Cats offer Michael O’Connell out of Glenbard West. He’s a big kid 6’7”, 270 lbs. Looks like we’re his first P4 offer.

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Sportsmanship? Disrespecting your opponent? Spitting in their face! Having your shooter intentionally step across the line and cancel the four post game gift fts would have earned Painter and Purdue international respect. Instead, they shat on our effort. I think they say "karma is a bitch!"
(This is a form of sarcasm)

Here's the story from Edgy...

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the thought of Schill and/or Gragg representing Northwestern’s best interests at these meetings.

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Landon Lauter is a local kid from Glenbrook North, just nine miles away from Evanston. He became the second PWO DL to commit to Northwestern this winter, picking the Wildcats over Illinois, SMU and other FBS walkon offers.

Northwestern (15-6, 6-4 Big Ten) is on the road at Minnesota (13-7, 4-5 Big Ten) this afternoon at 1 pm. The game will air on BTN.

Northwestern earned a commitment from three-star TE Zach Giuliano today, their third commit in three days. Here's our breaking news story on Giuliano, more to come from WildcatReport.

Northwestern will host some of its top 2025 targets on Saturday for an Elite Junior Day event in Evanston.

This is sort of a hybrid of a traditional Junior Day mass visit that other programs put on, and the smaller visit weekends that the program has favored in the past.

WildcatReport has learned that seven 2025 targets will be on campus, along with several 2024 preferred walkon prospects. Five of the 2025s have double-digit offers, and all of them have at least one Power Four offer. Northwestern has offered all but two of them -- but that could change this weekend.

Here is the list of visitors expected:


DE Austin Alexander

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Northwestern offer: Jan. 27

Total offers: 24

Power Four: 16



RB Gabe Fields

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Northwestern offer: No offer yet. One could be coming this weekend.

Total offers: 3

Power Four: 2



TE Zach Giuliano

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Northwestern offer: No offer yet. One could be coming this weekend.

Total offers: 16

Power Four: 14



OL Michael O’Connell

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Northwestern offer: Jan. 23

Total offers: 3

Power Four: 1



DE Caden O’Rourke

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Northwestern offer: June 20, 2023

Total offers: 14

Power Four: 8



DT Tommy Rupley

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Northwestern offer: June 29, 2023

Total offers: 9

Power Four: 7



RB Jonathan Stevens Jr.

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Northwestern offer: Oct. 1, 2023

Total offers: 12

Power Four: 3

Northwestern is getting straight to work on their Class of 2025, inviting Oswego (Ill.) linebacker Carson Cooney to a bowl practice and extending him an offer last weekend.

Can the cats come back and win on the road after an emotional loss against one of the best teams in the country??

This game will tell us a lot.

Northwestern is getting straight to work on their Class of 2025, inviting Oswego (Ill.) linebacker Carson Cooney to a bowl practice and extending him an offer last weekend.

Here are our takeaways from a tough loss for Northwestern at Minnesota.

One consistent problem has been going ice cold from the field in crunch time on the road. The guys are tired. Long minutes for the same guys is taking a toll. Home crowd can help energize them but the final stretches at Neb, Wis, Pur, Minn have been really rough. This “easy” back half of the schedule becoming very stressful. Nebraska at home becomes a big one, which is anxiety inducing.

Nebraska is a Q2 game at home and they’ve been terrible on the road. Then have to hold serve at home minus 1 and win at Rutgers and at Indiana. We can do it. We saw the team last year respond after crushing B2B Ls. But if we lose versus Nebraska… that would be a horrible sign. Regroup.

I’m a big fan after BB and MN. But he better start learning a better way to utilize his off arm on the drive. He looked like he hooked every drive.

In their shot and their premium club. The fear Him greatly.

I am thinking of heading up to Evanston this morning, any recommendations on NU apparel stores? I was always a Let's Tailgate guy but not sure since they sold.

