Game thread for Northwestern vs. Iowa
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
Not so fast! They just scored a quick 9 in a row.
I just figured out why we never seem to learn anything from prior games against our opponents.
The VCR is broken.
The VCR is broken.
Tip of the cap to Iowa. They were awesome.
So your ideal lineup is:
Roper
Berry
Williams
Simmons?
Young
Iowa could have scored 150 against that defensive lineup. And who creates any offense without Buie and Nance? I can’t take anyone seriously that actually thinks our team is better without Nance on the floor.
Give me a break. There is no lineup we could have put out there today that would have kept this close. That does not take away any blame from Collins who got absolutely owned by Fran today and in some other games this year too. But there is more than enough blame to go around and playing Young a few more minutes per game or putting Nicholson on the floor more does not move the needle much, if at all.
Starting Beran and expecting him to guard Keegan Murray was world class boneheaded.
Game was over before Young even played.
Thoughts:
-Ryan Young is a good player.
-I like Ryan Young a lot.
-He can be the difference in some games.
-You are placing way too much importance on his playing time being a big difference in our overall team success.
Right. There is no lineup that we could have put out there that would have affected the outcome (unless we were allowed to bring back Shurna/Crawford/Esch). We are not a tournament team. End of story. We saw what a "good" team looks like and we ain't it.
Totally agree that the die was cast in this one a while ago, but I think the point some people are trying to make is that it didn't have to be that way with THESE players. There has been a ton of talk about development in the program and it was just a few games ago that several people were championing the incredible development of Pete, Boo, Ryan Greer, etc. I don't know how much I completely buy that, but there were assets to work with here and the program hasn't done good enough work to maximize what was there.
It's a pretty amazing and in-your-face comparison when you put the Iowa program next to Northwestern's. The recruiting rankings and raw material to work with are very comparable since Northwestern's 2017 NCAA tourney run...probably even weighted slightly towards NU. Heck, Iowa was an NIT team that year and played in no post-season at all the following year, so you could make the case that the NU was better positioned at that point. But the development job and application of assets that has been done with comparable raw materials is starkly different and that was shown decisively today. NU has to do better at those things.
I probably wouldn't frame it as "players who hurt the team". I think the biggest problem is too often putting players in situations that don't fit their abilities, which hurts the team. Asking members of any team to do things that they aren't good at is generally a formula for bad outcomes.
Good point. I don't take issue with the players. They are what they are, progress or not.
Our 3 best players were Nance, Young and Buie.
They should have all played 30-32 minutes a game and been the core starting lineup..
Playing other guys in their places hurt the team.
Giving guys minutes in losing lineups hurt the team.
Beran and Audige played too much. Neither should have started.
Simmons was not good enough either.
Buie and Greer should have been our primary backcourt.
Berry, Greer, Roper, Audige and Beran all played more than Ryan Young. Thats just bad.
Stuff like that.
This is all pretty fair and I honestly don’t have much argument. I’ll say that as frustrating as Chase is, he can be a valuable player if he learns to play within himself. He’s a very good defender and has some offensive skill, but he thinks he’s way better than he actually is on that end. If he plays to his strengths (probably will never happen if we’re being honest), then he’s in that core group. In your defense, that hasn’t happened yet.
So I think we’re more on the same page than I previously thought.
There is no world where the clear 3rd or best player in a team gets the 8th most minutes. Others might disagree but that's Ryan Young. Who would start for 1/2 the B1G. Again, others might disagree.
You do whatever you need to do to play such a guy. You change your ways and your approach. But you play him. Except in CC's world.
Sometimes I get so annoyed I revert back to statements or themes that I have moved away from.
I think this was one of those cases. Beran could be an effective player in a limited role. Same with Audige.
Sometimes Collins does things that are so predictably "not going to work" that I vent about the players and it really isn't their fault when things go badly. Besides, bad habits are supposed to be corrected with coaching guidance.
That's the #1 thing that has to happen for Chase to get better. He's not going to stop taking bad shots and playing outside of his abilities until there are repercussions for doing so.
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