Game Thread: Northwestern vs. No. 17 Wisconsin
- Thread starter mshelton33
- Start date
Ah. Important distinction. FWIW, it was 0-0 during that stint for about two minutes.
Really could use those 2 points back from that unnecessary technical foul from earlier. We never have those types of moronic plays.
Hurts to be at such a height disadvantage as well. Looking forward to all that height coming in next year who knows if they will play but we fortunately As Time Marches On will have some good height on this team for the first time in a while.
Probably a game over at this point now that they're hitting their shots but we sure put up a good fight given how under man we were and how much height Advantage they have and three-point shooting advantage
This is probably Nick's 4th or fifth game in a row shooting well under 50% for two-point shots. I don't know if it's cuz he plays too much or because teams know how to defend him but it's a world of difference from where he was earlier in the year.
A *lot* of bricks.
But it's not (just) his fault. Our opponent started hitting everything and NU stopped hitting anything. It unfortunately seems to happen every game.
Thank God we've got leech on the team he's having a a great game passing shooting Etc.
Is...is Leach our best player right now? With Barney hurt and Nick seemingly figured out, Leach might just be the best Wildcat.
Leach is a strong offensive player, and as long as he isn’t facing a top point guard, he’ll get his numbers.
the refs called a lot of shooting fouls on us, and very few shooting fouls on them. That’s how it’s been going.
NU was up 8 with 13 minutes left and had a wide open three. Less than a minute later it was tied.
So correct. Other teams have more and better players who make key shots to maintain / gain back momentum when needed.
I think we can put this talent debate to bed. We clearly don't have the talent level other BIG teams have.
A few of you guys are just pathetic.
Our best player is out injured and you choose that game to compare talent?
Thats what we call a loser move.
It took a career game from Carter Gilmore to beat NU today.
120 games played. 18 of 80 from 3 point land.
His career high was 8 points. He used to be terrible.
Today 15 points on 5 of 7 shooting. 3 of 5 from distance.
Credit to his coaches for turning that kid into a decent bench player.
Our best player is out injured and you choose that game to compare talent?
Thats what we call a loser move.
It took a career game from Carter Gilmore to beat NU today.
120 games played. 18 of 80 from 3 point land.
His career high was 8 points. He used to be terrible.
Today 15 points on 5 of 7 shooting. 3 of 5 from distance.
Credit to his coaches for turning that kid into a decent bench player.
What this team truly likes, and what we miss so dearly with boo, is a player who can break a defense. That player doesn’t have to be a guy who can dribble penetrate against a man defense. It can be a wing who reliably hits an outside look when the opponent doubles somewhere else. It can be a big who is damn near impossible to defend in the paint because once he gets the ball, it’s basically over. We don’t really have a guy like that on this roster.
I choose every game to compare talent. Do you think we could ever see a guy come off our bench and do that? When has that ever happened? And why do so many of our board members ask why other guys have great games against us?
Well certainly in today's game he was. Going forward he might be as well with Barney gone
I do this to argue a point with which you disagree, PWB. But I don’t call a fellow board member pathetic while doing so. I’ve put you on ignore before and it’s time again.
Correct. 46-38 and Wisconsin was not playing well at all. The open 3 missed was a real change in momentum for them. Make that 3 and it's 49-38. The place would have been electric.
Since I just did compare talent, I assume you aimed this at me. I think you made my point exactly.... every team we play has different guys who seem to step forward and take over in addition to their star players. (Or their star player is just at another level from our stars as in the Rutgers game). And though you focused on one guy for Wisconsin, they had multiple guys today who made big plays along the way to get them the win. We may get bright spots from individual players at times, but they don't get enough support from everybody else. In the end, you are what your record says you are and our record says we are pretty much where the pundits predicted us to be.
So does that mean the last 2 years we had top 4 talent in the B1G? I don’t think so but we had a good amount of talent and we were tough and had better players than some teams in the B1G. This whole “Everyone in the B1G has more talent than us” gets really old.
It’s a fair question. There are so many factors in play; I’ll try to offer a few.
I won’t speak for TheC, but we both watch UCONN regularly. The talent level disparity is quite large vs. NU, and I feel that’s needless to say. I also recognize we are not a “championship level” team, per our own coach’s admission, so I don’t even expect us to have talent like that.
An unusual phenomenon is that in both 22-23 and 23-24, there was very little W/L spread between a BIG team in 2nd place and one in say 11th place. The spread was only 3 or games vs. more typical years of 6-7. Not sure if this was a less competitive BIG or not (as it’s been underperforming in the NCAA for many more years), but it’s easier to see how we could finish unusually higher, all else equal.
To me, injuries, experience, depth, having a finisher (in Buie), fatigue (mental and physical) and some expected amount of randomness all played big roles. With last year’s team of Buie, Langborg, Berry, Nicholson and Barnhizer, and Martinelli off the bench, we had a really experienced, well-balanced team (especially offensively with the addition of Langborg) and one superstar / finisher. Not much other depth, though. We won more of the close games largely because of Buie. We likely would have cracked the top 2-3 teams if not for injuries to Berry and Nicholson. Our strongest team ever.
