CBS Sports, joining Boise State, Marquette, South Carolina, Tennessee, and UConn.

Production crews began embedding with the teams on Selection Sunday and will chronicle their NCAA Tournament journeys.

Throughout the Tournament, features will run across multiple platforms — including studio coverage across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV — with online distribution via the official @MarchMadnessMBB X and Facebook pages, @MM_MBB_TV, NCAA.com and TNT Sports and CBS Sports social media accounts.

CBS Sports and TNT Sports will provide live coverage of all 67 games from the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship across four national television networks — TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV — and via NCAA March Madness Live. Live games airing on the CBS Television Network will also stream on Paramount+. Live games airing on TBS, TNT and truTV will also stream on Max's B/R Sports Add-On.

This year's NCAA Men's Final Four National Semifinals on Saturday, April 6, and Men's National Championship on Monday, April 8, will air on TBS.

Northwestern (21-11, 12-8 B1G) opens play in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament against Florida Atlantic (25-8, 14-4 AAC) on Friday, March 22. Tip-off from inside Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. is set for 11:15 a.m. (CT) in a matchup that will air on CBS and WGN Radio 720.

I exchanged messages with 2025 CB Coleman Patmon about his offer from NU, setting an OV and his overall recruitment.

Thursday, March 21
Open Practice Day - Barclays Center
All eight teams will have a designated 40-minute time slot to practice and show off their skills in front of the public. In addition there will be food and beverage specials, fan experiences and more. This is a FREE event, open to the public!

11 - 11:40 a.m. Northwestern Open Practice

What a great piece. It’s this kind of work that makes me proud of the NU Athletics.

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Saw on CBS sports app that they have him expecting to play against FAU. Some quality minutes against Golden would really be a boost.

among the top 5 teams in the Tourney in terms of hitting shots from the arc (surprisingly, PU is as well); granted, Berry played a big role in that.

PU and UI are among the top 5 in O efficiency.

Any word yet where pre-game party us at on Friday?

Two final four teams in our group of 4 in Brooklyn.

Top seeded Connecticut awaiting in round 2.

Solid Illinois (unfortunately) and Iowa State plus another final four team in San Diego State.

Brutal especially for our undermanned squad but hey you never know.

Come on mod, where's the scouting report for FAU?

Big Russian dude, solid guard play, yada, yada, yada.

Board members want to know

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Got a weird email from the N Club yesterday which kinda sorta suggested we put pressure on the athletic department to do the pop up stadium idea on the lakefront.

In any case, I emailed Alex supporting the idea.

INTERESTING NU FOOTBALL 2024 SEASON HOME GAME INFO!!! Dear N Club Members: We are passing along an interesting piece of information to our N Club members as we wait to find out where our NU Wildcats football team will play its 2024 season home game as the new Ryan Field emerges from the quickly disappearing Dyche stadium footprint. It has been released from a few reliable sources (such as the following https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1765030434277093469?s=42) the possibility of constructing a temporary 15,000-seat stadium around the team’s lakefront practice field. The N Club is not taking a position on this concept, however we want to make our membership aware of this interesting idea that might give our Wildcats a home close to home while the new Ryan Field rises over Central Street. If you would like to share your support of this possibility, please send an email today with your reasons of support to Alex Knisely, the Director of NU Football Operations, at alexandra.knisely@northwestern.edu. We will keep you informed as the N Club learns more about the location of the 2024 football season home games, and look forward to providing opportunities for N Club members to gather in support of Coach Braun and the team wherever NU will play this fall. In the meantime, let’s root on our other NU teams, especially the NU Men’s Basketball Team in its upcoming B1G and NCAA tournament games!!! Go ‘Cats!!!

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😂

Boo Buie played valiantly but was not able to carry NU by himself, as Barnhizer and Martinelli struggled against the Badgers.
When Buie was injured and had to recover on the bench, the game began to get away from the Wildcats.
Collins replaced Buie with Langborg, but he quickly picked up his 2nd foul and had to re-join Buie on the bench.
That meant Clayton and Smith were out there together and Wisconsin immediately turned a 23-20 deficit into a 25-23 lead.
Langborg's foul problems limited him to 22 minutes, in which NU outscored Wisconsin 41-33.
When Langborg was on the bench, Wisconsin outscored the Cats 37-20.

Luke Hunger played a season-high 32 minutes and did fairly well, while Blake Preston appeared to injure his shoulder trying to block a shot.

Nick Martinelli played almost 30 minutes alongside Luke Hunger and we were outscored 50-32.
As has been noted here previously, the team tends to play better when Preston and Martinelli are on the court together (as opposed to Martinelli and Hunger).

Justin Mullins played 5.5 minutes after Langborg fouled out and didn't show much.

NU simply doesn't have the bench to afford anyone getting into foul trouble.

