OurDecay

This is a great topic and great responses too. One thing we have had going for us down the stretch is we are kind of a nightmare to prepare for defensively. We have three matchup problems in our starting lineup: Walker: elite post moves and passing, can score on taller players; almost demands a double team Griesel: 6-7 PG that has very good post moves and will punish smaller guards by taking them inside…and recently has been effective from 3. He’s a big problem. Tominaga: while absolutely a terrifying 3-Pt shooter with infinite range and fast release, he is more scary with the way he moves without the ball. He requires your best defender who also needs to be very disciplined. Almost requires a box & one. When Tominaga started getting minutes and confidence/patience to play within the offense and not just jack up 3s, the entire offense benefitted. These three guys above are a huge problem defensively when all on the court together. KT wears out defenders, DW neutralizes height, and SG forces mismatches. He wouldn’t be on the court if we still had those other two guys. Do you remember how teams were daring Gary and Bando to shoot it? It resulted in less room for guys like Wilcher, who is finally making some shots. And I’m all in on JL. I think the answer is no, but those that’s credit those two guys for the culture to get to this point are right also.

I had very similar thoughts to you when looking back at records. I even looked further back at our Big 12 records prior to leaving. There we only played 16 conference games, which makes it harder to compare but also - in theory - gives you 4 easier games per year. So the overall records would seem to trend better versus what we have now, where we play less non-conference games. I researched this a while back but have since forgotten the details, but our non-con SOS in the Collier/Sadler and even Nee days was…bad. Miles eventually adjusted but it feels like we’ve had some rough non-con under Fred. Even discounting percentage and just looking at raw wins versus big-boy conference opponents in the regular season, this year is pretty good. In the 11 seasons Collier & Sadler coached us in the Big 12 - from 1999-00 to 2010-11 - NU beat 8 conference opponents ONCE…they went 8-8 in the 2008-09 season. Sure, less opportunities than we have now by 4…but we’ve watched NU beat 8 conference opponents for only the 4th time in the last 24 years this season.

Just thought I’d throw this out for appreciation: NU is completing their 12th season in the Big Ten conference. Only twice before have they won at least 8 games in conference: 2017-18 (Miles): 13-5 2013-14 (Miles): 11-7 (made NCAAs) These are our conference records in the Big Ten: 8-10 (current) 4-16 3-16 2-18 6-14 13-5 6-12 6-12 5-13 11-7 5-13 4-14 Even if we lost these last two regular season games, this will be - by percentage- our third-best Big Ten in history. For a team that lost so much off a bad team from a year ago, has lost multiple starters for the season this year, and has been forced deep into their bench and even walk ons…that is amazing. You can make arguments about relative conference strength year to year, but the bottom line is we always measure ourselves against our peers. And by that metric this is the third best season in the last dozen years. Carry on. RDK

This is so fun to watch. I had no idea they were capable of looking like this. this team we are watching can win some Big Ten games.

We are just shockingly bad

We are an awful basketball team filled with awful players. Both as individuals and as part of a team. We look like a high school team. My goodness.

For sure

Gary needs starter minutes for sure. Goodness.

Oh my God Griesel just killed a man

37-23 U4

Our starting group looks like a bunch of guys more comfortable coming off the bench, except for Griesel and Walker.

Griesel is nice

Okay, our reserves are where our dynamic athletes are. Some quickness and hops out of our second group. I also do like the clear emphasis on defensive effort. This team will definitely be a defense-to-offense team. I can’t see us scoring consistently in the half court until we get rolling with offensive sets.

We do not look particularly talented or dynamic early. Clearly a work in progress.

3 pages deep into this thread… We are talking about the guy who was the highest-scoring true frosh in D1, right? And the Big Ten Newcomer of the year? As far as I’m concerned, he far exceeded my expectations. Coming in as a true frosh and doing what he did statistically is very rare. I mean he wasn’t even a “high” 5-star. He wasn’t supposed to do this, even with his high expectations. This is beyond that. His legacy will be as a great player, and one that frankly we didn’t deserve. He would have gotten more benefit going somewhere else IMO. The fact that he embraced his opportunity and the community were unexpected bonuses. I’d love to have a ton more like him. Our disappointing season didn’t have a whole lot to do with him.