Asking for a friend, as I hope there is no "renewal".

Northwestern (13-4, 4-2 Big Ten) hits the road for a Saturday matinee against Nebraska (13-5, 3-4 Big Ten).

The game is scheduled to tip off at 1:15 pm CT and will air on BTN. The Huskers are 11-1 at home, with a win over Purdue in their own right, and will head into the game as three-point favorites.

Here are our takeaways from Northwestern's 75-69 loss at Nebraska.

We will beat Nebraska on Saturday. And it won't even be that close.

NU is upper left, which is not where you want to be. It means NU has very few big offensive runs, and allows many.

Login to view embedded media
Maybe a negative indicator. Who knows? The lower right teams are objectively good ones.

Saturday at 1:15 pm in Lincoln. I hope the weird start time does not cause us to sleep on them.

The vaunted ESPN Matchup Predictor gives us a 37% probability of winning. That seems a bit less than generous. I think we match up well enough, but our perimeter defense will be tested. As another poster illustrated, they have several guys who can shoot the 3.

But no crazy athletic guard to torture us. Boo, Berry, Barney are all good perimeter defenders. Borg is capable too.

Nebraska will throw depth and length at us. 9 guys who average over 10 minutes. It is a veteran team too. Probably not going to do a lot of dumb stuff.

Nebraska has given up points in several games. I don't want to get into a shootout with them. We need Big Matt to grab more offensive rebounds, which should be possible if Mast is playing.

The NCAA got this one right:

—-

Miami tight end Cam McCormick confirmed Thursday that he'd be returning to play for the Hurricanes in 2024 -- his ninth season of college football.

McCormick, who began his career at Oregon in 2016, missed significant parts of four different seasons due to injury, which along with his redshirt year and the COVID year of 2020, allowed him to petition the NCAA for an unprecedented ninth season of eligibility.

McCormick announced his return on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday with the tagline "the pursuit of excellence has no goal line," calling 2024 his "last ride."

"I'm blessed that it was me to go through it because a lot of people would have folded under the pressure -- both mentally and physically," McCormick told ESPN. "But it's pushed me to be a better person and teammate -- everything. I've learned so much from every year and everything I've had to overcome."

Click to expand...

McCormick, 25, was originally a three-star prospect out of Bend, Oregon. He was part of the 2016 signing class at Oregon that included QB Justin Herbert, and a national class that included Nick Bosa, Ed Oliver, Rashan Gary and Jalen Hurts -- all now established NFL veterans.

McCormick redshirted as a true freshman in 2016 then played in 13 games as a reserve in 2017. Then came a string of injuries -- a broken leg in 2018 followed by complications that cost him 2019 and 2020, followed by a foot injury two weeks into the 2021 season. He was granted a sixth year of eligibility in 2019, had another added in 2020 when the NCAA gave an extra season to all FBS players.

In 2022, McCormick finally was able to play a full season, earning the Capital One Orange Bowl FWAA Courage Award for his perseverance, appearing in 13 games and making six starts. He was granted an eighth and ninth year of eligibility for 2023 before transferring to Miami where he was reunited with coach Mario Cristobal. He caught eight balls for 62 yards for the Hurricanes last season, but he had to resubmit his waiver to the ACC for the ninth year this offseason.

The ninth year waiver was approved by the ACC, and McCormick said it was an easy decision to return, noting that his goal is to play in the NFL and, "I want to say I gave it my best opportunity and best shot."

McCormick acknowledged that some critics have suggested he shouldn't still be playing, but he said he "isn't going to be cut short by what people are saying," and hopes his story will be an inspiration to other players battling injuries.

"I feel like my journey can help those that have to experience that," he said. "It's tough, but hopefully there's some inspiration there and guys who get injured can see my journey and dig deep within and keep pushing toward their goals and their future."

Surprised it took this long. LOL. Good for Preston, hope he made some cheese off this promotion.

Login to view embedded media

Huge thanks to the @westlotpirates guys for having me on!

ESPN has been caught in a scandal involving the creation of fake names for Emmy Awards in order to honor on-air talent who were ineligible to receive awards. The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), which oversees the Emmys, discovered the scheme and foiled it. According to The Athletic, ESPN had been operating this scheme since 2010, by obtaining awards for fake individuals, re-engraving the statuettes, and delivering them to their on-air personalities. Stars such as Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Fowler, Desmond Howard, and Samantha Ponder were among those who received the fake Emmys. However, the on-air talent was reportedly not aware that the Emmys were not real.

Here are our takeaways from this morning's media availability with Chris Collins, Ty Berry and Boo Buie.

Here are our takeaways from this morning's media availability with Chris Collins, Ty Berry and Boo Buie.

