throwback

May catch a big break Friday if Reaves can't play.

NU 81 PSU 76

Agree - but there's almost always a hint of something else behind it.

Funny stuff! But that tweet also says a lot about the mentality Fran has instilled in that team. Sure they got jobbed on a few calls. They were on the road in the league. Everyone gets jobbed on a few calls on the road. Have to play thru it, rather than whining about it on Twitter after you lose by 20. I thought Cowan just played against him really tough, and didn't really notice anything out of line. But it's good to know a guard being physical with him gets in his head. Every other team in the league now will have that at the top of the scout, if they didn't already.

True, but it also kind of depends where Happ catches it. Since he cannot/will not shoot a jump shot, if he catches it 8+ feet out, he has to put it on the floor, so our smaller guards can dig. If he's closer, he wants to spin, so need a bigger guy to double.

Rutgers did a nice job (yes - an oxymoron, but true) of really varying what they did with him. Doubling, not doubling, waiting till he put it on the floor, etc. Really seemed to frustrate him. So maybe just try to give him different looks with no discernible pattern. Outside of Happ & Davison, this is a horrible offensive team, so you really have a lot of options to double him, because you're not too afraid of leaving someone, as you would've been in the past with these guys, where it seemed like anyone on the floor could bury a 3. Not this season. And Davison is a nice player, but they're asking him to do waaaaay too much for a true freshman who has a bum shoulder. I think he's going to wear down badly in the next few weeks, and they they're really in trouble.

5 takes from College Park tonight: Iowa is allergic to playing defense. Iowa consistently is the ugliest team in the B1G. Not sure how they pull it off year after year, but they do. Getting Cook in foul trouble is a good idea. Don't let Bohannon shoot it. Ever. Fran gunna Fran. EJECTED! Iowa blew a 10-pt lead and Maryland is up 48-44 at the break.

80-64 OSU - Bates-Diop made Bridges look silly most of the day. Conference race just got a lot more interesting. OSU does not make the return trip to East Lansing.

OSU 41, MSU 29 at halftime - Bucknuts just went on a 12-0 run in the final 90 seconds of the half. And i think the bald ref who T'd up Cope yesterday gave Izzo one near the end of the half for coming out onto the floor to argue. Kind of thought Izzo was immune to that rule. I suppose that ref is in Columbus today because of Valentine isn't there?

So it looks like we need 20 wins to be in the conversation, probably 21-22 is more realistic to actually be in. But if we can get to at least 20 going into the B1G Tourney, I think we at least have a shot. It always helps me to break upcoming games into tiers to make it easier to judge whether we're on track, so thought I'd try it here. Road to 20 regular season wins 5 Must Wins Wisconsin - WIN Illinois Iowa Rutgers Indiana Split These 6 at Rutgers at Wisconsin at Minnesota at Illinois Penn St Maryland Just Get 1 at Penn St at Ohio St Michigan That'd be 20-11, which I think is the minimum position we have to be in heading to MSG. Looking at it in tiers, 20 wins looks doable and even better is very possible. Normally when I've done this in the past, we have to win 2-3 games where we're double digit underdogs to be in the conversation. Don't see that this time - not even close. Barring something unforeseen, I'm not sure we'll be a double digit dog the rest of the year - maybe at OSU. Huge game Tuesday - need to get this stretch started on the right foot against the wounded Badgers. Really can't slip up in any of those 5 must wins or it'll be a huge black mark on our resume. We'd probably need 2 wins elsewhere to make up for 1 bad loss in the must win category, so those games can't be overlooked.

NU 75 Wisky 57

Agreed - I was thinking the same thing vs CU - and I think there will be opponents coming up where Roby fits far better at the 5 size wise and should get a bigger chunk of the minutes, say like Michigan. Against a guy like Wagner, that's where it'd be nice to have a big guy that could abuse him offensively, wearing him down on that end by making him guard down low. But at this point, we don't have that going. Maybe Wisky too, although I'm not sure if there is a perfect answer vs Happ.

Ha - misreading is my specialty. Also probably explains why I'm like 99th in the score prediction contest.

