throwback

Downside: Stinks to lose a 3-year off-and-on starter. Upside: She'll have a lot more time to attend bluebird games now?

Looks like we have a 84.2% chance of avoiding playing on Wednesday. And since you're wondering, yes, I often am accused of looking at the bright side of almost everything.

Will the mighty Peacock network allow for a postponement, though? We'd hate to throw off their broadcasting schedule.

Not many teams in the country win that game today in their place with the way Wisky played. When their bench guys are hitting 3s at that clip, it's going to be a long day. Plus no drop off defensively when their bench guys come in. Kills me to say it, as I think I hate Wisky's program and the way they play more than any other, but that is an easy Sweet 16 team when they're on ... and maybe more. We'll see whether they get away with the constant holding and hand checking defensively and the moving screens offensively when they're in the NCAA tourney, but they still might be deep enough and good enough to overcome a tightly called game. Honestly, I didn't think we played that poorly, especially offensively. We made some tough shots. I would've liked to see us try a zone or something defensively, but not sure it would've mattered today. Wisky had us scouted perfectly and they executed.

PU 79 NU 70

One of Milwaukee's greatest

Actually this is for the women's tournament, not the men's. Carry on, TruTV.

Kind of interesting that Fred while at NU had been 0-6 against Mich St and 0-6 vs Indiana until now with all the losses by at least 3 possessions previously. Impressive turnaround. With Ioway and Wisky coming up on the schedule, Hoiberg is 3-3 vs Ioway and 2-4 vs Wisky with 2 straight wins vs each of them - considering he was 18-61 in B1G play entering this season, going 5-7 vs Ioway & Wisky basically means he owns them. Hope we can keep things going vs those two over the upcoming week.

One thing I noticed on watching the replay today - the number of guys we had on the floor diving for loose balls was incredible - and we won way more than our share of those 50/50 balls. And it wasn't just one guy - it was several guys. Thinking back to roughly 24 months ago when Denim enrolled early and within a couple of weeks Fred mentioned how impressed he was that Denim was willing to dive on the floor for loose balls during practice - I took that comment as being no one else was willing to do it, which was eye-opening about what was going on inside the program. Every floor burn we absorbed last night was a clear sign of the crazy culture flip that we've made in 2 years.

Cheese 67 NU 61 3

Perhaps the most complete game NU has played under Hoiberg. Everyone was playing their roles, not forcing things, playing hard, fighting on the glass, playing as a unit on defense. Very impressive in a game we absolutely had to win. Everybody had a contribution and did things to help the team win, picking up their teammates. It was impressive. I also was very impressed with our poise, something that killed us vs CU and Minny. Every time IU started to make a little run or cranked up the defensive pressure, we found a way to score or force a turnover. IU had some impressive, explosive plays last night that could've made us hesitant, but we never backed down like we did up at Minneapolis. Great to see that kind of growth. We knew we'd have to have a big night from 3 against IU because of their lineup, and we did shoot it well from 3 at 37.5%, but even most of our misses felt like they were in rhythm and were good looking shots that had a chance to go in. Could've been a much higher percentage. A lot to like about the way we ran our offense last night. Looked very smooth. If we can duplicate that effort in most games the rest of the way, we won't be sweating anything on Selection Sunday around here.

I don't think it was Galloway - it was #3 I think - but you are dead on. Gary didn't initiate any of the contact. I think they missed the goal tend on Gary's shot on the next possession, if I'm remembering right. Overall, not the greatest performance for the fellas in the stripes.

NU 72 IU 63

Looks like our loss projection was around 75% early in the 2nd half, so thing were pretty dire. Appreciate the 2nd half effort. Would appreciate not repeating the 1st half effort any time soon. That's what happens sometimes on these get-away-before-the-holiday games, and we've definitely lost our share of them over the past few decades. Just glad we got our sh*t together and remembered vacation starts tomorrow before it was too late.

NU 93 SCSt 65

NU opens -18.5

I ate one of those donuts. He also made the team run through campus a couple of times for offseason conditioning right after he got hired, just so everyone could see them. Probably wasn't legal even back then, but still, good times. Plenty of Danny stories from back then -- some good and some bad -- but always entertaining.

4 free throws. It definitely was a tradition to play 5-on-8 in Manhattan back in the day, so good to see some things don't change.

NU 73 ND 54

What a flip from the 2nd half at Minneapolis. Played so hard and returned to the kind of rebounding & defense we were seeing early in the year. 12 pts allowed in the 2nd half? Insanity. We're going to like the way that win looks several weeks from now.

This.

Yup - huge opportunity. Assuming we play well at home going forward, I think we have to have 3-4 true road wins to be in the hunt. Zero so far (of course, only one chance so far, too). We only have 10 true road opportunities left, including today. Just hope we learned some lessons in Minneapolis and show far more poise today if things start to unravel a bit. Just need to hang in there and give ourselves a chance going into the last media timeout.