Cats land 2025 Rivals150 point guard Jake West
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But we wouldn't argue he's the best player in the BIG this season.
The nice thing about all of this, as already said before, is that we will all get a chance to see how Smith does without Edey. He has a lot of experience under his belt now and this is the year he can either live up to the hype or not.
I think some of the love for Smith also stems from the fact that he's a very traditional point guard. He drives, creates movement, distributes, and shoots well enough to always be a threat to fire which creates further space for the defense. He's not hero ball scoring option #1 like Boo who was able to create and generate for his teammates but was ALSO the focus of his own team's scoring. People like that old school playing style, I think.
At the risk of completely turning this thread to Purdue, I had to chuckle when I saw that Zach Edey fouled out in 15 minutes in his NBA debut last night. This ain't college kid. That slow, plodding crap won't cut it at the next level.
Gonna take a wild guess that the fouls were largely bs.
Its the NBA. If you're in the club you can draw a foul on every play.
I dunno. I didn't watch the game, but I've seen a lot of Edey playing and if he played in the NBA the way he played for Purdue, I can see him fouling out a lot. The NBA is full of VIPs and he isn't going to be able to just throw elbows and arm lock guys with impunity at this level.
This is an interesting assumption about other fanbases.
Around these parts, there are people with a habit of degrading everybody on the team until that player proves them wrong.
Martinelli ("clownish") and Nicholson ("useless") come immediately to mind, but even Buie had haters into his 3rd season.
Is that a Northwestern thing?
Count me among those who though Martinelli looked goofy and awkward when he first came in. Of course, I like to think that was almost a compliment, because it lulls other teams into a false sense of confidence. No way this guy can be this good around the rim! It took most of the year for the Big Ten to realize he's a lefty!
Boo *was* really frustrating early in his career. I don't even think the biggest Boo supporters on this board could have foreseen when he was a freshman how great he was going to be by the time he was a senior.
As for NU fans overrating players, I just don't see it. One thing I noticed in the Wisconsin game last week was how much the announcers were hyping NU players that even our own fanbase is meh about, like Joe Himon and Thomas Gordon. My thought was: am I underrating these guys? I didn't think so.
Boo *was* really frustrating early in his career. I don't even think the biggest Boo supporters on this board could have foreseen when he was a freshman how great he was going to be by the time he was a senior.
As for NU fans overrating players, I just don't see it. One thing I noticed in the Wisconsin game last week was how much the announcers were hyping NU players that even our own fanbase is meh about, like Joe Himon and Thomas Gordon. My thought was: am I underrating these guys? I didn't think so.
I think it mostly, not entirely, reflects fans without much detailed knowledge about a sport having either never played or at best played at a backyard level, so they resort to stereotypical thinking and/or group think until a player makes a case that they can't criticize. I don't know that NU fans are particularly unique in that regard, however.
The NBA has gone to great lengths to legislate the old-fashioned centers out of the league... so there is a business motive (or preference) to make sure guys like Edey fail.
In fact, I predicted that Edey would get the short end of the stick in the NBA for that reason. Obviously the NBA controls its referees.
Whether Edey can overcome it remains to be seen.
Can you expand on this assertion? I don't follow the NBA much and I have no idea what you're talking about.
People should me smarter than to draw conclusions based on someoneās first week in the NBA.
I'm not concluding anything. I'm just having a little fun in the moment with a rival.
That said, my Boston Celtics are unquestionably on pace to finish the season undefeated, winning every game by 20+ points!!
It's called Battered Cat Fan Syndrome. Primary symptoms are mental and emotional fatigue. Advanced cases are typically found among those age 55 and over. Deeply rooted in long term losing and associated early fandom trauma. Compensatory psychological behavior centers on maintaining very low expectations for success. Also known as We Can't Have Nice Things Syndrome.
No known cure. Though recent studies suggest post season hoops dancing - combined with large doses of KAH lacrosse therapy - can temporarily ease symptoms.
Warning: This is a high risk for regression disease. Just when you think ...