Probably not a popular opinion, but I liked how we used our big guys last night. We need those guys going forward, even if they are struggling offensively. I felt like Pardon really wore down as we had 3 big guys to throw at him, and then you make him chase Roby late in the half, and he has no gas left. We saw exactly that last night. Pardon was horrible down the stretch. In the final 8 minutes, he had 0 reb, was 1-2 on FG (the only make was a meaningless layup with 0:12 left), was 2-4 from the FT line, and let Copeland dunk in his face. NU went from a 1-pt lead to a 15-pt win in that stretch, as he was no factor. I think the way we used our bigs to wear him down led to that. --- I'd certainly like to see our bigs give us more on the offensive end, but we really only need a little bit more out of them going forward. We can generate points without those guys being a big part of the offense. We more need those guys to eat minutes, rebound, and play solidly, wearing down the other team's 5 and opening the door for us to use Roby at the the 5 for 5-6 minutes of each half. I thought they did that for the most part last night. It'd be nice to have Roby getting closer to 25 minutes, but the last thing we need is him picking up 2 fouls before the first media timeout against the other team's 5 when he's fresh, forcing Roby to the bench. Make their big guy bang against our big guys for a while, then let him chase Roby when he's tired.

NU 76 PU 74

Northwestern made it a back alley rock fight in the first half and we weren't ready. Our guys brought some boulders out of the locker room for the 2nd half - in more ways than one. Huge, huge win - nice to see us be able to win an ugly game like that. We showed a lot of attitude and toughness that will carry us well going forward.

Thanks - great analysis. I guess I'd pictured him as a 4 in college, not a 5 - granted, I've only seen him play a few times - does he move well enough that he could play at the 4 a little more quickly? Obviously that's where the development of mid-range jumper becomes key, plus a 3 pt shot would be nice. And certainly strength is still a huge part, especially at the B1G level, so he needs a redshirt regardless. I mean, my freshman year I put on weight without hardly even trying, so I'm sure he can do it. Hopefully his diet will be a bit different than mine was. I've always thought he moved much better than I'd expect a kid his size & age to move, even as a sophomore, allowing him to block shots well, rather than pick up fouls when teams try to be physical with him. Again, he does have a significant height advantage most nights though.

Saw him play 2 years ago a bit and again last year - made a nice improvement from soph to jr year, but was far from a polished offensive player. If he's at 20+ and 11+ this season, that suggests another very nice improvement for him & probably even more than what I would've expected. Saw somewhere - probably earlier in this thread - that he had developed his jumper this summer, so I'd guess that's paying off in an increased scoring average. Being a threat off the jump shot is something he'll need at NU. Looking forward to seeing him play again this year. Will be really nice to have him in Lincoln, but agree he likely will need a redshirt.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/dererk-pardon-northwestern-brown/ Typically when coaches say after the game they don't know much, that's a bad sign for the severity of the injury. I would imagine he doesn't play Tuesday. Regardless, this is a huge game for NU. That arena was almost empty today, and I can't imagine it'll be much better attended Tuesday. Need to steal some road games, and this is a golden opportunity to get one.

NU 83 NW 77

NU 92 Hat 73 6

Cat toying with the mouse analogy mentioned earlier was perfect. This team has so many scoring options, it's able to make up for an off night by 2 of the 3 top guys and still top 80 points and win easily. Not sure we've had that very often in recent past. Normally we'd need all 3 scorers going to have a shot against B1G level competition, but I think if one of these guys is off or in foul trouble, we have another 4 guys who could score 10+ on any night and pick up for them and keep us rolling. Loved Roby's aggressiveness/confidence last night - the more he does, the better. Thought Jordy was better, partly because we didn't try to force feed him as much early. DSU had some size, which isn't always the case in these buy games, so they challenged us inside, which should build some confidence. We're nicely developing as a team that can score at all 3 levels, which is going to make us dangerous in the B1G. So much improvement from mid-November to now. Hopefully we can keep that trajectory going, because I think there's still a lot of room for this team to get better. I'm very pleased with what I've seen through 14 games. Huge game Jan. 2 at NW. Steal that one on the road, and it could be a really fun couple of months.

NU 90 DSU 57

Jordy was much better in his 2nd stint in the 1st half last night than he was to start the game, so there may be some merit to bringing him off the bench. Considering he only played 11 min, pulling down 7 rebounds is pretty impressive. Plus he does some of the little things on offense well, screening off-ball defenders to open driving lanes, etc. Seems like he's less effective when we're trying to force feed him early in the game than when we're letting the offense flow more freely later in the game. If he's going to continue to start, I'd like to see us maybe not make him the focal point immediately and let him just get into the flow of the game more naturally.

NU 81 UTSA 66