Sorry about paywall

@lou v talked to Jacob Schmidt, the executive director of TrueNU, Northwestern's NIL collective, about the impact of the Tennessee injunction that wipes out NCAA regulations on the use of NIL in recruiting.

Anyone have insight into this year’s squad. From the little I’ve read, it doesn’t look like a vintage year…..but maybe just a young group which needs some seasoning?

Kidding.

1. Isn’t this outside the window meaning they have to sit a year?
2. Is this an angry that Bates was cut or they heard footsteps … or they are concerned what discovery might reveal and jeopardize their student status?

Now that some of these cases are moving into discovery, I wonder what happens when NU counsel learns of allegations about student athletes in deps and rogs. Imagine it has to be reported to NU. At that point, based on sworn statements (rogs are under oath too) does the school investigate?

It’s an interesting dilemma: when the action hit last summer, it was late and these kids probably had little knowledge of how lawsuits work. Now, they have probably learned that lots and lots of depositions will be taken of current and former players. And that sworn testimony…could get them in a disciplinary proceeding at NU

If Bates was accused of knowing, wouldn’t be surprising for his group to be involved. And for him to be giving the warnings…..

Boy I hope there are some solid leaks from the deps….

Some other games worth watching tomorrow and Sunday as your anxiety level starts to increase:

Creighton at Butler - Creighton
Texas at Houston - Houston
Wisconsin at Iowa - Iowa
Kansas at Oklahoma - Kansas
Miami at BC - BC
Kentucky at Auburn - Auburn
Stanford at Washington St - Stanford
Georgia Southern at James Madison - Georgia Southern
Louisville at Pitt - Louisville
Colorado at USC - USC
FAU at South Florida - South Florida
Memphis at SMU - SMU
Rutgers at Minnesota - Minnesota
Utah at UCLA - UCLA

I'm driving up from NC just to see Billy honored Saturday. Here's an excellent bio on him....love the story about what he said to Jordan!

Good thing we have the Rock.

In beating Michigan, the Cats have now beaten every B1G team in the two season stretch of the 2022-23 season and the 2023-24 season, going 22-14 in conference in that period, 22-15 including the BTT.

The two teams that have gotten the better of NU in that time? Michigan (1-2) and Rutgers (1-2).
NU in that time has a winning record against:
Indiana (3-0)
MSU (2-0)
Wisconsin (2-1)
Purdue (2-1)
Nebraska (2-1)
OSU (2-1)

The Cats are .500 against Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Maryland and PSU (if you include the BTT).

I still enjoy the whining on the Indiana, Purdue and MSU boards after the Cats beat them, as they still regard NU as a bottom feeder and blame the refs and/or coach each time it happens.

Good luck to him with his future endeavors.

I missed this last week, but Edgy ran a story on 2026 DE McHale Blade (great name) from Hillcrest. He looks to be a big-time prospect, already 6-5, 230 as a sophomore. He's got seven P4 offers, including Miami. He says he's planning to visit NU this spring.

I talked to PWO long snapper Jack Florentine about his recruitment, his family ties to Northwestern, the Lincoln-Way East pipeline and more.

Can somebody who is more knowledgeable about basketball than me opine on how NU has suddenly become hyper dominant on the glass, especially the offensive glass? TO my eyes it looks like they're being more aggressive lately and Martinelli playing more has had a big impact, but is there anything more systemic or strategic they've done to suddenly become great on the glass? They generated an absurd shot disparity vs Michigan.

I talked to PWO long snapper Jack Florentine about his recruitment, his family ties to Northwestern, the Lincoln-Way East pipeline and more.

All games at Seat Geek and Wrigley and Soldier Field. No Lambeau.

Dartmouth College, Northwestern University, Rice University and Vanderbilt University agreed Friday to pay $166 million to settle a lawsuit that accused them and other schools of colluding to determine students’ financial-aid packages.

They were part of a group of 17 highly selective institutions that were accused in 2022 of illegal price-fixing; 10 now have settled or formally agreed to do so.