GOUNUII
As someone who is just under 55, do I need to get it checked out yet, or should I wait until my 55th birthday?
I think you're pretty damned close... but I witnessed every home loss during our record-breaking football streak and reveled when we finally beat NIU and Minnesota. I'm not scarred. I went to as many basketball games in McGaw as I could - as long as somebody else was up for it. I don't think of NU as unlucky or cursed or "chokers" or anything like that.
Barnett and Walker and Fitz showed what was possible at NU if you played to your strengths. Collins eventually picked up that torch...
Because of those successes, I never bought into the "We Can't Have Nice Things" notion. Unfortunately, the playing field has tilted and now NIL is a real threat. The administration seems somewhat out of touch and self-destructive. Northwestern may have too much at stake as an academic institution to try to compete with a bunch of minor league sports franchises masquerading as universities.
I guess we'll see how that plays out, but I look at our basketball team in recent years and see plenty of talent and desire. Sometimes that talent is sitting on the bench. But all you really have to do is watch a young guy play and see if he is out there competing or if he is intimidated. Hunger, Nicholson, Martinelli, Buie, Barnhizer, Young, Berry - those guys all played aggressively when given their earliest opportunities. Of course they made mistakes, but winners learn and adjust.
If a young guy enters a game and starts looking for his mommy, thats a bad indication.
If he gets after his opponent, I'm going to assume he can contribute.
The players generally know how they measure up - sometimes even more than the coaches.
This is why I have high hopes for Mullins. He and Blake Smith definitely made mistakes last year, as inexperienced guys do, but they didn't seem terrified of being on the court
From a basketball substack I read:
I just know what Iāve got and what Iām getting here, which is more than what I can say about a good-but-flawed Tier 2 and a mish-mash of gold and trash in Tier 3. The floor and ceiling for Purdue are simply higher than anybody else. And, yes, itās time to defend Braden Smith from the haters because I already got to defend Painter.
Smithās numbers last year benefitted from playing with Zach Edey. Obviously. I would imagine thatās as unsurprising as it gets. When Smith shared the floor with Edey, he was dominant: a 121 ORtg on 22% USG, a 38% Assist%, 43% from three. All those things. And yes, in limited action without Edey, Smithās own efficiency suffered and he committed more turnovers. But it wasnāt catastrophic. He still had a high assist rate, hit 44% of his threes, hit 44% of his midrange twos. It could be time for the average Joe to admit heās just a really good player. His +8.2 BPM leads all Big Ten players with 2023-24 stats.
The guy's a Tennessee fan so he has no bias in his write-up from a conference rival standpoint. Guess we'll see what Smith does in a few weeks.Iād be interested in your expanding on Collins eventually getting to āif you played to your strengthsā. He coached the team to better records every year since his hiring, on his way to our first-ever NCAA team (and win). And did every other NU bball or football coach not listed by you not play to our strengths?
Old fashioned centers can't make it in the league because they can't shoot threes and because they get caught out on the perimeter guarding smaller and quicker players when switching on the pick and rolls. It's not that complicated. The NBA didn't "legislate" this as much as teams found ways to utilize their freakishly athletic players and exploit the slower, less mobile ones.
In his game tonight, Edey scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds, while committing only four fouls. Better effort, though his team lost by 20 to the Rockets.
The great NBA renaissance: realizing 3 points is more than 2.
CC went away from what worked when he got too infatuated with forwards shooting the long ball, and initially, went with an up-tempo O which exhausted the starters, which was a problem as there was little/no depth behind them.
CC, like pretty much every coach, has made his fair share of mistakes, but unlike some others we have seen, he doesn't seem to be making the same ones over and over again.
CC has the program back on track with regard to style of play and team composition/roster building.
Not that concerned about individual player rankings as most of CC's best players were under-ranked.
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Thanks. I agree CCC toned down the faster-paced, fast break tendency, which helped our depth issue as you said and also mitigated our inability to finish breaks at the rim. This was even during his first run to the tourney (which is the timeframe that really matters here since he found success early on).
