Maybe teams have "figured out" our base defense now.
- Thread starter FeralFelidae
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Defense? We have 45 points with 4 minutes left in the game.
Refs gave them a lot of free shots from the line. Cats helped letting them have a the offensive rebounds. Sitting here, I’m unimpressed with Michigan and embarrassed for the Cats.
Michigan sucks and looked like a team that sucked tonight. Northwestern failed in the basic fundamentals of boxing out, made a few very dumb fouls (multiple fouls of three point shooters FFS), but otherwise played sort of okay on that side while playing a pathetic offensive game.
Gane was lost in the first half. Michigan shot 29 percent and still led by one. We did not take advantage. The game is all about 3-point shooting these days and ours has been pretty bad the last two games. That said, this team has been a pleasant surprise this season and works really hard. That Michigan team that some are disparaging is loaded with high end talent. They had a bad first half (except for Jett) at Penn State and couldn't recover.
Dude, don’t overthink this one. We ran out of steam 3/4 of the way through the Iowa game and halfway through this one. It’s dead legs.
The real question is why didn’t Collins incorporate Martinelli into the rotation when the team was clearly gassed?
The real question is why didn’t Collins incorporate Martinelli into the rotation when the team was clearly gassed?
You're right.
In fact, even Juwan Howard was focused specifically on how we double team the post so frequently. In the postgame he said something like "Yeah, we knew they doubled the post pretty much every time, so we focused our practices on that and what to do. We got a ton of open looks and weren't really hitting them in the first half, but I told the guys to stick with it"
Every coach in the Big Ten knows exactly what we will do on defense. We see more of a concerted effort to beat Nicholson on the pick and roll, as well, when he follows the screener out to the 3 point arc.
Yes, they focused the three full days of practice they had before this game coming off of getting their asses handed to them by Penn State on Sunday morning on countering NU's defense whereas NU had one practice coming off leaving Iowa City after 10pm on Tuesday.
Halfway through? We were terrible and gassed from the tip-off. They were getting every loose ball/offensive rebound. The real question is will Collins continue to play Boo/Chase 38 minutes a game when games are out of reach.
Indeed. It's not like in the first half we were better offensively than the second. We were just as bad. It was just that MI was terrible.
This is the first conference game we completely looked like a mid major playing against a B1G team. We had some halves in non conference that were not good at all. But, in conference, even when we lost we did not look this deflated.
Our losses:
1) OSU - terrible first 8 minutes. Rest of the game we looked the part
2) RU - came down to one possession
3) @ MI - did not play well, but lost because they scored a lot of points, not because we could not play offense
4) @ IA - close for 3/4 of the game, IA got hot
I hope yesterday was mostly a physical thing. @ WI will tells us a lot about our real chances. If we lose badly, even NIT might be a mirage. If we play a competitive game, even if we lose, we have hope.
I don’t like our chances of beating WI in WI when we have already beat them once.
Yeah, disappointing result and we just played lousy. But when there is 5-6 minutes left and it's obvious the game is going to be a loss, knowing what our schedule has been, why leave Boo and Audige in? Can't understand why those guys were on the floor at the end of the game. Collins called a timeout with about two minutes left and I thought it was going to be so he could take the starters out, but they came right back on the floor. That made zero sense to me.
I think you need to re-watch the Juwan postgame interview. He had very glowing things to say about NU’s identity as a defensive team. Of course, he said stick with when shots aren’t falling.
This team’s issues are clearly in the offensive end. We can all clamor to mix it up, but it is not going to happen to any large degree. We are what we are. This game the ball basically stopped moving and our misses where in many cases not close. Both Boo and Chase HAVE to get to the basket for this team to be successful. Only one did. Beran disappeared and both of our Centers struggled. It would help if they kept defenders honest with a game that extends outside of 5 feet. They are what they are, but that should mean they are stellar on the glass. Big Matt, Beran and VH have to be better on the defensive glass when teams will inevitably shoot 3’s. How many offensive rebounds did we give up?
I think this sums it.
Chase settled for last couple of seasons shots. In a team where, other than Buie, there are serious offensive limitations, that has a big impact. Way beyond just missing the shots. It is his aggressiveness on attacking the basket that gets others open. Or gets others to receive the ball in a situation where the defender is late and they can get to the basket.
I am not on board with the minutes argument. Resting them a few minutes at the end of the game is not going to make any difference. These are 22 year olds in premier physical condition. Yes, they need rest, but that should be in practice where you lighten the load on every player in the rotation, especially those two. It’s not like we have any guards on the bench that would benefit from some garbage time.
That's a fair argument. But at the same time, why leave them in? What's the benefit? Even if you don't think the extra few minutes of rest makes a difference, there's really no argument for leaving them in.
Collins point in the postgame was smart here: they’re probably mentally tired as much as physically. They haven’t had an off day and haven’t had a real practice to reinforce their good offensive habits and drill out the bad ones, as is routine. As a result, bad habits snuck in during games. I thought it was a very fair answer.
The difference was they had open threes throughout the game and were eventually going to make some; ours were more contested.
Both our centers did not struggle. Nicholson played a solid game but is asked to do a lot. Dickinson is a good player who exploited our defensive switches.