Login to view embedded media
Fascinating X thread where Evan Miya breaks down double digit points scoring runs, a.k.a. "The Kill Shot." So far, among P5 teams, 'Cats rate as "Suspect" in that so far they've given up more of those, and haven't shown the propensity to make their own. Not saying that this trend will bear out (we've had a particularly tough B1G slate so far), but definitely an interesting thing to note. One analogy comes to mind w/r/t "Chunk Plays" in football.

Can’t make this shit up. 🤦‍♂️

Someone call Charlie Mangieri!

Login to view embedded media

Good game. Two squads playing physical basketball. Jahmir Young's outstanding game was not enough to overcome the more talented Northwestern rotation...


Brooks Barnhizer claims top honors this week with 38 minutes of warfare against the Terrapins. 5 of 8 from the field, 1 of 2 from distance, 4 of 4 from the foul line, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 steals and 1 block.

Matt Nicholson played 31 minutes, one shy of his career high. He and his teammates put up a +8 and he was more active on both ends of the floor. Some noteworthy items... Because Julian Reese doesn't shoot 3's, Nicholson was able to stay in the paint more defensively and he didn't have to do as much switching. That helps him use his size more effectively. On the offensive end, NU was screening with a variety of players. Nicholson spent more time near the basket, although he continued his excellent screening - just less of it. This resulted in more offensive rebounds and disruption, plus several dunks.

Boo Buie had another good game, as we've come to expect.
Ty Berry was not as good as he has been lately - his shot suffered as he tried to slow down Jahmir Young... without much success.
But he contributed 3 assists, 5 rebounds and 4 huge free throws to seal the victory.
Ryan Langborg didn't shoot it well (3 for 10) but battled for 37 minutes in a physical game.
Nick Martinelli struggled at times - Collins was not thrilled when he ran out the shot clock...
Luke Hunger - we got outscored 14-7 when the new starting lineup was in the game (just over 5 minutes).
When the old starting lineup (Nicholson/Barnhizer/Bery/Langborg/Buie) was out there, we outscored the Terps 40-32 in 18 minutes.
The fact that a specific 5 man lineup would play 18 minutes together is a fairly dramatic change for Coach Collins. It reflects our limited depth.
"NU's best lineup" (Nicholson/Martinelli/Barnhizer/Berry/Buie) only saw 2:21 of gametime and tied 5-5.

Good win for Northwestern.

Oh one other thing - watching the replay - at the end of the game - Collins was trying to decide if he wanted to foul with 3 seconds left and (hopefully) a 3 point lead. He huddled with his assistants. Talor Battle was pretty animated, definitely voicing his opinion. Lowery responded to Battle. McIntosh leaned back a little and didn't say anything. Collins gave the word to foul. I thought the dynamic was pretty good.

Bears playing in London and will be ceding a home game. One less home game at SF might make scheduling an NU game there easier. They'll still have 8 home regular season games at SF but guessing they'll be on bye the week after London

McKeown out again. Anyone know the extent of his illness? Does the Daily ever break any news that’s not hand delivered to them??

Login to view embedded media

@lou v breaks down why Northwestern's lack of incoming transfers at this stage of the portal isn't a cause for concern.

We broke down where Northwestern's coaching staff stands after five reported departures, three new hires, an in-house promotion and two existing vacancies.

Yesterday morning's visitor to my backyard:

The NCAA has headcount sports, which means every player gets a full-ride scholarship, and equivalency sports, which means that the scholarships are split among the players.

On the men's side, the two headcount sports are football and basketball.
On the women's side, the four headcount sports are basketball, volleyball, tennis and gymnastics.

Certainly, we've had good seasons in football and basketball and tennis, but it seems that NU struggles more with headcount sports, while consistently winning in equivalency sports (lax, field hockey, softball, etc.). While 'coaching' always matters and individuals like former VB Coach Shane Davis may not have been a great fit at NU, I think the headcount-equvalency split creates an interesting dynamic.

The professionalism of the basketball, volleyball and tennis circuit at the youth level is insane. Since there are full-ride opportunities, the best athletes often play these sports and the best athletes want to be "athletes". These athletes have been professionally training all through high school, often discounting academics for athletics (and switching schools and geographies), so NU's unique value proposition may not mean as much.

What your take?

I see it as 7 more victories (regular season) to get to the dance. BIG is weaker this year so... Gets us to 20 wins and a winning BIG record. 6 might get it done but would likely require a game or to in BTT

Northwestern (12-4, 3-2 Big Ten) hosts Maryland (11-6, 3-3 Big Ten) tonight at Welsh-Ryan Arena, scheduled for an 8 pm tip. The game will air on BTN.

The Wildcats look to bounce back from a narrow road loss up in Madison and Maryland hopes to keep the momentum from their nine-point win in Champaign over Illinois.