Big Ten Basketball Preview: #12 Northwestern Wildcats

Well it was a run.  Northwestern did everything they could do grab that elusive (to them, not to anyone else) first ever NCAA Tournament bid and fell short year after year.  Now there's no John Shurna.  There's no Drew Crawford.  There's no Juice Thompson.  There's no Luka Mirkovic.  There's just Dave Sobolewski and his lesbian haircut.  Well there's also hope because of this new coach guy you maybe heard about, Chris Collins.  Yeah the weiner from Duke.  No not Wojo, he's at Marquette.  The other one, the one with some talent, and he's already making a difference because he signed Vic Law, ESPN's 66th ranked prospect for 2014, as well as a handful of other quality recruits between 2014 and 2015.  This year, however, Northwestern probably isn't looking at that first bid, but they do have enough to remain dangerous.

The biggest reason for this danger is Tre Demps, who is a great chucker (26% of team shots when on the floor despite a 45.7% eFG%) but is also made of stone balls.  Here's what he did in Northwestern's conference wins last season:  Three pointer against the Gophers in a tie game with 54 seconds remaining. Five points and three assists in a four minute span against Wisconsin to give Northwestern control of the game. Game tying 3-pointer with a minute left in overtime against Purdue and then 4-4 on free throws in double OT to close it out. Thirteen straight points at the end of the game against Indiana. Three 3-pointers in a row down the stretch against Illinois.  He's a chucker for sure, and his overall numbers don't make you squeal from last year (11.0ppg, 38% FG) he clearly has an ability to step up in the the big moment.  So, you know, I'd recommend the Gophers don't, you know, let Northwestern hang around until Demps just goes ahead and wins the game for them.

Demps will be joined on the wing by JerShon Cobb, the team's leading returning scorer at 12.2 points per game.  He's more consistent and efficient than Demps, and will likely be their go to guy for the majority of the game until Demps decides he wants to rip some hearts out.  Cobb was a pretty big deal recruit back when, but has had injury problems his whole career including leg problems that shut him down early last season.  If he can stay healthy he has All-Big 10 type talent, as evidenced by his four 20+ point games against quality opponents last season, but that's a big if.

With Demps, Cobb, and Law the Wildcats should be solid and athletic on the wing, which will help their league best defense from last season return, but that's about where the good news ends.  Alex Olah will be the starting center though he's limited on offense and a horrendous rebounder for a 7-footer, though 6-10 transfer from Yale Jeremiah Kreisberg might end up stealing that spot.  It's probably best for Northwestern if he does.  There's decent, if unproven, depth with Sanjay Lumpkin and Nathan Taphorn.  Taphorn should inherit the "wander around and shoot some threes" role from the departed Kale Abrahamson.

Point guard is a real issue, as Dave Sobolewski just fell off a cliff last season, putting up some truly hideous shooting numbers (18% from 3, 26% overall) and putting up the worst turnover and foul rates of his career.  He did suffer a concussion midseason, missing four games in a row and genearlly having trouble getting back into the swing of things, but he was having a rough year prior to that anyway and with Collins playing more man-to-man than Carmody did, Sobolewski's contributions may be limited.  That either means Demps plays more point (super chucker alert!) or freshman Bryant McIntosh takes over.  McIntosh is a fringe top 200 kid, but he should fit in well at Northwestern because he just looks so freaking annoying.  Seriously.

So Punchable.  Plus his name is Bryant McIntosh for pete's sake.

It's an interesting time, and probably a fun one, to be a Northwestern fan as they've managed to take a string of failed seasons and recycle them back into optimism with an exciting new coach who is bringing in a whole slew of new players.  It'll be interesting to see how and if Collins changes the program (and how long he sticks around, if successful).  He seems to be recruiting a more athletic player, so the slow down game may shortly be a thing of the past.  Lotta hope in Evanston, and with good reason, even if everyone still misses Luka.

