BOO IS BACK!!!
- Thread starter gocatsgo2003
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Audige was a top defender in the league. If he comes back he isn’t taking a reduced role. What drugs are you people on?
I think most people were referring to a reduced role in terms of on the offensive side of the ball only. I think we all still expect him to be the main guy on defense.
In looking at the replies to Boo's tweet, there are quite a few from opposing fans who vary from being grudgingly respectful to disappointed in his return to downright spiteful.
My second favorite was a link to this article, giving MSU's perspective on Boo's return.
My favorite was this one:
My second favorite was a link to this article, giving MSU's perspective on Boo's return.
My favorite was this one:
Gotta believe that Langborg will be given every opportunity to succeed. If he's benched, it's because he played himself out of a job, kind of like Beran.
Realistically, you can bank on at least one injury that will last weeks and one guy that won’t perform to expectations. As long as Boo and MN aren’t the ones, then the middle of this lineup is impressively deep w options and guys deserving of PT should find it by season’s end.
I'm on a drug called Realista PM..
The PM part is short for Plus/Minus.
Audige has to play less so he doesn't wear down again and shoot less so that our offense is more successful. (unless he suddenly starts scoring more efficiently)
Thats just reality. Thankfully, our roster will enable both of those things to occur.
Chase was the second best player on the team last year and there was a GIANT drop to the third best. Sorry but there is two sides to a players game and the man shot as much as he did because most other players couldn’t make shots or were unwillingly to attempt them. The man is fearless and if he has a reduced role it will be because someone has emerged unexpectedly on the defensive side of the ball. If people didn’t watch the ball, they would understand how good he is on defense.
First, I think the stats from the last 20 games to be more relevant to next season than the first 20 games. I suspect that your drop off statement doesn’t hold true. But then, stats are for losers.
My eyeballs saw two players making major strides: MN and BB. Add Boo and another off-season of development and I expect three very viable options regardless of chase. And I expect boo to do everything he can to improve for personal aspirations.
As Boo and Chase were forced into heavy minutes by a short roster low on options, their O was hot and cold and both seemed to wear down at times.
It would be nuts for CCC not to increase BB and MN and hope that the rest of the roster could max any player at 25-30 mpg. On an 8 man rotation, that affords the others 10-15 mpg. Figure Lang starts at 15+ mpg and Hunger has to get 10 mpg or he probably loses interest in NU. If you believe either of them are starters. Berry or Mart also need those minutes.
So while some see a step back as a put down, I see it as an opportunity to use all their energies in shorter periods with possibly even better returns.
That was last year. Next year is next year. I'd disagree about the value of Nicholson or Barnhizer at the end of the year relative to Audige, but the past doesn't have much bearing on next year. It would be odd to assume that Audige will improve relative to several of his younger teammates. Audige's ceiling is roughly established.
Suffice it to say that I would take three players ahead of Audige for next year if I were picking thru the current roster. Doesn't mean he's not valuable.
People are throwing roses at Barnhizer, and I think he will be good, but I hope we can agree that Chase played to expectations in the tourney and Barney didn't. Leaving out the possibility that Nicholbomb goes off and become Zach Edey, Chase would return to the the second best, and often the best player on the floor for NU. He's streaky and drives me nuts sometimes, but he's damn good.
Plus/Minus is a poor metric for valuing a single players value. Especially defensively. Your adjusted Plus/Minus further skews that metric towards offense. Stats don’t measure defense well. In your adjusted Plus/Minus if a player forces a missed shot and someone else gets the rebound they’re actually hurt in the adjustment. I’ve detailed other defense plays that result in the player who played well defensively getting hurt by your adjustment. A player who is a phenomenal defender will not show on the adjusted plus minus and more often that not will have a negative adjustment. “Raw” Plus Minus as a stat is not for individual players but line ups.
Audige is an excellent defender and one of the best two way guards in the conference last year. The returning DPOY will not get a “reduced” role. If Audige does not return it will greatly impact NU’s defense as a whole. Nicholson and Audige were the most important cogs in NU’s defense. His impact on this last years team is understated on this board and if he does not return will be missed. Audige is a borderline NBA talent and those don’t come around all that often at NU.
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Nice article about Boo in Chicago Sun Times
chicago.suntimes.com
Money talks, but so does the heart — and Boo Buie’s belongs to Northwestern
“I was here before NIL,” Buie said a day after announcing he’d be back in Evanston for a fifth season, “and I’m here for the same reasons I came.”
chicago.suntimes.com
I think we saw:
- Chase’s ceiling - great D, streaky O
- The first chance for BB and constant improvement. He might have tried too hard at the end but like the moxie
- The coming of age for MN
If he returns, it’s because of his teammates and NIL is at or near best option. I don’t see a route to nba for either guys though.
I don’t understand why some would be bothered by the idea of Audige having a reduced role. That would be a good thing. Does not make him less valuable. Just means the team can be better than last year. I would like that.
Multiple times I defended his poor shooting by pointing out the guy had to carry the offensive burden of a team with only one clear scorer. He was often exhausted on top of it.
