That explanation makes a lot more sense and I agree. Thanks for clarifying. I read your first post as if you were saying there is very little talent on this team.
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Game thread for Northwestern vs. Illinois
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
Buie had zero assists. Thats never good, even if he scores 35.
Beran made a 3 and missed a 3 in the first two minutes. Then he shut it down for the half.
Second half - first minute or two - he missed a wide open layup on a nice pass from Audige (I think) and shut it down for the night.
Barnhizer played fine.
Nicholson got zero touches? He's in the box score as 0 for 1 from the floor, but I don't recall a shot.
Couldn't believe it when we came out of the gates blazing, grabbed an 11-4 lead going into a nice long tv timeout and our coach subbed out 2 starters, then brought in Martinelli for Buie. 4 minutes later it was 14-14.
And of course the gigantic 2nd half collapse... Illinois was throwing bodies at Buie and the ball screens - we didn't adapt well offensively.
Beran made a 3 and missed a 3 in the first two minutes. Then he shut it down for the half.
Second half - first minute or two - he missed a wide open layup on a nice pass from Audige (I think) and shut it down for the night.
Barnhizer played fine.
Nicholson got zero touches? He's in the box score as 0 for 1 from the floor, but I don't recall a shot.
Couldn't believe it when we came out of the gates blazing, grabbed an 11-4 lead going into a nice long tv timeout and our coach subbed out 2 starters, then brought in Martinelli for Buie. 4 minutes later it was 14-14.
And of course the gigantic 2nd half collapse... Illinois was throwing bodies at Buie and the ball screens - we didn't adapt well offensively.
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Hard to have an assist when the other starters are 5 for 26.
Beran shuts down offensively every game. He does play well on the defensive end and rebounds well. Thats all I expect.
Berry shot looked better, but still has trouble making shots consistently,. It's why he was brought in, needs to step up.
Moment was too big for Martinelli. He learned and should be fine going forward this year and in the future.
Illinios took away the lobs to the bigs. They did have opportunities to shoot top of the key. Man up and try a shot, can't hurt.
Teams have figured out Chase and he has no answers. Been struggling a few games now. He took a floater last night and we all said that's not his gaame. He has no adjustment for what they are taking away from him offensively, needs to take a few days and watched tape. Defenders are starting to pick his pocket while dribbling, needs to tighten his handle. Still playing hard and will figure it out.
Defense played well enough to win, just have to make shots and play with confidence on offense.
Roles players need to step up in the road games. Beran should up against Indiana, so it is possible
Beran shuts down offensively every game. He does play well on the defensive end and rebounds well. Thats all I expect.
Berry shot looked better, but still has trouble making shots consistently,. It's why he was brought in, needs to step up.
Moment was too big for Martinelli. He learned and should be fine going forward this year and in the future.
Illinios took away the lobs to the bigs. They did have opportunities to shoot top of the key. Man up and try a shot, can't hurt.
Teams have figured out Chase and he has no answers. Been struggling a few games now. He took a floater last night and we all said that's not his gaame. He has no adjustment for what they are taking away from him offensively, needs to take a few days and watched tape. Defenders are starting to pick his pocket while dribbling, needs to tighten his handle. Still playing hard and will figure it out.
Defense played well enough to win, just have to make shots and play with confidence on offense.
Roles players need to step up in the road games. Beran should up against Indiana, so it is possible
You can say “basketball is a game of runs” and other cliches all you want, but there’s no good reason for a game with an 18 point lead at half and a 14 point lead with 11 minutes left to become close. NU didn’t battle all game and just come up short, Illinois finished on a 30-10 run.
We don’t need to melt down about it, but brushing it away as not a painful loss is silly. Winning that game would have all but sewn up a BTT double bye, among other achievements. The same #2/3 scorer problems and Audige offensive struggles that have been issues at times all year were the cause of it. Let’s not pretend it doesn’t hurt.
His shot was a great pass underneath and a layup he missed. They missed enough cheapies at the rim in the second half to make the difference, unfortunately.
That's true. Coincided with their 1st half run. But it's not like they did not have runs in the 2nd half. And Martinelli was not there for those.
Not denying he seemed a bit intimidated by what is probably the most athletic group we faced.
There are plenty of reasons games become close - it happens all the time. The main reason we lost this game is because we gave up too many fouls on 3 pointers.
I thought CC was slow to call timeouts in the 1st half run and the 1st run in the 2nd half. I always believe when you are up that big, that's when you pull the trigger on timeouts more easily if the other teams start a run. Who cares if you run out of them? Much higher probability of just being able to hold on to a win than needing a timeout for a last minute play.