Dartmouth and Rice each will pay $33.75 million, Northwestern will pay $43.5 million and Vanderbilt will pay $55 million to settle the suit, according to filings made in an Illinois federal court Friday. The payments will be directed to a fund for students harmed by the alleged collusion.

The colleges were allowed under a federal antitrust exemption to collaborate on aid calculations, but only if they didn’t take financial need into consideration when reviewing applicants. They also couldn’t discuss aid offers for individual students. The suit alleged that the schools did consider finances in some circumstances, for instance giving an edge to children of wealthy donors or when selecting candidates from their wait lists.

The colleges worked together under what was called the 568 Presidents Group, a reference to the section of the 1994 legislation that provided the antitrust exemption. The arrangement allowed schools to avoid bidding wars for low-income applicants but also limited how much they could favor wealthy applicants to keep scholarship spending to a minimum. The exemption expired in fall 2022, and the group dissolved that November.

After a slow start shooting the ball, NU figured out how to attack the Michigan zone and pummeled the Wolverines 76-62.
Brooks Barnhizer bounced back from several subpar efforts and led the Wildcats to victory against an opponent that was missing its 2 best players and a decent big man.


Boo Buie and Ryan Langborg also played well.
Matt Nicholson only played 22 minutes, but NU thrashed Michigan 40-22 when he was on the court.
Barnhizer's block of a Reed dunk attempt was the play of the game, but Nicholson was impressive defending the paint.
Thanks to the referees for allowing the big guys to play basketball.

A noteworthy comparison... Our starters outscored Michigan 21-12 in about 11.5 minutes of action.
When Luke Hunger replaced Nicholson with the other starters, we got outscored 26-21 in 9 minutes of game time.

Of the two new faces, we put up a 23-14 advantage when Blake Smith was playing his 14 minutes. With Justin Mullins, we "won" 14-12 in 6.5 minutes.
Mullins didn't play in the 2nd half, but Smith sure as hell did. He was out there with the starters (subbing for Martinelli) when NU went on a 12-3 run immediately after Michigan had re-claimed a 44-43 lead in the 2nd half. He later subbed in for Barnhizer for two minutes and NU won those segments 4-2.

Count me among the many who wished Collins would have put the subs in with 2 minutes left and a 20 point lead.
Injury risk to the starters... Bench guys, especially Preston, deserve to get some playing time... not the best sportsmanship... risk of getting smacked by Howard... not sure what the upside was.

Nice win for the Cats, although it should be taken somewhat with a grain of salt because Tschetter was sick, McDaniel isn't eligible for road games and Nkamhoua just broke his arm.

Now for some rest and physical recovery before the final push.

I’m calling Bradley Gombers out of Central Catholic a “jumbo athlete”…can play TE or OLB. Not sure how NU is recruiting him.

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I did not catch much of their win over a good FAU team last night at the Jimmy V, but they put up 98 (and gave up 89). Domask, the transfer from SIU, put up 33 on 71% shooting.

I look forward to our matchup with the Illini and their coach Mr. Redass. I think we can match up pretty well defensively, though it probably means a bit less Big Matt and a bit more of Hunger and Preston. The guy who worries me on that team (vs. NU) is Shannon, who is a huge guard. Hawkins is another guy who can cause matchup issues.

We probably will need to score 80+ to beat these guys. We are capable of that.

Let the guys rest up for the homestretch. Hope Boo OK. And we can all watch a lot of other Big Ten games without undue stress just rooting for upsets etc.

Then utterly nerve racking (but fun) for the next 30 days (and hopefully more) after that.

Reportedly the top five NIL earners are:
1. Shedeur Sanders, CO $4.7M
2. Arch Manning, TX $2.8M
3. Travis Hunter, CO $2.3M
4. Quinn Ewers, TX $1.9M
5. Jalen Milroe, AL $1.6M

College sports is a whole new ballgame.

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Loved this before with the Tyrell Sutton-era teams could sometimes get them to natty.


$600/player great.

Was at the game tonight, got sweet pics and videos of the record breaking play and celebration after the game. When i sent my dad a video of Boo dancing after the celebration, he said he was surprised after Boo got stepped on so hard towards the end. I had no idea anything had happened!