is we get another shot at them in Champaign. That will be sweet.
Silver lining in this bad loss...
- Thread starter MC_Cat
- Start date
There is no silver lining in losing to this trainwreck of an Illini team, imo. None.
Sorry to feel this way, but it's starting to look like "here we go again" as far as making the tournament.
And a team playing way below their talent level. Not that losing to an underachieving team at home is good, but the Illini actually played like they should have been playing with their talent level. And it's still a top 100 loss which is not a bad loss. Believe it or not, they are on the verge of the top 50 based on the latest Warren Nolan RPI rankings (53 versus 43 for Northwestern). So losing this will not actually hurt their NCAA Tournament chances that much, and NW still has a chance to make things up in the return game at Illinois with hopefully Lindsey back in the lineup by then.
Why don't we let the rest of the season play out before we all panic based on one game! Cubs fans felt the same way at times during their championship run this past year. Let the season finish and then have at it if things don't work out.
What can we all agree on? First, tonight’s game was one of many in recent weeks around the CBB circuit where a strong team got tripped up in a game that seemed quite winnable; happens every year to almost every good team. Next, that our margin for error going forward just shrank, and that’s unfortunate and mostly unexpected given the Illini’s inconsistency. And third, that we have not fully untangled ourselves from our nemesis --- the late game jitters and potential meltdown.
It’s not yet “here we go again”, methinks; but an image I have is of there being a fork in the road ahead, very close to where we stand now after tonight’s loss. Without Scottie getting well and soon, we are probably in a muddy slippery slide onto the rocky road leading out of the fork; it will likely not turn out well.
With Scottie getting well soon and playing with energy and confidence, we are probably going to take a step or two down that rocky road as he rounds back into form, and then turn and get back to the fork and begin down the paved road, wishing and hoping.
With Scottie getting well soon and immediately picking up right where he left off, we can mostly just “stay calm and carry on.” Assuming the rest of the team plays up to its potential in the final weeks including the Big10 Tourney, that is.
Whether one thinks “we’re almost there” or “we’re so near and yet so far” or “here we go again” is mostly a function of one’s optimism/pessimism scale. Given our teams’ history, we’re probably sitting a bit more on the pessimistic side of the scale. I’m fighting that, but is very hard to do.
Well said, Pal. The only positive, though, that I take from this game is that Scottie is one day closer to being healthy.
if this NU loss helps Groce keep his job it's almost worth it
John Groce is so far beyond gone. Sources say Whitman has already contacted his ideal replacement, but I won't pretend to know who that is. Lots of rumors of Cuonzo Martin from Cal or Archie Miller from Dayton if, by some miracle, NC State doesn't have an opening (he played PG there).
I’m drooling just thinking of Archie at the helm off the Illini. Morgan Miller coming to UofI would be a delicious off-season treat. We’d have endless opportunities to savor her tweets and witness the orange and blue eye makeup washing down her tear-filled cheeks after games.
http://www.csnchicago.com/big-ten/a...rn-twitter-some-reason-after-cats-beat-dayton
i think the silver lining is that without our most dynamic and consistent scorer we lost at purdue (dealing with losing Lindsey, an on-fire purdue team, and outscored them in the 2nd half), and lost to our rival in a close game at home. while Brown is making mistakes, he is getting valuable playing time. In years past, these would have been blowouts. if we can whether the storm and get lindsey back, we'll still be in a good spot.
My point exactly. Win that game on the road and we will make up whatever ground we lost by losing last night.
It's not a matter of panic, but some of NU's toughest games of the year lie ahead and I don't see them beating Purdue or Wisconsin without their full lineup. Illinois, given their performance so far this year, was a bad loss. I don't know how old you are, but I've been a Cubs fan since the mid-1950s, so you don't have to tell me about letting the season play out. I haven't given up on the Cats and hope they will get things in gear, but I've seen this script with them way too many times before. This is a better team than in the past, but only if the players stay healthy and on the court.
Yeah. home loss translates well to an way win. I hope they have more than 8K in home attendance.
Since Illinois has about five times the enrollment of Northwestern, I would hope so, too.
Let's see them perform on the court. Illinois has been one of the most underachieving big state universities in the country for the past few years.
Fun trolling aside, I'll be the first to admit that Illinois has a ways to go to return to the level fans had come to expect from the '80s until about 2010. However, that underachieving can easily be fixed with a good hire. Will Illinois make a good hire? Nobody knows, but anything will beat Groce at this point.
As far as attendance, I think our fan base has a strange reputation as being fair weather (two main reasons being 1) with IL being such a big state, the bandwagon fans come out in full force when the Illini are good like 2005 Final Four or 2007 Rose Bowl and 2) our football fans are definitely fair weather, LOL), but we usually draw pretty damn well for basketball, given how bad we've been. We just sold out a game vs. Minnesota when it was painfully obvious Groce had lost this team and our season was going nowhere (part of this was the World Series trophy, for sure, but there still probably would have been over 13,000+ easily). I think there will be a decent crowd for the NU home game.
Congratulations on winning your version of the NCAA tournament game versus our shorthanded.squad Might help you finish ahead of Rutgers. A NBA player and two sixth-year seniors, and STILL we can't find you in the conference standings with flashlights. What an embarassment to the league your program is. Still want to help out here?
We'll have our leading scorer back, and you'll be hopelessly out of it, playing out the string. Sounds like a win for us.
