Let's focus on the current team. The writers from InsideNU are confused about comparing this year's team versus last year's team. This year's team is more athletic with the addition of Law, Benson and one more year of development of McIntosh, Falzon, Skelly and Lindsey. Olah was not there for most of the Big 10 season due to injury. His lack of mobility and lack of lateral quickness hurt the team on defense who had to rely more on zone defense and on Demps who was limited defensively and had problems guard bigger shooting guards like Rahkman of UM and Lyle of OSU. Those 4 losses to UM and OSU killed the 'cats. Why diid we lose close games versus those slightly above average teams? OSU and UM had athletic SGs and SFs who created turnovers and made offensive plays and led to easy baskets while NU had to work for everything they got out of their offensive sets. With the addition of Law defensively and hopefully, offensively and a year older and more mature, Lindsey, NU's perimeter defense should be better since they both have long arms and are athletic and should be able to create more turnovers and transition buckets from steals.
As for making conclusions about the 2017 recruiting being over, it is premature. We have a number of outstanding offers and I hope and believe, that 1 or 2 recruits will understand the positives of making history at NU which is one of the best if not the best combination of athletics and academics in the Big 10.