OurDecay

Speaking of Ward…my goodness he was terrifying

That was a great performance. For many reasons. It’s mind-blowing that our team is so deep and plays so hard that they could extend a lead with both Gary & Williams having foul trouble. Then your hottest player Wilcher leaves the game with injury….no big deal. Oh yeah, we have this Tominaga guy. I would HATE scouting us.

Non-con margins of victory: 32 27 14 21 21 10 13 -29 (CU) 16 (@KSU) 8 29 that’s way better than we could have reasonably expected as NUBB fans

Anybody that isn’t overjoyed by a dominant performance over a bad team, where we were able to put in the scout team for half of the second half, is crazy. We could have literally named the score if we wanted to. it was way better than I expected. They appear locked in for the rest of the season. We were diving for loose balls while up 40+.

My first thought is that Gary is the adult in the room. He just is different than anybody else we have and frankly when he’s rolling he is a nightmare matchup. But his presence and how he handles himself in pressure moments is awesome. He’s the guy I want with the ball at the end when we need a shot in March to win our first ever tourney game. Second thought, is that CJ Wilcher is the least-athletic looking good athlete we’ve had in a while. His movements and his mannerisms are all awkward…but time and time again this year he will have these big moments (put backs inside against much taller players, clutch 3s out of nowhere) that remind you “oh yeah…glad we have that guy”. I have no earthly clue how he gets some of these inside shots to go down. But he does. He never makes it look easy. To me the story of this team is the depth and effort. We have enough viable players that we can miss a key player or have a guy have an off night (KT, BW) and yet have enough talent on the roster that somebody else steps up. The occasional big 3 from Sam is a good example.

KSU in the second half offensively looked a lot like NU in the second half vs Minnesota. if we were going to give credit to Minny’s staff for their halftime adjustments then, we have to tip the cap to our staff today. Incredible.

Interesting 3-Pt Shooting Percentages thru 6 games

I appreciate both of those responses. Good points made. I will say…in theory KT is one of the best shooters in America but I worry a bit if we caught lightning in a bottle down the stretch last year. Outside that late run I don’t know that he was necessarily an elite shooter? Potentially of course…but his production hasn’t matched his hype otherwise in his career. He has a good chance to permanently shift that narrative this year…hope he does.

Sorry to join this discussion so late, but I made the crazy suggestion in the off-season that I would like to see KT coming off the bench. I don’t love our offensive flow when he’s in the game necessarily. And if our team identity is going to be defense, then don’t put him as a starter. He’s obviously a weapon but I’m not convinced he needs to start to be effective. I like him better after toughness and defensive tone has been established, and then he comes in fresh off the bench and cleans up. On that note, I really love our depth and like Boogie and Sam with the second group that comes in. Once Gary is back I’d have him come in for Allick in the second group so you always have a high-energy rebounder on the court. I think Mast will ultimately be our leading scorer on the year because we don’t really have a true backup for him…but I think Brice W is pretty good and will start to establish himself as the season wears on. We are deep enough that we can have a bad night but then somebody down the rotation can carry us (Wilcher this game)

I’m not so sure SH isn’t our best defender. He creates havoc on the defensive end, is probably our best passer on offense and shot 40.9% from 3 last year. He isn’t just a feel good story, he’s a feature. I’d probably feel comfortable with him taking a clutch 3 over anybody other than KT. The combined hustle and energy between him and Allick is noticeable. You have to have at least one of them on the court at all times to drive urgency IMO. Tons to love from what we saw tonight. Second chance points via hustle and rebounds will be huge if it continues.

This dude athletic. We can work with this. Love the pick up

I know this sounds crazy, but I’m not convinced we need Tominaga to be a starter. He could be our leading scorer as a 6th man IMO.

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.