I know the committee takes into account how a team plays late in the season. Imagine we lose the next two games, win one in the BTT and lose in the quarterfinals. That's 21 wins, but with some utter crap games late in the season. We really need to find a way to win vs. either Michigan or Purdue or we are back to having to make a run in the BTT.
Maybe 21 wins won't do it
- Thread starter timbfischer
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Also depends on how other teams in our conference do. I don' think the Big Ten gets more than 6 in NCAA Tourney this year.
Depends on who it is against, maybe? If we beat either Michigan or Purdue, I agree. But if we get to the BTT and beat Rutgers or, well, they may be the only team we can beat right now, maybe it isn't enough.
Well, that is off topic. I'd prefer we don't just attack our athletes on a thread I started. Thanks.
I hate to make Cubs comparisons but I have no choice. Down 3-1, backs against the wall they come back to force a game 7, lose a three run lead in the 8th and win it in the 10th. My point is, this team fights, we've seen it throughout the year, and they will make the NCAA tournament this year because they do fight. Go Cats!
beat michigan or purdue and all is fine. maybe even win the btt.
We have another handful of decades to go until we were as bad as the Cubs were.
The most disheartening thing tonight was that we STILL haven't learned that Mac dribbling the ball into / out of double teams and traps for most of the shot clock just isn't our best offense. When the ball stops moving via the pass, our offense breaks down, the other teams get too many points out of transition. The first half was just a flat out choke job, the 2nd half was just disappointing we haven't learned.
We have winners on this team. They were just neutered by coaching decisions down the stretch. This is exactly how we lost to ND and Butler - playing to drain clock instead of using the lack of clock for what it is - something that forced the other team to take risks - and exploiting that.
It's not just that it's not our best offense. It's that it isn't an offense at all! That's an offense when you have Labron or MJ or Kobe or even Tiny Archibald. Guys who can always create - and can beat anybody. BMac is great but he's great with a team. Not one on one.
It just sucks that if we do get in, it will be this way. Historically bad big ten, worse Ohio state, Michigan state, Illinois,Indiana, Rutgers, Texas, DePaul, Nebraska teams. One good win in 30 games. Soft non conference schedule. Takes the fun out of it to backslide in this way. Weak. Sad. But a stepping stone nonetheless!
The non-conf.schedule is definitely not the problem. Win one of the next two at home or one o two in the BTT and the Cats go "dancing".!
In "winning the championship" terms, yes.
If we equate winning the Big Ten with winning the division and making the NCAAs with making the playoffs, the Cubs were doing much better than NU even without the World Series title.
Which is EXACTLY why this team is NOT close to getting a bid (as of today). A SINGLE good win in the entire season, and at least 2 bad losses is NO RESUME to earn a bid. Especially when you are just ONE game over .500 in a WEAK B1G.
NU DESPERATELY NEEDs to beat Purdue for its SECOND good win, in order to have a chance AT ALL. To have a GOOD chance it NEEDS BOTH Purdue AND Mich.
Sorry.
In watching this game, I thought of Norman Dale and "four passes". (No good YouTube clips exist, it seems.)
NU has a very bad offense when it's high screen and chuck, or pound pound pound floater, or swing it around the perimeter and pull up (even when the Hail Mary bankshot drops). Use all five guys. The run to start the second half happened because NU committed to playing inside out - Pardon got lots of touches, and Mc drove to dish. They've got to play that way.
That's been driving me nuts all season (and for some reason BMac hasn't gotten nearly as much flack as when Demps did something similar).
And BMac waits too long (taking too much time off the clock) before he starts driving to the basket, leaving him little time to make the outlet pass if double-teamed, which usually results in BMac throwing up a wild shot or if he makes a pass, a hurried shot by a teammate (and often, instead of taking a hurried shot, would have been better to have made a 2nd pass to a more open 'Cat).
Don't like relying on hero-ball, but if they are going to do it, the coaches need to tell BMac to start his drive earlier.
Sorry that your favorite team lost a heartbreaker today. But Boston U. is pretty good... maybe not quite as good as Indiana, but definitely in the same ballpark.
No. The coaches need to tell the entire team to play basketball! We completely suck at taking the air out of the ball. The one thing we do extremely well is pass and move and screen and roll and look for the open guy and make the extra pass and crash the heck out of the boards. That's our game! Yet for some inexplicble reason, Collins is enamored with the end of game offense he saw his dad use with the Bulls - but that was Michael Jordan!
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What do you call dribbling the ball around for 22 seconds and then jacking up a highly contested shot at the buzzer? That's essentially 90% of a turnover - on every possession.
They were also over-pressuring on the last few possessions. I think if we made a pass out of the double team and attacked, we had layups or fouls. Then with 38 seconds left, they pressed, and we threw a pass cross-court to mid-court, and had numbers. But we pulled up, and we all know what happened. I'm not saying we should have carelessly gone for a basket, but at least dribble/attack the basket and see what happens. Its very possible, we attack the lane, they come up we get a layup/foul. If not, dribble through the lane and back out. You see good confident teams doing this all the time, teams that have been there before and have no fear.
Yes, I completely agree with you. I'm saying we don't have the kind of personnel to be successful closing out games that way at all. Stop movement = stop winning.
Stop movement = stop winning. Truer words were never spoken.
I predict N'Western will split final two B10 games (win over Meatchicken and lose to Purdon't) and will slip into NCAA tourney. More difficult than cats fans predicted earlier in the season. However, other than Wisky at top and Rutgers at bottom, other 12 teams have such parity with essentially 50/50 chance in most match-ups.
I'd like to think that's a question we won't have to ask . . .
Must have missed the parts where I stated that (1) don't like hero-ball and (2) but if they are going to go w/ it, start the drive earlier which would give BMac more time to make an outlet pass, much less a second pass (which would be ball movement).
And I hate to admit, as a Cleveland Indians fan, they the Cubs came back on the only team with a more pathetic history than theirs
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