throwback

I don't know if we can approximate Illinois' trajectory from here, as we're starting a bit lower than they were when Underwood started, but what Underwood has built there in 4 years is impressive, considering they were 4-14 in the league his first year. He did a good job holding the key parts of the roster together and bringing in more and more talent. When you think about how important of a player #15 was for them 2 years ago, and now he's playing far less & is no longer a focus of the offense, yet he has stuck around and seems to be happy with his role, that's pretty impressive. Ayo came in as a 5-star, didn't really live up to it his frosh year, but stuck with it & now he's an All-American in his 3rd year. It'd be nice to come close to mimicking what they've done.

Good: We shot almost 70% from FT line. Bad: Outscored 16-2 in transition - our transition defense is killing us. With as good as we are in 1/2 court defense, we have to find a way to fix the transition defense. It's not like we're poor in transition defense because we're crashing the offensive glass either. Need to cut down on the live ball turnovers & figure out how to stop the ball much, much better. We gave up 28 pts combined in transition and in 2nd chances tonight, and it's the same number we gave up to Penn St Tuesday - that's a crazy high number. Our 1/2 court defense vs the first shot is good enough to give us a chance to win most nights, even as much as we struggle on offense. Again, Illinois had us scouted well here - they pushed the ball regularly, even when it wasn't really there, knowing how bad we have been lately in transition defense, and it worked.

To be fair, Illinois did a great job of taking Teddy & Lat completely out of the game ... especially Frazier. They had us scouted perfectly. Now it is possible that even B1G football refs would've thrown a few holding flags on Illinois tonight for the action away from the ball, but again, if you can get away with it...

You know the officiating is bad when there's a whistle on a drive 20 feet from the hoop and at least 2 guys on each team look over with their hands up - "I didn't do it." Nobody on the floor knows what's a foul tonight. Have to say watching Illinois get miffed about how physical the game is always makes me laugh. No one grabs, pushes & bumps on defense in the league more than Illinois ... and they've even toned it down quite a bit from a few years ago. But when you can get away with it, you might as well do it.

This game is why basketball needs a penalty box. So how many technicals have they called? Allen & Mayan each have 1 for us - Cockburn has 1 & Frazier has 2? I fear for Lat's life in this second half. Cockburn is pissed.

Ill 76 NU 61

This is a really good point - lazy passes that lead to live ball turnovers have killed us quite frequently. When you think about how good our 1/2 court defense has been, giving up these turnover/dunks is a killer. It feels like Fred is pulling guys after they make these lazy passes a little more frequently lately ... but I also may just be seeing what I want to see.

I was going to make fun of you for adding shots from 0' - then I remembered how many dunks we've missed the past several games ... so never mind. With our covid issues and with how good the league is this season, I think it's tough to take much away. Missing a normal preseason practice ramp-up & not having a full slate of exhibition and non-con games really hurt us. Now, we might not be much better than 1-12 in the league at this point anyway because the B1G is so good. But missing a normal early season kills a team with a ton of new faces. Throw in a covid shutdown in the middle and a killer pace of games since coming back & it's tough to take much out of this season. I guess the hope is that so many of these guys are playing big minutes for the first time in their careers at this level that they'll take a big leap forward next season. Maybe everyone ends up improving like juco players tend to do in their second seasons. They certainly have a lot of work to do this summer & a lot to learn from this season. The fact that they've been willing to sell out on the defensive end since coming back may be a good sign that they'll be willing to put in the work this summer. Hopefully the roster stays mainly intact, but we all know that there will be guys leaving. Hopefully it'll be kept to a minimum. Ultimately, everything looks better when shots are going in. So if we improve our shooting going into next year, while continuing to battle on the defensive end, things will look better. If we continue to shoot like we've shot most of the year ... Hoping we pick up a win or two before the B1G tourney, something positive to take into the offseason.