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#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern

Meh, we move on.  I'm not surprised the Gophers lost at Nebraska, but I am a little disappointed that the team seemed to be sleep walking for much of the game.  That's not something I though would happen at all this year, but they definitely came out a bit flat.  They also went away from the game plan of trying to pound the ball inside despite Mo Walker playing well again, but I suppose that can happen when your point guard turns the ball over 9 times.  I mean, that's how many times Ferris Bueller was absent in his final high school semester - it's a lot.  The main problem, however, was once again defense, with Terran Petteway and Walter Pitchfork just shredding the Gophers.  Disappointing, but not terribly damaging to post season aspirations.  I'm mostly bummed that amazing performance by Malik Smith (called by me, see Twitter) was wasted.  I said he'd probably win a game single-handedly for the Gophers this year, and that might have been supposed to be it.  Shame.

Next up is Northwestern, and luckily it's at home so I both feel good about the Gophers' chances and also we don't have to look at that hideous purple crayon court.  Not all that long ago this would have been the kind of game where you break out the snuggly and get some hot cocoa, because Northwestern was a complete dumpster fire.  Home losses to Illinois State and DePaul, non-competitive games against good teams, their best win of the season was either over Brown (NERDS!) or Western Michigan, and an offense that was currently ranked as the worst BCS conference offense in history according to kenpom.com's efficiency rating.  It was a nightmare.

Now?  Well the offense is still terrible (320th in the country) and in conference play has been even worse with the Wildcats (more like Mildcats, right?) only scoring 0.85 points per possession which ranks dead last in the conference, but the results in the win/loss column have been surprisingly good.  Home wins over Illinois and Purdue and road wins at Indiana and Wisconsin have Northwestern sitting at 4-5 and sixth in the conference.  Right now they're half a game behind a bye in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.  This is ludicrous.  Chris Collins must be some kind of really short wizard, right?  Well kind of.

Obviously if your offense is putrid like a dead anaconda Ice Cube blew up you have to be winning with your defense, right?  Right, and Collins has turned a group of mostly questionable athletes used to playing a passive zone into a group that plays an absolute shut down man-to-man.  In their conference wins they've allowed 43, 47, 60 (in 2OTs), and 56 points.  It works, and it's also a very safe style of play.  They don't put any pressure on the ball, so they don't cause turnovers, they send everyone to the defensive glass so they don't allow many offensive rebounds but don't get many fast breaks themselves either, and they send everybody back after a shot so they don't get their own offensive rebounds but limit their opponents transition opportunities.  They play extremely fundamentally sound defense (NERDS!), and by not taking any chances they make the offense execute in the half court to score.  If this sounds a little scary considering Dre Hollins is still out and DeAndre Mathieu is coming off a nine turnover game, it should.

Not to harp on that defense, but they're really, really good.  Big Ten opponents have made just 29.7% of their three point attempts against them and 43.9% of their two pointers, and their effective field goal percentage against of 44.1% is tops in the Big Ten and would be #23 nationally over the entire season.  Those numbers reflect how the Wildcats are almost always in correct position which means few easy shots allowed.  They sacrifice creating steals and turnovers in exchange for always being in a shooter's face by never, ever taking chances (Cobb will occasionally but it's rare), and it's really a genius style of play for an undermanned squad in both the athletic and talent department.  Watching them is like watching an instructional video.  Yes, I've been very impressed by them.  So what?  No, I don't want to marry them.  Leave me alone.

Offensively Northwestern is pretty terrible but so is the Gopher defense so I'm shrugging my shoulders right now.  Drew Crawford is in his 8th season and with him showing no ill effects from his injury last year he's pretty much the same guy you remember and the top offensive threat for the Cats.  He's their highest usage player and also their most efficient, and is one of the few guys in the conference who excels at driving to the hoop but can hit the 3 as well, although his percentage is pretty shitty this year (32%).  The only other scary guy on the team is Tre Demps, simply because the man loves to shoot despite hitting just 39% this year (which is actually a career high - true story).  Hes' the most likely Wildcat to do the Sam Cassell Big Balls dance at some point, simply because he'll do something like play a bad game and then hit a gigantic three pointer right when they need it or make a super fancy pass for a lay-up or something.  He's a scary man cuz he just don't care.