The prior year was similar in many ways but inherently a more defensively talented team with Audige.
This year, injuries have hurt us even more, it appears, with Barney and the slow recovery of Berry.
The other issues are randomness and fatigue. As you can see from this year and from other worse years, we are always way too close to falling near the bottom of the conference. With few exceptions, we see our guys play exceptionally hard, and frankly, it takes a lot out of them over the course of the year without the depth of other teams, especially when we very rarely have a leader like Buie who can carry the team’s scoring on his back. And then, a few bounces / shots / bad calls here and there and we are subject to this randomness that changes the whole tenor of the season.
We know that recognized awards are evidence of talent. We have had a first-team All-BIG the last two years, plus Audige and Barnhizer getting awards. We might be close to that level this year with Martinelli and sure would have been with a healthy Barnhizer. But even in these years, our awards are not as extensive as many other BIG teams.
Bottom-line, folks know my opinion is that Collins is one of the best coaches in the league and is perfect for us, and he’s a built a program that keeps us so very competitive in light of well-known limitations. But, what I think the above indicates is that our level and depth of talent is not yet enough to regularly overcome the typical uncertainties and challenges needed to be a consistent top tier team.
I think if the BIG10 had a track meet of basketball players, us and Wisconsin might bring up the rear. However, when we've won, we've had a good mix of skilled players filling all the needed roles consistently. Most pertinently, last year Boo was that outstanding player, and he was complemented with consistent 3-point and spot-up from Langborg, and Ty that gave us a really nice guard group. This year we haven't had that. Leach's play just hasn't made up for all that loss. So athletes matter, but so, too, does having quality (and in Boo's case star) players in the ideal basketball roles.
If the B1G had a track meet of basketball players, KJ Windham would probably be in the top heat. Problem is, he’s young as a D1 basketball player so not quite ready yet.
So, your point about skilled players that filled roles makes sense. But talking about how a track meet relates to basketball talent means nothing.
One problem this year is Collins assumes (correctly) he has little margin for error until proven otherwise.
The non-conference schedule removed NET 300+ teams, which reduced likelihood of blowouts. Very little opportunity for KJ, Ciravino, Fitzmorris, even Barkley to get on the floor and see if they can contribute.
The lack of blowouts let to cumulative fatigue and the fewer opportunities to develop depth in game conditions.
I’m not ready to write the season off yet. These guys have moxie and could pull off a run.
I aimed my comment at you and Gordie specifically.
So instead of "a few of you guys" I should have written "you two"
Here are the three messages, in order, after another tough loss, this time without Barnhizer.
Okay, David is merely stating how quickly the lead disappeared.
Gordie shows up with his usual "our players suck" mantra, but tries to make it appear as if David Gold said the same thing, which he clearly didn't. Lame.
And then you chime in with a weak comment that is well-below your normal standard and somewhat offensive given the Collins press conference about Barnhizer.
Wisconsin may actually have less talent than us. They lost AJ Storr to Kansas, Chucky Hepburn to Louisville and Tyler Wahl to graduation. They added John Tonje who played 4 years at Colorado State and was rated about #200 out of high school. And yet, because Gard and his staff are able to develop their players, Wisconsin is having a very good year.
Look at their roster and where the players came from and how they improve.
There is no talent gap whatsoever.
First, I typed that post before I learned about the news of the day, so cut me a little slack.
Second, deciding who is more talented is usually a matter of opinion and my opinion is that we lack the talent of most of the rest of the BIG. You can disagree and that's fine. If you want to go to stats, you are welcome to, but the biggest stat at the end of the day is that 3-8 record. I don't think our players suck by any means, but I just think that across the board, they are one notch below the talent level of their counterparts outside of Brooks. We aren't far off, but far enough that the majority of these close games have turned against us. And in all those losses, I haven't once said to myself, we are clearly the better team with better players, but we screwed it up. We just simply didn't have quite enough. Again.... my opinion.
To me, the two biggest issues with our game was Angelo missing every shot - he's a freshman and I don't blame him for struggling at this level, but had he his 1/3 of his shots, the game would have played out very differently down the stretch, and Mullins picking up that dumb technical foul which turned an eight point lead into a ten point run against us.
Nick had a low shooting percentage for him, but he got tagged twice (no calls) on the shot in the last few minutes. Getting him to the line would have mattered a bunch as well.
All in all, I thought the guys played pretty darned well without Brooks, and Leach was outstanding. His last missed three was the difference between a one point game and a six point game, and he was carrying the offense.
Nick had a low shooting percentage for him, but he got tagged twice (no calls) on the shot in the last few minutes. Getting him to the line would have mattered a bunch as well.
All in all, I thought the guys played pretty darned well without Brooks, and Leach was outstanding. His last missed three was the difference between a one point game and a six point game, and he was carrying the offense.
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