NU 66 PSU 57

Looks like we'll play 19 of our 20 B1G games Sat (Feb. 20): Purdue, 4:30 p.m. (BTN) Tues. (Feb. 23): Penn State, 7 p.m. (BTN) Thurs. (Feb. 25): at Illinois, 6 p.m. (BTN) Sat. (Feb. 27): Minnesota, 6 p.m. (BTN) Mon. (March 1): Rutgers, 6 p.m. (BTN) Thurs. (March 4): at Iowa, TBD (BTN) Sun. (March 7): at Northwestern, TBD (BTN) Probably smart not to try to cram in a 20th game and give the guys a bit of a break in that final week of the regular season with 2 days off between games down the stretch. https://huskers.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule

NU 66 PU 60 13

Crazy part is as poorly as it felt like we played, it was still tied with 8 to go on the road against a team that has NCAA tourney plans, and we easily could've had a decent lead. 2 defensive rebounds we should've had in the first half, got caught standing and watching, and UM turned both second chances into 3s Missed goal tending call on Banton's layup late first half Had a 1 pt lead with 1 minute left, perfect chance at 2-for-1 possessions to end the half, yet somehow we end up getting outscored 5-0 (even worse, I think we took a timeout before starting the 2-for-1 and still botched it) Poor goal tend call on Andre's block early second half And that doesn't even count the 4-6 relatively open missed layups in the first 32 minutes where we just looked like we short-armed it (probably a sign of tired legs). Hopefully UM playing its 3rd game in 4 days tonight evens the tired legs playing field a bit.

Pretty close - as of tomorrow, there's 19 days left in the regular season and we have 9 games left to play. If we're getting 2 days off Thurs/Fri, that'd leave us with 16 days and 8 games left starting with the PU game. Throw in playing Wed of the B1G tourney, and that'll be our 16th game in 33 days. At least the B1G will get its full TV paycheck.

NU 58 terps 57

Yeah, it's been really obvious we have no legs late in regulation the past 2 games - just no movement on offense the last several minutes. A lot of standing around and resting on that end. Throw in Walker being unavailable, and we don't have the depth to finish strong in game 6 in 11 days. Need a 10+ pt lead at the under 8 timeout tomorrow, or game 7 in 12 days probably won't end up any better.

Yeah, there was a time when NU was strongly considering adding hockey, but that time has passed. They don't want to step on toes at UNO & there's nowhere for NU to play - Pinnacle is too busy in the winter & too big. Their only option is a significant expansion at Breslow & that's not in the cards right now. Actually, Illinois has moved the farthest along for adding hockey. Iowa would be farther along than NU as well. However, with the athletic departments hurting financially all over the league, I'd guess no one is planning to add anything anytime soon. I'd guess the B1G will just end up adding Arizona St to get to 8 teams. They gave it a trial run of sorts early this year.

NU 64 Terps 59

NU 62 PSU 55

So glad the B1G is so concerned about athlete wellness & safety that they take a team that had 3 weeks with no team activities and throw them out there for 7 games in 12 days. Probably the smart thing to do would be to reduce the schedule by a few games rather than force this disaster. I get it, though. The B1G f-ed up the football schedule so badly and had so many canceled games that they lost a lot of cash from their TV partners, so they have to give TV the full slate in hoops to try to make up the difference. Coach Fred talked on last night's pregame how beat up a few players are already after this condensed attempt to return to play - I'm guessing we'll have a few more walking wounded after playing 5 times in 7 days. Without using the words, he basically said they're having to use load management. If a college team has to use load management in mid-February, it might be a pretty stupid scheduling decision ... especially for a league that has been touting how much it values player safety for the past several months. Plus they're making us travel to the most difficult place to reach on the planet in State College, PA during this stretch. Hope if we leave Saturday morning we can make it in time for tipoff. Good times.

Ill 80 NU 48

Kent says Teddy will play

Very appreciative of NW and Indiana going into 2OT - the less I have to watch Iowa, the better. If they want to keep playing OTs until about 8:30, I'm OK with it.

NU 63 WIsky 61

NU 68 gophers 63

NU 80 MSU 73 4