Fullbacksympathy

Phenomenal effort today. Allick’s rebound in the corner among three PSU guys, where he had seemingly no shot to get to the ball and got there anyway, was a top 5 play for me this year. Great team rebounding overall. Hoiberg is such a great defender. Best perimeter defense since Strickland imo. This isn’t the most talented NU team I’ve seen, but they do have talent. What they definitely are is the smartest NU team I have EVER seen. When a team has this kind of IQ and fundamentals, they win games like this one, in this fashion. They really, really know who they are.

Good effort. Next game is a great chance to move up in conference standings against NW.

Gotta learn the letdown lesson from Purdue. Winning at Illinois could give us a huge runway and a T25 ranking. Man what a win tonight though.

If we win out at home I think we probably get in due to the KState win. That's two top 10 wins against #1 and #6 to go along with a solid overall record. I said this before but I think Wiscy is the best team in the B1G. Beating them would be more impressive than Purdue. Lose to Wiscy and we've gotta get a road win for sure.

I’ve seen the best and worst basketball in 30 years of watching under Hoiberg. It’s wild. But he figured out how to win, and he deserves to be around to see it through. It’s an incredible adjustment and took a ton of humility to change his entire philosophy on both ends. We have a hell of a lot of talent coming down the pike.

I agree with almost all of this, but the word I’d describe for Hoiberg is strong. The kid has elite conditioning and strength for his frame, and he’s on the level of perimeter defense with Strickland and Lue—one of the best we’ve ever had. He’s also a two handed dunker at 6’ so we’re not talking about a typical… um… walkon Just my .02 because I think some see him as a cool underdog story and I think he’s just proven over time he’s a solid D1 basketball player.

Absolutely. I think the kid has lost about 30lbs over the last two seasons. That's serious dedication with a body type like CJ. Hard work paying off on both ends. He's finishing way better at the hoop as well with just a little more elevation. A little more bounce from outside. But defense is where he's really become a complete D1 player.

Good point on Eli. He’s a very gifted offensive player and is getting closer and closer to D1 on the defensive end. I like his development. He had a clutch, calm 4 points to go with a blocked shot and lucky steal. Those minutes were huge.

Great win. NW is a solid team. I think they’ll make the tourney. Good urgency to finish the damn thing. That’s big for the team’s confidence.

Man. I think you worded this articulately but there’s no way I’d change our defensive philosophy from the last two seasons. Teaching good m2m is about 75% help rotation, regardless of how extreme the help is. We’ve beaten two top 10 teams in the last two seasons with this sort of defense. I think it’s mostly awesome. It’s definitely a variant of m2m. Every m2m worth its salt has one on ball and four in zone after every pass. This version has extreme help in rotation. I agree with you that it’s difficult to sustain but it sure is a thing of beauty when it’s done right. I also agree about offensive tempo and intention. But I’m not sick of this defensive philosophy at all. I love watching it.

Bunch of adults playing ball out there for us this year. Sheesh. Ice water .

We should be ranked now because we beat the fucking shit out of the #1 team.

Not upset. I saw plenty of effort and we scored the ball fine. Wiscy has really figured out their offense. Best they’ve looked as a team since Kaminsky. Wiscy is at the top of the conference records for a reason. They may very well be the best team in the B1G. Two of their three losses were to top 10 teams, and the other to Providence who is ranked. They also handled Marquette by double digits who was ranked 7th. This was nothing like Minnesota. So that’s good. I think we’ve got a prayer against Purdue at home.

Sam got fouled twice before he started bleeding. Still no call.

Wiscy is a tough matchup for us. We don’t really have a discernible advantage at any position outside of Keisei. Usually we have a step with quickness, but we’re sorta Wiscy lite this year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Law of averages says we tighten it up a bit. Don’t think Wiscy can keep that efficiency up. We’ll adjust.

Identity. This is really impressive defense and smart offense. We should be ranked if we beat Wiscy on Saturday. We deserve votes either way.

We have a good coaching staff.

It’s early. There are some things to iron out. My .02. I hear y’all though. He needs the improvement to happen a lot sooner than the last five games or so. It needs to get turned before January.

Tough matchup. If we hit our normal shooting percentage from three we probably lose by about 5. Sometimes that's the difference--they hit shots and we didn't. Their ball movement was an absolute clinic and a wakeup call to what defensive urgency actually requires. Take the asswhooping from a better team and learn from it. Rienk wasn't his normal self at all tonight, and we needed him to put in a double double. Juwan only getting 1 rebound in 24 minutes is not like him. I don't know. It just looked to me like we got worn out by a couple of NBA players. A true matchup zone might have made more sense after the lefty made his 6th three in the first half. We don't have any lateral quickness outside of JL and SH, but we certainly have length. I wouldn't be surprised to see a little more zone wrinkled in this season.

Duquesne is very talented. They have 3-4 power 5 starters on that team. They should have beat Princeton. They will win a ton in the A10. This win will look better than Oregon State at the end of the season. Our team IQ on both ends is crazy high. As mentioned after Oregon State… we just have a bunch of adults out there. Mast, Allick, and Gary are an extremely tough, skilled, diverse front court. Both Mast and Allick are showing how valuable it is to have bigs who can pass. Our guards are smart and play within themselves. 12pt, 7rb, 5a from Allick with no TO is an incredible stat line. Really fun to watch us just bully teams into submission.

This is very well put.

There are some packline principles at play in this defense with a few differences like forcing baseline as many have pointed out. Packline (see Virginia) is basically a matchup zone with heavy on-ball closeouts where you force your man into help/bad shots. The anticipation of rotation is a very good thing. Most teams--even elite ones--aren't going to have elite passing. Forcing opponents into the worst shot in basketball (long baseline 2s) is definitely a good ethos. Running people off threes and into already-rotating help is totally doable and a real PITA if you have smart, hard-working players. Hoiberg's first few years' rosters wouldn't have dreamed of being able to execute this defense properly. Now that he has more coachable, hard working kids, the only way to really dismantle them is with coachable, unselfish, hard working kids on the other side, which will be rare. When you think about last year's group of guys like Bando, Griesel, Gary, etc. they were probably a Top 25 team before injuries. Absolute dogs on defense. It certainly looks to me like defense will be non-negotiable moving forward. I don't see any dropoff. Offense will sort itself out.

Very interesting Frager is reclassifying. He’ll handle it fine as he was easily the most physically dominant kid around here this past summer as a sophomore. Buckets of fun for ‘24.

He and Eli are very similar and will be a matchup nightmare at the 3-4 as athletic lefties who can stretch the court from 3 or muscle it inside and dunk on you. Pick your poison. What a great get. He’s an outstanding passer and defender to boot. He’ll fit in extremely well. You’re going to have a hell of a time finding a more athletic 3-5 than Frager, Rice, and Diop in the entire country let alone the B1G. Add a top 100 player like Janowski at the 2 and sprinkle some transfers in with JL at the 1. Scoring, skill, shooting, and athleticism everywhere. It’s about to get scary for NU moving forward, and I’m not really a sunshine pumper. Fred fixed the culture last season and the athletes followed. Kudos to the staff.