The rest of the team is whatever and probably really smart (NERDS!).  Jershon Cobb is actually the team's second leading scorer and should probably be scarier than he is but he's basically just a mediocre jump shooter.  Alex Olah is big and tall and takes up lots of space and sometimes makes lay-ups.  Dave Sobolewski has been injured and who knows if he'll play, but it's probably good for the Gophers if he does since he's a turnover machine shooting 25% from the floor this year.  Sanjay Lumpkin mainly flails around and solves physics proofs in his head, Kale Abrahamson likes to throw the ball at the rim from far away and has a weird name, and their only real back-up big man, Nikola Cerina, actually looks like he's angry at his teammate anytime somebody passes him the ball.  And there's the guy with that jewish hat thing.

Seriously though, even if I'm not really scared of Northwestern's offense their defense can play well enough where they don't have to score very many points, and Crawford and Demps and if somebody else gets hot can definitely score just enough, especially against a pretty poor defensive team like the Gophers.

Minnesota will have to play smart and work the ball inside in the half court and take every advantage to run if any present themselves.  This is a game the Gophers could win by 20, but they could lose by 20 just as easily if they aren't careful.  Since I'm still counting myself as an optimist this year, I'm gonna say they get it done.

Minnesota 68, Northwestern 55.

[EDIT:  I somehow completely forgot to mention that Northwestern cannot figure out a press, at least without Sobolewski.  Gophers need to add more trapping to their press on Saturday.]

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern

When do everything super man Drew Crawford went down with a season ending injury that pretty much ended Northwestern's NCAA Tournament bid hopes (but hey, they did win a bowl game for the first time since the 40s), and knocked them down from the Wisconsin/Iowa possible bubble team tier to the tier below with Purdue.  So by rights, with this being a home game and all, this should be a pretty easy victory for Minnesota.  But, for whatever reason, Northwestern never seems to be an easy game, even if the Gophers have won four of the last five and won both comfortably last season.

The Wildcats do have two good wins on their schedule already, having won at Baylor and beating Illinois State in overtime (yes, Illinois State is a good win), and two of the three losses are explainable (vs. Maryland - although they got crushed, and vs. Stanford sans Crawford), but they have a dreadful loss to Illinois-Chicago and it's just hard to believe they can do much damage in conference play without Crawford, which isn't to say they haven't had some players step up already in the post-Shurna era.

It starts with Reggie Hearn, who actually leads the team in scoring at 14.5 per game (compared to Crawford's 13.5) and who has averaged 16.5 in the two games he's played since Drew went down.  Of course, Hearn also missed the team's last game against Brown (NERDS!) with an ankle injury and I can't find any info on how severe it is (but to be honest I went to Sippin' on Purple and that was about it).  If Hearn does play, you'll see a very efficient scorer who gets points without taking a ton of shots due to hitting a high percentage of both his 2s (59%) and 3s (43%).  He also averages an impressive 5.5 rebs per game for a 6-4 shooting guard, which is a nice bonus.

The two guys who will probably have to have huge games (along with Hearn) in order for the Wildcats to make a game of this are the seven-footer Alex Olah and his 6-8 PF companion Jared Swopshire, who potentially have the size to overwhelm Rodney Williams and Trevor Mbakwe down low.  They combine for 16 points and 11 rebounds per game, and Swopshire is particularly scary.  He was a four-star recruit out of high school who signed with Louisville and was good enough to hit double figures in scoring twelve times his sophomore, but missed the next season with an injury and was unable to get back into Louisville's rotation, so he packed up his bags and moved to Evanston.  He's shown some of that old ability and explosiveness, but mostly has just been ok because he appears to have forgotten how to shoot.  He's the most likely guy on the roster to replace Crawford's all-around production, so let's hope he doesn't start putting it altogether right away this weekend.  AS for Olah, he's ginormous (7-0, 275 lbs.) and given the Gophers propensity to allow offensive rebounds and their relatively under-sizedness he could be a massive pain.  Northwestern could also bring in Chier Ajou who is 7-2 but I feel rather confident in guessing he's a bit of a project.  Sadly, Luka Mirkovich is gone.