Reduced playing time by 5-8 could easily yield the same per game numbers with significantly better efficiency.
Multiple times I defended his poor shooting by pointing out the guy had to carry the offensive burden of a team with only one clear scorer. He was often exhausted on top of it.
Reduced playing time by 5-8 could easily yield the same per game numbers with significantly better efficiency.
I mentioned +/- as a joke. I thought it was funny.
But if you want to discuss it, I am willing.
I'm not sure what you mean by "In your adjusted Plus/Minus if a player forces a missed shot and someone else gets the rebound they’re actually hurt in the adjustment." If Audige misses a shot and gets his own rebound, that nets to zero. If Audige misses a shot and Nicholson gets the rebound, thats a -0.8 for Audige and a +0.8 for Nicholson. If the other team gets the rebound, then Audige is stuck with the -0.8. If he makes the shot he gets a +1. If he makes a 3 pointer, he gets a +2. That doesn't strike me as unfair.
I have already acknowledged that it is difficult to use +/- to evaluate Audige because he played so many minutes. We don't really know how good or bad we were when Audige wasn't playing. (for the record we won 189-174 with Audige on the bench). And defensive stats (like deflections) just aren't out there. All I (we) have is steals, blocks and defensive rebounds. But defense is generally viewed as a team effort - certainly more than offense. The guys who calculate offensive performance all had Audige rated fairly low.
Anyhow, Bart Torvik is a serious stats guy and I did the following search on his website...
Big Ten teams only. Ganes against Top 100 teams only. Player who played at least 50% of the available minutes. Players no taller than 6'5"
Of the 31 qualifiers, Audige ranked...
29th in Effective Field Goal Percentage. - Buie was 17th
30th in Offensive Rating - Buie was 11th
16th in Box Plus Minus (which tries to include defense) - Buie was 6th
In other words Buie, the point guard, was far more effective at scoring than Audige, a shooting guard.
Their usage rates were 29% for Buie (3rd highest of 31) and 25.4% for Audige (5th highest).
Maybe it is the context of “reduced” role. If it simply means playing 3-5 minutes less because we have other viable options, I doubt many are “bothered”. Keeping him fresh to be even more effective on D would be a positive for the team .
However, as several here have pointed out, Chase was DPOY and a few people IMO way undersell the value of that. It astonishes me that some can’t even admit he was/is clearly the second best player on this team. I honestly can’t see a starting point for a real discussion on that. I really respect what Big Matt did with his perseverance and hard work to improve, but that doesn’t make him a better player than Chase. We hear arguments about Chase’s lack of offense which I find as bunk. Yet, a bunch of people are head over heels for Big Matt and Barney, where there are many things they can improve on. Just think Chase this held to a different standard by some. BTW, I love Big Matt and Barney.
If Chase does not come back next season this will likely carry over into being a focal point of justification for entrenched opinions. If the team takes a step back, the usual suspects will blame CCC as he had the “same or a better team” coming back. The usual suspects on the other side will point to the loss of Chase/Robbie on Defense. If we get better, we can all buy Lowry a drink at the sweet 16 and high five each other on the plane, maybe even Bob’s plane.
Agree. If he comes back and plays 30 mins a game to keep him fresh, this makes sense. But none of the holdovers or transfers are as good as him. They just aren't. If I am wrong, it will be GREAT for the team because it means someone is realy really good (like Chase)
Chase can score zero points and still have a huge positive impact on a game. I'd prefer he take fewer bad shots, especially early in the shot clock, but I don't really care how many minutes he plays or points he scores as long as he's making a positive impact on the game. I hope Barnhizer and Nicholson surpass him in overall value by the time their NU careers end, but he's clearly one of the top two players on the team, offensive warts and all. Not sure that needs to be controversial.
I understand what you are saying and I am not going to be the one underestimating how good Audige is defensively.
But the paradox is that, IMO, he played 35.5 mpg (in conference) because of offense and not of defense. I always felt he had to be there as a threat or other teams would not over help and no chance for open shots for Berry, Beran, etc.
And that's where next year might shape up to be different. Princeton kid, Denver kid, Barnhizer progressing... it can all alleviate the need to have the 2 threats (BB and CA) constantly on the floor or the offense would go from less than average to completely mediocre.
It's as if you didn't even read what TKfH wrote. He was talking about defensively forcing a missed shot. If the guy Audige is covering misses a shot because of Audige's stellar defense, and Nicholson or one of the other bigs gets the rebound, then Nicholson gets a positive in your Adjusted P/M which means by default Audige gets a negative. As we've discussed, your Adjusted P/M skews in favor of big men, and it seems to hurt Audige the most.
Excellent point. As the season was winding down and each game got more intense, I always felt extremely nervous when either Boo or Chase was off the court (and particularly nervous in the rare instances they both were). And it wasn't because I missed Chase's defense, though it was missing more than ever because NU wasn't going to score many points during those periods.