Here are our takeaways from a tough loss for Northwestern at Minnesota.

the missed FT's in the 2nd half (and OT for that matter) have to be at the top of the list. We overcame 18 TO's to win at Penn State and were in line to do it today but some key misses down the stretch by Buie and Barnhizer really hurt. We led for almost the entirety of that game but still lost. Credit Buie for making the last two at regulation for sure, but some makes earlier in the last 4 minute stretch would've given us a bit more distance and helped with applying some extra scoreboard pressure. Barnhizer's miss inside the last minute of regulation to leave us up only 2 instead of 3 really, really hurt. Sure enough, Minny hits a 3 to take the lead. Hit your FT's and we win that game. Crazy that MN hit BOTH his FT's and we still ended up just 13-20.

I do not have confidence when either Barnhizer or Langborg go to the line. Both shoot very flat FT's that make it hard to go in unless it's a clean make. Buie is generally very solid with FT's down the stretch and actually Ty Berry is now automatic (which a good shooter should be). Berry didn't get to the line at all though so it was up to the others to shoot them and they didn't deliver.

It would be easy to be deflated after that PU game, but the MN game is just as important. It's hard to win on the road. They need those 12 wins

The barn is a great place to watch a game. The team was out of sync. Too many turnovers and Minnesota had a big that knows how to play.

There will be three more PWO visitors on campus this weekend, WildcatReport has learned. These are visitors in addition to grad transfer DT Hank Knez we reported in another thread.

Here's a look at the visitors:


2024 OL Jake Borcherding

We know all about Borcherding, the Iowa offensive lineman @mshelton33 wrote about last week. He will take his first visit to Northwestern since receiving his PWO offer from NU on Jan. 21.

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2024 DE Jack Trautmann

Trautmann is a 6-foot-3, 250-pounder from West suburban Elmhurst (Ill.) York. He had 41 tackles, 12 sacks and 20 TFL this season as the Dukes made a run to the Class 8A semifinals. He has picked up offers from some smaller programs like FCS Bucknell, Dayton and San Diego, and DII Truman State, as well as a PWO offer from Miami (Ohio).

He doesn't have a PWO offer from Northwestern as of yet but may pick one up today.

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2025 P Nikola Dugandzic

Dugandzic is from nearby New Trier, just a few miles north of Evanston. He's a massive punter, 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, and reports a 41.9-yard average on 41 punts, with 17 inside the 20. He also kicked 31 of 32 kickoffs for touchbacks.

This is a kid who could eventually earn a scholarship offer. We'll see.

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Can kiss my ass.

NFM

With the final FT disparity in yesterday’s game ending up 46-8, there has been a lot posted on this subject already. I think most of the emphasis has been on the 46, and too little on the 8.

First of all there should be a little clarification on how free throws did or did not help Purdue’s offense. Of the 46 free throws, I think you have to not consider the deliberate fouls and technicals at the end of the game. In the last 32 seconds, after taking a 2 score lead, Purdue made 9 of 10 free throws. The 4-4 technicals clearly were irrelevant to the outcome, and the 5-6 on the “we have to fouls” had nothing to do with how the game was called up to that point. Taking that into consideration, Purdue was 20-36 and NU 6-8 with 32 seconds to go in OT.

A really significant point is that the Purdue FT % at that point was 56. Their effective FG percentage was 66. For almost the entire game, Purdue lost points (about 2 total) by shooting free throws instead of field goals. NU, on the other hand, shot 75% from the line versus an effective FG percentage of 67%. They gained a little less than half a point on the possessions where they went to the line.

Purdue really did not gain by going to the line, but the Cats lost points by not going more. While the clear missed call on Berry in OT is the most obvious, just a few calls that would have sent Buie to the line could have changed the outcome. The real mystery is why NU did not get a few more trips either as and ones or on drives to the basket.

The other key point to consider is the effect of Nicholson fouling out. I haven’t gone back and looked at the specific calls on him. It is possible they were all correct. If they weren’t, his absence based on the +/- hurt the Cats.

The long and short of it is that the disparity of fouls whistled in Purdue’s favor is that PU did not go to the line too often and hence beat the Cats, but that NU probably went too little.

This game proves the cats can play with the best teams in the nation, even on the road. Purdue knows the cats can beat them, even in their building. There’s not a lot of teams that could’ve played Purdue that tough on their court, with that crowd. This was a tough game but the loss is ok and should pay dividends in the tournament.