The offensive rebounds Michigan got were primarily long rebounds AND it wasn't Hunter Dickinson getting those rebounds. Dickinson had 1 offensive rebound on his own miss and 2 defensive rebounds... in 32 minutes.
Terrence Williams (Beran and Barnhizer) had 4 offensive rebounds and 6 defensive rebounds. Kobe Bufkin (6'4" 195 guard) had 3 offensive rebounds and 9 defensive rebounds.
Well, much of our offense comes from our defense forcing turnovers, but we only forced 7. Is that on the offense or the defense?
Are we being asked to believe that we lost the games to Iowa and Michigan because everybody was tired but that it wouldn't have helped to rest Buie and Audige during the prior blowouts of Minnesota and Nebraska?
I mean I'm way past my prime and traveling to Iowa and back isn't going to set me back physically.
I mean I'm way past my prime and traveling to Iowa and back isn't going to set me back physically.
I think it's TBD if the schedule is catching up to us a little. The reality is that our last 50 minutes of basketball have been really terrible. Is that fatigue? The team just going through a rough stretch? Are we not as good as we thought we might be?
I think the next few games will help us answer those questions. I expect a much better effort on Sunday and I think that's a game we can certainly win. We beat Wisconsin in the first game and I didn't even think we played that great. Bring a good effort and I think a win is definitely attainable.
Are we being asked to believe that five minutes of extra rest in a game would have made up for not getting two extra days of rest and a full practice?
I guess we will just have to disagree on whether are Centers struggled or not. If you are going to have more fouls than points as our centers did, then you better be a defensive force. They weren’t. Big Matt is better than he played yesterday. A lot of those offensive rebounds also were tipped back by Michigan. Don’t confuse that with me thinking the Centers cost is the game. They did not. Chase have a subpar shooting game and as I said Beran didn’t have a good game.
Lots of bad ball luck in the first 20 minutes, especially the first 10 minutes compounded with no ability to make a basket last night for anyone other then Boo.
One team played Sunday morning, got home Sunday night. The other played Saturday morning at home. Traveled Monday or Tuesday to Iowa and then Tuesday night at 8pm. They could not have left Iowa until after 11 pm on Tuesday then you figure 4 hours total travel even if you fly. They did not get home unit the middle of the night. They had one day Wednesday on a bad nights sleep to practice, if they did at all. Meanwhile, Michigan had three days to practice and they did. Two passes out of almost 100% of the traps because that's what you have to do to get ahead of NU's rotation. Howard also played a ton of guys and had them running at NU in the first half. That said, the game came down to either team finding one guy who was hot, Michigan found No. 15 and he scored 10 points in a few minutes. That was it.
On the broadcast they said the team got back around 2am and they just had a walk thru.
Only thing that bothered me was as the game got away from them in the second half a few guys returned to the bad habits of last year where they just jacked up shots versus running offense.
I think the last two games we’ve lost because in the second half of each our guys didn‘t have the energy to match our opponents. Paying the bill for the covid time off.
This team doesn’t exactly have a lot of extra room for certain guys to have off nights so when it happens it’s tough to win.
Still gave up about only about 40% FG% against. THey had no legs left for the 5th game in 10 days. About 16% from 3 even wide open. While there may be some adjustments on D that might improve things a bit against 3 (IA hit 50%) otherwise they are still solid enough. They go back from IA at 1 AM on the first and then had to play MICH at 6 the next day. No time for practice learning teams tendencies or anything
They ran out of gas in their 5th game in 10 days and not getting back to NU till 1 AM Weds for a Thurs night game. They had no legs and that meant 16% from 3 Didn't have time for practice or even going over opponent
Michigan had had 3 days off vs the Cats only one not getting back from IA till 1 AM on Weds morning. They had no legs. This was the part to the 6 game stretch I was most concerned with
3 pt shooting (when open) is so much about the legs. THis was NUs 5th game in 10 days and only one day off since last game. This was a very tough stretch and it caught up with them on both O and D in especially second half
Because he is still a liability on D? He is a Frosh, has not filled out to be strong enough in the BIG and doesn't have a handle on his assignments yet. Also he finally got Roper back and that was a better alternative for the minutes and important to get back his conditioning
Not a whole lot of alternatives as they had to bring the ball up and both IA and MICH used a lot of FC press. Couldn't give eith much rest under those circumstances
But Mich also had three days to prepare for us while our guys had almost no time to prepare for them
At 5-6 minutes to go too early to give up. He did not have a lot of alternatives to using those guys. Mich had used a lot of FC press. And he left Roper in a minute too long as it was. Barnhaizer was in 27 minutes and Roper 21 as it was. Only guy they could really put in that would have allowed one of them out of the game would have been Dixon
Chase's shots for the most part were not last years hero ball. While he tried a couple threes early they were wide open and not way out. Took a lot of his mid range and had ntohing in first half Second half he hit a couple. They were mostly within the O and shots that have been pretty good for him so I did not see the reversion to last year you suggest. Just looked like he really did not have his legs
Because you do not really have anyone else to take over their rolls. MICH was using FC press a lot and you had to have the ball handlers in. And while we have a couple secondary type guys like Barhaizer and Roper, they (BB and CA) are really the only primaries. IA had done something similar. It took energy and shortened time to work O and kept them from being able to be rested
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