Sprinkle hire

Small personal connection: When I was a sportswriter for the Billings Gazette, Danny's dad, Bill, made a coaching stop at one of the local high schools and I got to know Bill. Also, later on when I wandered into the tech world, a young lady came up to me one day and introduced herself as Lacey Sprinkle, now Lacey Gallik, daughter of Bill and brother of Danny. She knew of me from my sportswriting days.

Should be interesting now that Washington is in the Big whatever. My wife and I plan to drive to Seattle in September to watch the Wildcats take on the Huskies in their league debut. We may want to catch a flight that way in winter to see how Danny does against CC.

My one real gripe about tonight is we did not take the air out of the ball and limit possessions.

I said it to the guy next to me… why are we not shooting under 10 seconds every time? Similar to Carmody’s game plan in games against super talented teams.

Would we have won if we did? Probably not because UConn is so talented but Chris not adjusting our style of play when we played an Uber talented “run and gun” team was a major coaching blunder. (And I admit I was wrong on him… he’s a great coach.)

Any updates on spring football practice.

Thank you Boo and well done Coach Collins.

This is just the beginning. Go Cats.

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I mean, maybe this is rationalization ... but to me, I think it's really a great reflection of where we are / can be as a program.

The national perspective about us last night -- certainly wasn't that we were overmatched, lucky, happy to be there, out of our element, a dream season etc.

It was this - a great program, great culture, a bit shorthanded, that played a bad half ... then showed what kind of program we were by how we played in the second half. That injuries kept us from being a potential Sweet 16 team. Certainly Coach Hurley's comments didn't hurt. Neither did beating Purdue, Illinois, Dayton, and Florida Atlantic, as well as Nebraska and Michigan State. We were a really good team that played 1 bad half. Not because we were scared, but because good teams can play a bad half against a tough opponent. (See Kansas, for example.)

But it's a really important national perspective to have that this isn't a 1 year flash in the pan. Only 14 of 362 programs have won first round games in both of the last two seasons. They've built something on the court - and all of you fans who live in the area have created a unique home court advantage.

We certainly lost but they were beyond awful. We’ve had bad officials all year but this was an abortion. UConn was able to get away with an insane number of fouls that go uncalled and we breathe heavy and it gets called. Disgusting.

UCONN is clearly very good, but we did ourselves no favors playing pretty poorly.

Nothing to lose second half, bombs away.

Northwestern's season came to a close with a 75-58 loss to No. 1 UConn. Here are our takeaways from tonight's game.

My story from Brooklyn.

Just kidding. They're obviously about to get a lot of rest. Glad they're keeping them in and letting them finish their careers on their own terms. It may not have been a great night, but I appreciate the fight.

I'm sure our NET rating dropped 3 spots. I hope we make it to The Dance.

OK, I will admit I am not a basketball expert, but has IL really beat anyone to glorify their advancement? You need to play who you are assigned but have they been challenged??

CBS wanted Duke in the top ratings slot so we get the truTV game.

Northwestern's season came to a close with a 75-58 loss to No. 1 UConn. Here are our takeaways from tonight's game.

What a fun season. What a fun, fun, fun season.

Thanks to Langborg and Preston for seeing their futures in purple.

Thanks to Brooks and Nicky for expanding their games.

Thanks to Hunger and Big Matt for bringing toughness every night.

Thanks to Berry for clearly shooting 500 threes a day over the summer.

Thanks to Blake and Justin for bringing the effort when given the opportunity.

Thanks to Clayton for fearlessly taking the court, even though he probably wasn’t ready.

And, of course, thanks to Boo for playing with an infectious joy, for coming up with creative ways to score, for truly earning a national spotlight, and for being my favorite Wildcat ever.

What a fun season.
It’s such a shame that the two injuries happened. While the team had enough guys to handle the loss of Berry, Nicholson is a truly irreplaceable presence. It was just too much.

It’ll be easy to think of what could have been — in mid-February, this team stared down the weaker part of the schedule with a chance to run the table and get ranked and take a four or five or six seed. But it was not to be, and they got dealt the toughest possible hand — assuming tonight goes as expected, three straight final four teams to start the tournament.

But, geez, I’ll just do my best to think of what actually was. A great home court advantage. McKinney’s jersey retirement. Overtime wins and losses. There’s a real joy to seeing pure domination at Indiana, no matter how strong or weak they are. Two all-timers against Purdue. Brooks with an all-time great finish in an all-time clutch moment.

This seemed impossible 16 months ago.

How about a top flight point guard transfer and another return trip next year?

Same as it ever was all year long. Team.played til the final buzzer and showed a lot of mettle in that 2nd half. Brooks went 6-6 in 2nd after 0-8 in the 1st. Langborg 5-7. Boo got going a bit but the double and triple teams were too much and a smart move by Hurley.

I'm so proud of this year's team and it was so great pulling for them. Overcame massive adversity to put themselves in this position. We need announcements from Matt and Ty they are returning and a stud PG from the portal and next year we'll have another chance to break through the ceiling. Go Cats!

No. 9 Northwestern (22-12) plays No. 1 overall UConn (32-3) in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Barclays Center. The game is scheduled to tip off at 6:45 pm CT and will air on TruTV.

UNC -- not impressed
Purdue (been there done that)
Any of the #2 seeds
(not Houston)

And even CT with Berry and MN.

Tonight is a tall order however. But that's why they play the games and hoping for a miracle aka the Herb Brooks/Chris Collins it's just one game.

I know they’re just a little state school from the northeast somewhere and they only beat Stetson by six in the second half yesterday, but if you look close you’ll see this is a strong team we shouldn’t take too lightly.

Northwestern is on to the Round of 32 for the third time in program history, set to face No. 1 UConn.

@lou v and I log our predictions for tonight's game.

Yale …poulagidis kid from Chicago reminds me of langborg let’s get him has 14 pts against good auburn team already

They kept shooting themselves in the head. Too bad we could not have faced them when they were playing like that

Last night, NU was assessed a flagrant foul based on video review, even though no common foul was called on the floor.

The exact same situation just happened in the Michigan State North Carolina game. North Carolina guy clocked an MSU guy, but was not assessed a flagrant foul nor was he called for a common foul.

Why the difference?