is that we have absolutely no idea what this team is capable of or how good they are. Columbia is decent so that might be the one indication. The one very good team we played was NC and of course they were missing their best player. It is easy to get caught up in the hype of our record right now but I'm afraid we're not going to know anything until the B1G season starts, and that is a bit frustrating. With our abysmal strength of schedule and with the Big Ten struggling, we might need a better conference record than would typically be required to sniff the Tournament. I'm really looking forward to the start of the "real" season when we will learn a lot about this team.
One problem with our noncon schedule
- Thread starter DocCatsFan
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We could have 9 BIG wins and still not beat anyone. IL looks weak as does WIS, OSU, MN. Top three are strong but who else? Do we have to beat one of them to go?
I think this year is worse than ever. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall a year where just about all of the noncon teams we've played were ranked like 150 and worse with maybe 2 exceptions (this year being Columbia and NC). I mean, we're playing teams that probably don't even belong in D1. We can win 22 games and still not have a single "quality" win, and I don't think that gets you into the tournament.
Not last season. NU played North Florida (NCAA Tournament team), Northern Iowa (NCAA), Georgia Tech, Butler (NCAA), and Central Michigan (NIT). A much tougher overall schedule than the current slate.
You don't know how good any team is this time of year. That's my point. There were few, if any, on this board that thought North Florida was any good when we played them. The only discussion at the time was about how poorly we played to only beat them by 2 points. I think Virginia Tech will almost certainly end up being better than Georgia Tech last year. North Carolina is certainly the equal of Butler or Northern Iowa. DePaul, Columbia and/or Fairfield may end up being the equal of Central Michigan. We have almost always played a bunch of terrible teams. I checked the 2010-2011 schedule and we played Long Island, Texas Pan-Am, Arkansas Pine-Bluff, St. Frances of New York, American University and Mount St. Mary's. The "name" teams were Northern Illinois, Georgia Tech, St. John's and Creighton. St. John's and Long Island made the tournament that year. Northern and Georgia Tech were bad and Creighton was decent.
North Carolina has 11 four-star players on its roster.
With the best player injured NC is still a top-15 team. With it's top three players out it would still be a top 25 team.
NU played NC decently at times but NC had ridiculous talent. Yes, you can draw some conclusions from this game along with the VT game.
With the best player injured NC is still a top-15 team. With it's top three players out it would still be a top 25 team.
NU played NC decently at times but NC had ridiculous talent. Yes, you can draw some conclusions from this game along with the VT game.
Maybe we learned something from NC. But VaTech? They're the bottom of the ACC and KenPom 112 right now. Hardly a "quality" win despite them being in the ACC.
CC said when asked about the seemingly nuttier than usual noncon schedule this year that he thought this team needed to boost its confidence. No doubt this schedule is very intentional. I just think it leaves us in the dark and it really creates the need for a much more successful B1G record to even be considered for the postseason.
We've had several seasons in the last 20 years where our non-con schedule was nearly this weak, if not as weak.
Again, it's not very different from a lot of years (it may end up being very similar to last year) and a victory on the road against an ACC opponent that clearly has some skilled players tells you something. Our KenPom and RIP are currently under 60 with the schedule we have played. I assume you mean NCAA tournament and not NIT when you refer to post-season but I would think a 10-8 record with a couple of quality wins in the conference would get us into the NCAA tournament. Based on what I have seen and barring additional injuries, I think the team will be competitive in almost every conference game and will win 8 to 10 games. Our depth and 3-point shooting should help us avoid any long losing streaks.
Well, IL is 109 and Nebraska is 110, so basically even with VT. And VT is well ahead of Minnesota, PSU and Minny. That's equivalent to or better than five Big Ten teams. And NU played them at VT.
A decent opponent and a decent win.
You guys really need to stop downplaying the win over Va Tech, especially since it came on the road. Their coach recruited some excellent talent to Marquette and has done the same thing in just his second year there. They haven't lost since we beat them. Yes, the schedule is pretty weak but very comparable to a lot of mid-pack BIG teams. It's all about building a young team's belief going into the Big Ten. Then, we'll see where we are, but these games have shown us we have a deeper bench than we are used to having. Let's hope it pays off since we've already suffered one season-ending injury and one in-season injury and we're still 8-1 when those kind of things have doomed us in the past.
No doubt it's the crappiest of crappy schedules. It's a program with a third-year coach in a transitional year that's trying to rack up wins and get any kind of post-season play. It's pretty obvious this was done with a purpose and I have no problem with that ... for now.
