Chicago State - NU game thread
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Cats missing a lot of good, open looks. Still up 13. It's great to be able to absorb those types of cold starts on the backs of the defense
Ugh, reminscent of the first Penn State game last year when we couldn'T put the rock in the ocean...
I googled it. It would be the biggest upset in NCAA basketball history. We were favored by 28 pts.
One of the top 5 was NJIT over Michigan a few years ago
Don't see that one. Oops in last 10 years, chaminade was 1982. No line on that game, but most think it would have been 30+
https://www.sportsinsights.com/blog...etball-moneyline-upsets-from-the-past-decade/
Now that my blood pressure is back down, a few thoughts....
This was a game that we would have lost two years ago. There's going to be a game or two like this every year where things aren't going right and you have to play through it and figure out a way to win. This was that game.
Loved the toughness down the stretch. From Lumpkin's strong drive to McIntosh's three pointer, these guys showed some resolve in the last three minutes.
Plus, we had lost close games to Butler and Notre Dame. Regardless of the opponent, it feels good to be on the winning side of a game that could have gone either way.
This was a game that we would have lost two years ago. There's going to be a game or two like this every year where things aren't going right and you have to play through it and figure out a way to win. This was that game.
Loved the toughness down the stretch. From Lumpkin's strong drive to McIntosh's three pointer, these guys showed some resolve in the last three minutes.
Plus, we had lost close games to Butler and Notre Dame. Regardless of the opponent, it feels good to be on the winning side of a game that could have gone either way.
Knowing the ending...
I live in Germany and went to a midnight showing of the new Star Wars movie. Of course, I knew how that would end (spoiler alert: the Rebels get the Death Star plans)...but I had a pretty good time watching the movie get there. I checked my phone as soon as I got out of the cinema to check the NU score and was initially bummed out--happy we won, of course, but still.
When I got home, I watched the last 10 minutes of the NU game. We lost the lead, retook it and held on.
Having watched only the last 10 minutes, I am not down on our performance. We had a few bad offensive possessions and a few bad defensive possessions, but we still looked like the same solid basketball team. Chicago State hit some ridiculous shots, and we missed the front end of two one-and-one free throw opportunities. You can certainly lose games this way, but we were clearly the better team. During this final stretch, I was pleased to see big plays from all our main guys--BMac, Law, Lindsey, Skelly and Lumpkin.
We have a good team, but we cannot take anything for granted. Tonight confirms that we could lose to Rutgers...but I still believe that we have an Indiana/Purdue/Wisconsin upset in us this season!
Win out in the non-conference season, win 10 B1G regular season games, and win one BTT game...and we are in THE NCAA TOURNAMENT!
Go 'Cats!
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Yep. We didn't bring the energy tonight early, and then we couldn't make anything for most all of the game. That's okay, those days will happen. And CSU shot out of their minds in the 2H, which led to us getting a bit slow on some of our rotations and giving up a few easy baskets inside too as we tried to overplay 3s. Even Sanjay had a couple mistakes on D tonight. We did keep fighting though, and made a few big plays late.
So everyone relax, every team has these days, just refer to the list of upsets already this year. They showed a graphic of only the in-state ones - IU FW, Texas vs Arlington, Tennessee, Vandy, and Butler Indiana St. There's been a bunch more they didn't include. We didn't bring a good performance today, but we still got the win, so flush it and move on. This is still a solid team - good but not excellent.
Biiiiiig game against Dayton, hopefully we saved up all the 3 point makes for that one. Go Cats!
The heady days of being sub-40 in KenPom are over ... for now. We're down to No. 47. Bet we'd have landed in the 50s or even 60s with an L.
This is still a solid team. We're not good yet at shutting down opponents and heading off second-half momentum. The same thing happened against Bryant, where we let them hang around a little bit and one guy started hitting incredible shots. If we don't correct this trait, we're going to lose a few Big Ten games we shouldn't.
This is still a solid team. We're not good yet at shutting down opponents and heading off second-half momentum. The same thing happened against Bryant, where we let them hang around a little bit and one guy started hitting incredible shots. If we don't correct this trait, we're going to lose a few Big Ten games we shouldn't.
Chicago State's KenPom is so terrible that we were likely to fall out of the top-40 even if we dominated. Having said that, this was easily our worst performance of the season. Our defense was mystifying; to allow Sims to continue to shoot when he was making 3 after 3 was just unconciously bad, and I don't care-- and neither did Colllins, judging by his reactions-- how far he was from the basket. 3 of their guys scored 52 of their 64 points-- play essentially 5 on 3 basketball, let the other two players shoot as much as they want, we win by 30.
Chicago State is one of the worst teams in the country-- just marginally better than the Washington Generals--I mean MVSU. To put just how bad we were in persepctive, New Orleans is FAR SUPERIOR to Chicago State. The only good thing about this game is perhaps we got this atrocity out of our system in time for Dayton, as we will lose by 30 if we play that kind of defense against the Flyers; just a total defensive trainwreck out there this evening. End rant.
Chicago State may very well be one of the worst teams in the country but last night they could have drop kicked it from three quarters court and it would have gone in. It happens sometimes.
If the two teams were to play again tonight NU would beat them by thirty.
As an aside, I played a little bball against Tracy Dildy back in the day. He's a really good guy. Very warm and friendly. Those CSU players are in a good situation athletically.
Especially in the last 4 minutes, the refs seemed to swallow their whistles. Lots of contact on CSU guys going to the hoop.
In the 10 minutes that I watched, Skelly blocked 3 shots with 4 fouls. I love that guy.
Just curious, who refs these preseason pay to play games, were they B1G refs...? That usually works against us, but I agree this time there was a fair amount of contact late that got let go.
Side note- but it seems to me that most of the refs have gotten their "enforce the points of emphasis to an extreme" whistle happy stage out of their system much more quickly this year. It only took like ~2 weeks and we are back to normal basketball, as opposed to the entire non-con season, which is nice. Now just as I say that I'm sure we'll have a brutal game to watch against Dayton...
Whenever I have checked the affiliation of the refs for the noncon game, they have always been BIG refs.
It was basically ONE guy doing all the damage from 3. He had 7 threes, When he hits the first one, you play up on him a little tighter; the second, even tighter. The third? You don't let him see the ball. We did none of those things, imo.
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