Unless one of the freshman is ready, Buie is the only player who can run the offense at a high level based off of watching last season. So Buie will still be heavily relied on offensively and that before you take into account his scoring.
Audige is still a threat enough to score to warrant lots of min and his defense makes him an incredible asset. He should get as many min as he can handle. If that’s 30 it’s so be it. If that’s 35 so be it.
I do agree adding offensive threats will decrease the reliance on Audige offensively but that just allows him to be in less positions he needs to force things and opens more things up for both Audige and Buie. Having more threats on the floor at once opens things up for everyone. With Barnhizers development and a double digit scorer in the Princeton transfer that opens up the floor quite a bit. If MN can continue to finish around the rim like the UCLA game this team could actually be pretty good offensively next year.
You’re looking at a staring line up of Buie, Langborg, Audige, Barnhizer, Nicholson. Berry, Mullins, and freshman(s) will sub in at the 1-3. Preston and Hunger subs at the 5. Martinelli and Barkley sub at the 4. Odds are it will be an 8-9 man rotation. That roster has pretty clear picture of min distribution (assuming no massive development or B1G ready Freshmen) and it could be fun. The offense should be more efficient but similar in the sets they run.
So the 2-3 are interchangeable at NU. Audige, Langborg, Berry, Mullins, and 2 freshmen are competing for min there. Audige, Langborg, or freshmen will be the one spelling Buie at point. I don’t see who pushes Audige out of his min.
Chase was inconsistent offensively. But NU was getting run out of the building by UCLA until Chase went off in the second half. NU will miss that scoring threat if he doesn't return.
I have no problem w the notion that CA was second best or maybe best overall player on the team. I don’t agree there is a steep difference from 2 to 3 by season’s end though.
Rarely is second team anywhere near as good as starters. That’s why they start. Still gotta rest or returns go other direction. Maybe CA has more consistent O on fresher legs?
This piece really portrays him as an impressive young man. Thanks for sharing.Nice article about Boo in Chicago Sun Times
Money talks, but so does the heart — and Boo Buie’s belongs to Northwestern
“I was here before NIL,” Buie said a day after announcing he’d be back in Evanston for a fifth season, “and I’m here for the same reasons I came.”
I don’t know what the original user of the phrase meant, but “reduced role” for Audige would hopefully mean “a couple less minutes a game” (staying fresher), a noticeably lower offensive usage rate (less shots, hopefully leads to more efficiency), and a less focused role as the secondary ball handler, which isn’t caught by stats so much but further takes pressure off of his energy usage (and might reduce his turnovers some).
With all of that you’re still looking at a guy playing heavy minutes, going hard on defense the whole game, and hopefully contributing offensively with some efficiency.
Ahhh! I thought he meant the guy forced a shot and missed it. Thanks for clarifying.
Yeah, there's no way to tell from the stats who "forced" the other team to miss a shot. Maybe he just missed a shot he should have made. There's also no way to tell who fell asleep and let his guy get an open look or who braincramped on a backdoor cut or failed to switch properly. There's no way to punish guys who just stand there and let their guy score. The 5 guys on the court share equally in the outcome.
So when I do the +/- adjustment, I only have blocks, steals and defensive rebounds. A defensive rebound gets you a +0.4 adjustment. A steal gets a +1 adjustment. A blocked shot gets a +0.75 adjustment. Its all based on creating a change of possession or scoring. I can't "punish" a guy for letting his man get a rebound - there is nothing to tell me whom to blame.
Over time though, the score tells you what you need to know. The trick is to avoid letting one's opinion overrule what the stats are telling you.
If anybody has suggestions on how to improve the calculation, I'd be happy to hear them.
CCC disagrees. He's holding CA's place, waiting for him to make the right decision. Wouldn't be surprised to learn that it could be filled now by a young player with serious talent, but CA is a known superior defender, has chemistry with Boo and would kinda get the band back together for another shot in the tournament. Maybe NU could throw in dinner for 8 at Mustard's...
Nice article about Boo in Chicago Sun Times
Money talks, but so does the heart — and Boo Buie’s belongs to Northwestern
“I was here before NIL,” Buie said a day after announcing he’d be back in Evanston for a fifth season, “and I’m here for the same reasons I came.”
‘We lost to [expletive] Northwestern!? That’s not a thing. This program never loses to [expletive] Northwestern. That’s not a thing. That’s not OK.’
I *have* to know who said this! This should be basketball's Hayden Fry moment.
CCC disagrees with what? I'm in the camp that Audige is returning... if he had significantly better options he'd move on. (it will be his 6th year in college)
Thats true, but those 3 guys are already on the team...
I think you mis-interpreted what I wrote, unless you can read Chris Collins' mind.
I don't expect Chase returns, but I'll be happy to have him if he does.
If he doesn't, he will be missed.
If he does, I'd like to see him on the bench a few more minutes per game so he's not exhausted defending at the end of games.
If he doesn't, he will be missed.
If he does, I'd like to see him on the bench a few more minutes per game so he's not exhausted defending at the end of games.