Now, if Collins is six or seven seasons into this with a reasonably experienced team, and doing the same thing, then I have a problem.
I'll also agree this is far from the first NU team that's ever been poorly prepared for a B10 schedule.
Now, if Collins is six or seven seasons into this with a reasonably experienced team, and doing the same thing, then I have a problem.
I'll also agree this is far from the first NU team that's ever been poorly prepared for a B10 schedule.
Of course, we may not be as "poorly prepared for a B10 schedule" as would normally be the case with our preseason schedule. With the exception of MSU, MD, and Purdue (and maybe IA) the B10 looks extremely iffy this year.
Exactly. I certainly don't have a problem with the easy schedule and the motives behind it, but the fact remains that it is an easy schedule and the people that think that 9+ conference wins will guarantee an NCAA bid have their heads in the clouds.
I think it is pretty apparent that while NC is good and VT and Columbia may be OK, I am not sure there is not much with the OOC teams we are playing. Just saying, OOC schedule looks pretty weak.
Skelly might have made a bit of a difference but they have a lot of talent.
Don't much care whether we're headed to the tournament or not at this point.
In my eyes, there are two incredibly important goals that should be achieved this year: 1. make some sort of postseason appearance...an NIT bid is fine enough in that regard; 2. win more than 6 B1G games.
Meeting these = progress for CC. Progress for CC = recruiting, which is the most important overall goal here. We have to get more talent into this program.
With the majority of the BIG as weak as it seems this year, we would need a better than normal qualifying record anyway.
Michigan and Indiana are good teams with the potential to be very good teams. Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio State are definitely down but Ohio State has a lot of talent and could improve dramatically as the season goes on. Minnesota and Nebraska will be competitive games, I am guessing. Rutgers and Penn State are games we have to win. This is definitely a year when we can get some wins against teams that have been difficult to beat in the past. In Collins first couple of years, we have pulled a few upsets. We need to beat a couple of the upper-tier teams and take care of the games we should win.
Va Tech could be better by the end of the year. But other than Columbia, it does not look like many of the other OOC foes have much chance of that.
Also worth noting that the selection committee doesn't use KenPom. RPI may not be fashionable, but it's more relevant - and, for now, it's more favorable to Mizzou and VT than KenPom is. Of course, none of these numbers are really useful till we get into conference play, anyway.
With apologies to Dory from Finding Nemo, just keep winning.
With apologies to Dory from Finding Nemo, just keep winning.
Not this year with the strength of the BIG. Other than the top 3-5, the rest don't look like they will be "quality" wins.
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The question is who do we beat that will be considered a quality win? I would guess not IL, OSU, RUT, MN, NEB, PSU and maybe not WI. Not sure about IA, IN or MI
But let's just be clear about how weak this schedule really is. We play 5 teams with KenPom rankings below 280. We have the 314th easiest noncon schedule and there are only 3 power conference teams with easier schedules than ours (Baylor, Clemson, and Wazzou). Gonna have to have a really special B1G conference record to sniff the Big Dance.
.500 is huge for an NU basketball team based on history. 10-8 ridiculous.
And it's not ridiculous to look at the entire schedule and think that NU get there...10-8...if JVZ comes back and "doing what he's 'posed to do."
NU is going to get better next year and the especially the following two years. But, this may be the best year to pop the balloon.
This is one of the better statements in this thread. This is what it's all about.
You GOTTA have an NIT this year or next year or CC risks walking into living rooms talking about the same ol', same ol' that so many NU coaches have done in the past.
I'd be surprised if most recruits looked up the RPI for the Cats schedule after CC sells an NIT bid as a foundation.
I don't care whether or not fans think they have a good gauge on how good we are at this point in the season. What is important: that the coaches know how good we are, that we avoid any bad losses in the OOC and that we put ourselves in a position where a strong B1G seasons gets us into a post-season tournament.
There's no doubt that our OOC schedule is super weak. But, as I said when the schedule was first announced, the poor SOS doesn't really matter that much if we wind up going 12-1. There is no margin for error, but we're four games away from getting through the OOC in a great position.
We've never made the NCAA Tournament in 76 years, we've never won 20 regular season games in ever, we're 8-1 with a chance to go 12-1 in nonconference which I can't recall ANYONE predicting here on the interweb, and some of you have your panties in a bunch that we may not have done enough to schedule ourselves into an at-large spot into the NCAA Tournament?