Lastly, how could we possibly talk about Northwestern without talk about little wiener nerds who love shooting threes?  There's Dave Sobolewski (aka The Lesbian) who is the starting point guard and who is somehow an effective player.  Then there's Alex Marcotullio (aka The Lefty) who is the scariest one because he seems to be the streakiest and could just go off and hit 10 threes or something.  And lastly freshman Kale Abrahamson (aka Shurna's little brother right down to the goofy looking jumper) who is 6-7 but is as scared of the lane as Rick Rickert used to be.  Any one of these guys could go off and help keep the game close, or multiple ones of them could and really give the Gophers a scare.  It's also worth noting that guard Tre Demps comes off the bench and absolutely loves shooting.  As with all chuckers, there's a threat of "HE'S ON FIRE" but probably not.

Realistically the Gophers, having solved the zone last year after ten freaking years of looking lost, should wipe the floor with Northwestern.  The Gophers biggest weakness is giving up offensive rebounds, and the Wildcats don't hit the o-boards very well.  The Gophers are awesome at blocking shots, and Northwestern gets a ton of shots blocked.  Basically the Gophers are much more athletic (as usual) and much more skilled (a new one).  Northwestern will have to have three things go their way to win this game:

1.  Gophers struggle against the zone.  This would have been a bigger concern a couple of years ago, but over the past two seasons they're starting to get it.  Plus Hollins and Hollins are both really smart players, smart enough to cancel out the boneheadedness of Joe Coleman (I like him as a player, but he's no Hollinses).  The team has struggled with turnovers this year so this could always go backwards, but as long as they are getting good shots the turnovers can be negated.

2.  Get hot from 3.  This one is very possible, with Northwestern hitting a good percentage this year (38.4% - 35th in the country), shooting a lot of them (40% of all attempts are from 3 - Gophers are at 27%) and have a whole mess of guys who like to chuck them up (7 Wildcats have at least 22 attempts on the year compared to only 3 Gophers).  Northwestern gets nearly 37% of their points from 3-pointers this year, one of the highest percentages in the country.  The Gophers are good but not great defending the three - if one or more of their chuckers gets hot it could be trouble.

3.  Northwestern, on paper, has the size advantage against Mbakwe and Williams.  Of course, Minnesota's pair averages 13.6 rebounds per game vs. Northwestern's pair's 10.5, 2.7 blocks to 1.6, 2.0 steals to 1.1, shoot 57% from the field compared to 44%, have shot 120 free throws compared to 61, and are a pair of seniors compared to a freshman and a first year transfer.  Other than that though, it's pretty close.  I think I'm going to put that in a table form.  Wait for it:

BAM!

Here's how I see this going - Northwestern comes out in a man-to-man, but also hits a few three-pointers so it starts out around 10-10 or so, then the Gophers start to get it going and jump out to like a 22-12 lead.  Northwestern goes to their zone which they always seem to try to save to screw with everyone's head, but this year's Gophers have no problem with it, open up a 40-24 halftime lead and cruise to a 78-59 win.  Book it, nerds.

[NOTE:  After I wrote this I realized Northwestern played Michigan tonight.  I made sure to watch a good chunk of the game, and without Crawford or Hearn their offense seemed to consist of either a failed drive to the hoop or someone chucking a three.  Their inept offense would be the most notable thing about the game if it wasn't for their catastrophic failure on the defensive end.  Nobody could stay in front of Michigan's guards and they were backed up by nobody protecting the rim or rotating to cover the shooters so basically the Wolverines could pick and choose how they wanted to score, and that was only when they had to actually set up an offense because Northwestern for some reason was completely opposed to the idea of getting back on defense and I think Michigan scored 80 points in transition.  Some of it could be that Michigan is just that good, but the Wildcats looked brutally bad.  The Gophers could win by 40. Also Dave Sobolewski still looks like a lesbian.]