After a horrendous semifinal loss to 12-17 Temple in their conference tourney, you might wonder how did the Owls get in where a team like Indiana State did not. The answer: who they beat (which I believe is what lifted the Cats past the playin game). They beat Arizona, Butler, Va Tech, Texas A & M, Loyola and St. Bonaventure and that made up for a couple of bad losses. Meanwhile, Indiana State didn't have many chances for big wins like those but when they did, they got smoked by 31 at Michigan State.

These numbers look better.
With Luke Hunger staying out of foul trouble, Collins abandoned the small ball lineup that played 15 minutes against Michigan State and the Wildcats rolled over the Gophers.
Northwestern clinched an NCAA berth with a NET-improving blowout...


Ryan Langborg bounced back from a subpar effort in East Lansing to earn "Player of the Game" honors, with major contributions from Barnhizer and Buie and positive efforts from Martinelli and Preston.
Preston's 25 minutes were a season highlight for the grad transfer.

Mack Sutter talked to Rivals' Greg Smith about his substantial slate of spring visits. Sutter will visit Northwestern on April 9.

The 2026 class ranking has been expanded from 100 players to a full Rivals250: https://n.rivals.com/prospect_rankings/rivals250/2026

Ten highest debuts: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-ten-highest-ranked-debuts-in-the-rivals250

Adam Gorney goes position-by-position: https://n.rivals.com/news/tuesdays-with-gorney-new-2026-rivals250-released

Guy sounds like a helluva coach -

Here are the first few paragraphs, the rest is at the Athletic (linked)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Thirty minutes before Friday’s first-round NAIAnational tournament game, Jordan Mast discussed the scouting report one final time. The University of Antelope Valley coach went through the opposition’s starters. He detailed keys to victory. Mast, 37, paused. Written on the whiteboard behind him in green marker were five words: Who do you play for?

Over the past several weeks, this has been a complex question for Antelope Valley, a private, four-year, for-profit school with an undergraduate enrollment of around 500 in Lancaster, Calif. On March 8, the university closed its campus amid financial strain and lawsuits. There’s no plan for it to reopen, which has produced an avalanche of uncertainty. Antelope Valley’s six seniors will not graduate as planned, at least not at the school that graces their jerseys. The Pioneers’ younger players will not return. The coaching staff, like the rest of the university faculty, will be unemployed. About an hour before tip-off Friday at the Arizona Christian University Events Center, Mast checked his phone to see if his reduced paycheck had come through. It had not.

Just to get to this point, Mast and others raised $49,000 through a GoFundMe for his team, and the women’s basketball team, which also made the national tournament. The sixth-seeded Pioneers (26-4) matched up against 11th-seed Huntington (Ind.) in the Duer Quadrant. Despite the adversity, Mast’s team had closed the season remarkably well, winners of 10 in a row. But the situation had produced hardships. As the Pioneers finished practice Thursday, the University of Saint Katherine Firebirds, a team from the same conference, pulled up to the Arizona Christian gym in a bus. Mast and his team headed to four vehicles spread throughout the parking lot. Instead of renting a bus, the Pioneers spent $1,000 on an eight-passenger van and split the rest of their 18-person party among three cars. “I’m having players drive,” said Mast, who drove from Southern California as well. “Stuff you don’t want to be doing.”

SNIP

Inside the cramped locker room, Mast read the five words. “Who do you play for?” A former walk-on at Gonzaga, the coach wore gray pants and a light blue button-down with a dark tie. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. Mast talked in a booming voice, one that could be heard outside. “Every practice, every game, every time we had a meeting, every time we had individual (workouts), it has led you here, to now being a true team,” he said. He told the Pioneers to play for each other. To play for family. To play for the strangers who donated. Without them, there would be no national tournament. “When everybody else said, ‘Your season is over. This cannot happen,’ other people, people you don’t know, stepped up and said, ‘No,'” Mast said. “You know what? We’re still here. We’re not done. We’re going to keep this ride going.".

“That’s who you play for tonight.”

I'm only posting this for the sake of completion. I had to catch a flight the morning after the game and was away for the next 2...

NU really struggled to score... and Michigan State just looked thoroughly mediocre.


Langborg went 2 for 12 from the floor and presumably wasn't 100% physically. Had he made a couple more shots, NU takes this game and knocks the Spartans out of the NCAA field.
Collins played Martinelli at the 5 for 15 1/2 minutes. We got outscored 22-19. Luke Hunger picked up 2 fouls in the first 2 minutes and sat on the bench the rest of the half.

Barnhizer and Martinelli both put in good efforts.

WHAT IF WE DONT MAKE IT

Just kidding. Enjoy the selection show, everybody!

Bears definitely made the right move to, I would assume, draft Caleb Williams. Potential generational talent, consensus top pick just about everywhere, etc., etc.

But, I don’t know, it seems like Fields has more value than a draft pick next year, and that the Bears are making a mistake dealing him given the limited return. Keeping Fields as a backup and seeing if an injury increases the potential market would make a ton more sense.

Oh well.

My first one. Seems pretty cool. When they introduced the team, Matt came out with his leg on a little trike - big smile, very fun move.

Mostly want to bask in Mich misery until they hire a real coach to replace Angry Will Smith

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