Sorry if I trust what Coach Collins and Doc Phillips think is best for our team at this stage in the growth process than DocCatsFan.
Schedule is fine. We'll have plenty of chances to prove / disprove whether we belong in the tournament. It's WAY too early to worry how many B1G wins we need to get in. It's simply impossible to know. We'd be compared to at large teams in so many other conferences that frankly NONE OF US have a clue how they will be ending up at this point.
There's 3 months until Selection Sunday. Worrying about this crap now is nice for page views, it's nice because it gets me to rant, but it's stupid and pointless.
We had to sneak out a few wins in OT with this "incredibly easy schedule" .... so I mean maybe we should just enjoy the growth of this team?
Sorry if I trust what Coach Collins and Doc Phillips think is best for our team at this stage in the growth process than DocCatsFan.
Schedule is fine. We'll have plenty of chances to prove / disprove whether we belong in the tournament. It's WAY too early to worry how many B1G wins we need to get in. It's simply impossible to know. We'd be compared to at large teams in so many other conferences that frankly NONE OF US have a clue how they will be ending up at this point.
There's 3 months until Selection Sunday. Worrying about this crap now is nice for page views, it's nice because it gets me to rant, but it's stupid and pointless.
We had to sneak out a few wins in OT with this "incredibly easy schedule" .... so I mean maybe we should just enjoy the growth of this team?
Amen. Enjoy the ride.
About the only gripe one could have is, the home OOC games are pretty unexciting. Which is why many of the ticket holders (and students) haven't shown up. The best of the OOC games (UNC and Mizzou, VaTech and DePaul) have been away from W-R. But there is little Phillips could do about that. Next year the ACC challenge should rotate back to Evanston, DePaul will be in W-R, and hopefully there will be another mid-major home tilt (like a Butler or a UNI or a Marquette).
So should posters ask you what topics are appropriate before starting or joining threads?
No...what he means is some of us sure like to complain a lot despite the fact that we're currently 8-1 without Law. It's not like we have a ton of past success to look back on. Why don't we enjoy it and see where it goes? What's point in being negative when the positives have far outweighed the negatives thus far? Bringing up legit criticism is one thing, but when that's all a poster does, or he just continues to repeat the same spiel (ie Vasser), it really makes you wonder...
The BIG three in MD, MSU and PU. Those are the quality of the conference right now. I was just looking at the potential of getting 8-10 wins without really having a "quality " win. And with our OOC SOS, it is likely we would need a quality win or so to get a ticket to the dance regardless of whether we get to 9-10 BIG wins or not. . With the overall weakness of the rest of the conference, what constitutes a quality win? Just one against the Big three? Or will there be some other opportunities?
The Big Ten has seven or eight teams in the tournament every year. And a couple in the NIT. So, the top ten teams are quality. Not all the same quality, but quality.
Let's say NU is in the top ten. That leaves nine Big Ten teams from which to get a quality win.
The three you mention as quality are all in the top ten of the national polls. That leaves six teams that aren't NU, MSU, Purdue or Maryland who will end the season ranked in the top 75 or so. Wins against any of those teams will be quality wins. Of course, the higher up the food chain the win comes, the better the quality.
NU only plays the three teams you mention a cumulative four games. So, there are 14 conference games plus tournament games remaining to get a handful of quality wins. Assuming they don't win one of the four against the top-ten nationally ranked Big Ten teams.
It's plausible if NU continues to get better as the season progresses. But they can't get blown out in conference and they have to avoid stringing together a series of losses.
Actually, Carmody won 20 games twice and I think those teams had 11 or 12 nonconference wins with some high quality teams (two preseason tourney wins). That said, your point is well taken. The schedule was crafted to help a young team build confidence. Let's take things as they come. I happen to think the game at DePaul Saturday will be tough. Can remember us winning only one time against them at Alllstate Arena.
To be fair, he said 20 regular season wins -- if you count the Big Ten Tournament as regular season, we've done it once, in 2010. If you don't, we've never done it.
Here are our non-conference records (excluding postseason games) in the four NIT years:
2009: 9-2, no preseason tournament
2010: 12-1, won Chicago Invitational
2011: 10-1, 2nd place MSG Holiday Festival
2012: 10-2, won Charleston Classic
This is a good summary. The only thing I'd add is we may have to win two of those four games against the projected top three. What other teams will be top 50? Iowa for sure and probably Indiana ... and that's it.
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