Anyway, I continue to be very impressed with this team. And yet, continue to not understand how Beran gets so many passes by what it seems like close to everyone on this board. And so much underserved mentioning by announcers for example.
Dude is a senior and still gets so freakishly intimidated if someone raises the physicality in a game. Audige was terrible but he was trying. Berry was terrible and was out there fighting like hell. Beran was terrible and was on the bench, clearly to me, because he was intimidated. Sure, IL is all perimeter game, and maybe CC just wanted more mobility to try to counter penetration and outside jumpers. But it just really felt Beran was warming the bench because he was playing in the fetal position.
He is probably the player that makes me the most mad on this team. The X factor that just seems to almost always under achieve.
I have an irrational love of the win probability tracker on espn, and I’m unfortunately not smart enough to paste it here.
But, NU had a 93.6% chance of winning at halftime. NU absorbed the run, responded with its own, and had a 96.2% chance when they made it 52-36 with 11:11 left. It’s not a game NU should have lost.
However, I will not say “that’s a game that good teams don’t lose.” NU is a good team, and they lost.
I hope that Berry finds his jumper like he did against Iowa, and I hope Chase’s volume shooting becomes volume scoring again - Chase hasn’t been to the foul line in four games.
I can’t say this team needed a wake-up call. They got it against Indiana, and responded with their best game of the season against Iowa.
Frustrating loss.
Northwestern vs. Illinois - Men's College Basketball Game Summary - February 23, 2023 | ESPN
Visit ESPN for the game summary of the Northwestern Wildcats vs. Illinois Fighting Illini NCAAM basketball game on February 23, 2023
I ate Fruity Pebbles at the half, because Kroger had a sick deal on Post cereal and this guy deserves a treat sometimes and what better time than the ice-pocalypse. They were just like I remembered, but also only pretty good. No more halftime Fruity Pebbles for me. Bad karma. I’ll take the blame.
X-factor by age and reputation. (Reputation being that he looks the part so he must be a threat.)
Frankly, except for the fearlessness and intensity and emotion, he’s NU’s Sanjay. He stands and waits on offense.
Very well put in so few words.
Yesterday game, it happens, we move on. Basketball is often just a bit weird. When we played at Iowa I posted that (mainly) the last 10 minutes of the game felt like watching Rutgers defending us. They raised the intensity, it felt a bit suffocating. A not so great team did it to us. They came to Evanston and it never felt like that.
Yesterday felt a lot like that in the 2nd. Hard to explain how a team can look so dumb on defense in the 1st half, going under screens galore, and look like there's no passing lanes in the 2nd half. It does not make us bad, or worse than we were yesterday. Stay focused and we take 2 out of the last 3 for the best NU season ever.
Go Cats.
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When Boo drove the lane with the ball in the second half he was surrounded by 3 or 4 white jerseys. Like you said, the passing lanes were clogged, and also it seemed our guys were not moving well to get open, just watching Boo and hoping he would score. Credit goes to the pumpkinheads for making adjustments on defense.
Never said it wasn’t a painful loss. And I explained why we lost. We fouled a 3-point shooter twice and gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw that led to a 3 (that was 8 points they shouldn’t have scored). And Shannon hit all of his shots down the stretch, including every 3. I was just pointing out that it’s not unexpected for really good teams to cut big leads and I don’t think the loss is part of a bigger issue other than we are offensively challenged at times. But those defensive lapses cost us the game yesterday.
Yes. For sure.
There's no doubt the offense had less movement in the 2nd half. More looking at Buie to bail us out. In the 1st half there was more of a threat, movement, and ultimately Buie took shots later, in the flow of offense.
But there was still a fair amount of action run for Audige (mainly) or Berry. And it was frustrating to see Audige being unable to get any edge on Shannon. Harris (and some Hawkins) will be praised for his efforts in the orange world. But Shannon was incredible on really putting Audige in his pocket.
Speaking of orange, they should just contact whoever owns the right to this sweet bastard. It was the mascot of the Spanish World Cup of 92. And I doubt it offends native Americans. His name is "Oranjito". Can't go wrong with that, exotically wholesome.
Basketball is a game of runs, especially after Chipotle.
When a team gets hot and goes on a run, the only way to counter is to score. Defense will only slow down the erosion, as will keeping it a half-court game (harder to do when the shots aren't falling). You gotta find a way to score and get some of the lead back. This is where coaching really matters, because coaches need to find the in-game adjustments to get the offense going again.
When a team gets hot and goes on a run, the only way to counter is to score. Defense will only slow down the erosion, as will keeping it a half-court game (harder to do when the shots aren't falling). You gotta find a way to score and get some of the lead back. This is where coaching really matters, because coaches need to find the in-game adjustments to get the offense going again.
This. It’s still an offensive game. Scoring 10 points in the last 11 minutes doesn’t cut it.
I agree 100% with your direction. The idea that Beran is some type of defensive stopper is just us being kind. He's a nice defensive player, but I'm not sure it balances what a mess he is on offense. You could see it against IU when he's inbounding the ball. Yes, he had that horrible turnover that nearly cost NU the game. But earlier in the game, he freaked out a bit in the same situation throwing in the ball, and bailed himself out, calling a timeout long before a five second count.
I'm sorry to say this, but I'm generally done with Beran. I was screaming at the TV when CC brought him in for that last possession or two. He's obviously in his own head for any type of big game. But give him a hyphenated school, and he lights it up. Whoopee.
Thankfully, CC is leaning more and more toward Barnhizer. I'm not as in love with BB as many here. But I'll take his nose for the ball and developing offensive game any day over Beran down the stretch. I like Beran's minutes in the teens.
To me it depends on how the other scorers are doing. With the way Audige consumes shots whether he’s going well or not, with anybody else other than Boo scoring you don’t need a high volume of shots out of that spot and so you take all the other nice things Beran does and let him launch a small number of open looks without worrying about him disappearing offensively for long stretches. Brooks can come in in those games when Chase and/or Boo are out of the game and to spell Beran and provide some potential bench points. However, when you’re in a spot like last night where desperately need somebody else to be able to score alongside Boo, I think you need to get Brooks out there and that’s why we saw him with 32 minutes last night.
OK. Except we've had those moments all year. If Audige is having an awful game and Berry is 1 for whatever, where is the offense supposed to come from if they lock down Boo? The other tournament team had 4 guys that could score 15 points a game on any night. Law could score 4 points and we would still have a decent night offensively because Lindsey, McIntosh and/or Pardon picked up the slack. We have two 15 point scorers and a bunch of other guys who frequently score 6 points or less in games. Does it surprise you that we have periods where we can't score, especially in a game where Audige goes 3 for 14?
My point is that fouling a 3-point shooter and giving up an offensive rebound on a free throw are completely within our control. None of those things should have happened. Especially in the 2nd half of a huge game against your rival. Especially when you are a great defensive team. We just needed to hold them under 40 points in the 2nd half. Should have been able to do that.
No, it shouldn't be surprising but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem, indeed THE problem. Agreed the three point fouls were disasterous mental errors, but even just making a few of their missed laups renders it moot. The Cats need to play PERFECTLY defensively to win given thier offensive limitations in a game like this. That's... tough. Score even a poor 16 points in the last 11 minutes and you stay a few possessions comfortably ahead of Illinois, get into a situation forcing them to foul late, and likely win despite everything.
At any rate, I was mostly just jumping in to say people aren't unjustified being pretty annoyed by that one, especially since it's the second game out of three we did that exact same thing.
Get as annoyed as you want. None of my business. This team has played way, way beyond my expectations (and their individual talent levels) so I cut them some slack when they have a bad 10 minutes offensively. I know it's a cliche but teams lose big leads in basketball. UCLA had a 15-point 2nd half lead against Illinois earlier this year and lost (and they are in the top 10). Purdue had an 8-point lead with less than 5 minutes against us.
Avoiding fouling a 3-point shooter twice and grabbing a defensive rebound on a free throw is not playing perfect defense. That's just not screwing up. That's 8 points and the game. Lot easier to block out on a free throw and close out on a shooter (we also fouled another shooter from 18 feet out for another 2 points) then to make shots down the stretch against a locked-in defense.
I'd also caution against the narrative that a couple of plays changed the outcome of a game. Unless you are talking about the closing moments of the game, that is, in most cases, a stretch.
You can't just assume a couple of plays don't happen and the rest of the game remains the exact same. We could have won by 20 had they not happened. We could have lost by 20. There are pivotal games in games, sure. But it's usually about more than 2 fouls happening with a lot of time left on the clock.
I understand but am not as sure on this point. Those were really unfortunate mistakes that immediately gave the other team at least 6 points. And they likely only hurt our momentum and made us tense up more (which is an issue for us) because the game is getting closer and closer.
Fair point. One of the fouls occurred with 10 minutes to go and we were up 14. The missed rebound occurred with 7 minutes to go and they cut the lead to 4. Without those 6 points I doubt Illinois would have had enough time to come back but stranger things have happened. The last foul on the jump shooter was with 2 minutes to go and put them ahead for the first time. Don’t foul jump shooters is always a good rule of thumb in playing good defense. Especially when nobody but Shannon was shooting well. Would have loved for someone to foul Audige or Berry on their jump shots.
Right. I am not denying any impact of those plays and the first even seemed like a bad call to me.
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