macarthur31

The Senior Class was supposed to have Johnnie Vassar, Jordan Ash, Aaron Falzon, Barret Benson.
The Junior Class was supposed to have Isiah Brown, Rapolas Ivanauskas.

The only ones left from those two years are A.J. Turner, Tino Malnati, Anthony Gaines. They added Pat Spencer, or else it would be absolutely bereft. If one offered that CCC should be fired because he absolutely missed on two years of recruiting, then I wouldn’t argue with you. For Northwestern that’s damn near death.

What keeps me from constantly shitting on CCC is that I think Greer, Audige, Kopp, Nance, Buie, Beran, Jones and Young (of course, assuming they all stay or stay away from season ending injury) will be a solid upperclassmen spine. Let’s just assume that we don’t get the 5 stars – if Collins can populate the frosh/soph with that kind of talent (overlooked 3 stars like Buie, or Bamisile before he rocketed up the charts), NU has the makin’s of being a mid-tier B1G squad (6th-9th) in 2022 / 2023 – which actually gets you a NCAA bid. At this point, both Ty Berry and Matt Nicholson look the part for the class of 2020.

At this point, my guess that CCC ball is good defense, and good enough offense (‘17 edition 1.03 PPP for / 1.01 PPP allowed in B1G) . For 2020, the Kenpom stats don’t lie – Cats have been awful on defense against B1G oppo (giving up 1.11 PPP, which would be a shade worse than the worst B1G defensive squad, the ‘15 edition – 1.12 PPP), and abject misery on offense 0.94 PPP this year (which is a shade better than last year’s 0.92 PPP). I’m looking at the dreadful alchemy of not having enough horses, and the ones we have are babies.

Of course this all goes away if we have Transfermania IV, or awful injury/medical luck.

Ryan Young had a 142 ORTG on 26% usage. 17 PTS on 11 takes, 8 REB, 3 AST and 2 BLK. And he had to bang with Jalen Smith all night? And that’s just numbers – the eye test showed post-savvy and craftiness – like rolling to the hoop and kicking it out to Kopp for the corner 3. I love me some Dererk Pardon, but I don’t think I ever saw that kind of court vision from him.

Boo didn’t kill us on offense despite being our highest usage player (98 ORTG on 28% usage). Unfortunately for Nance, his low percentage shots didn’t drop like they did vs the Nits. BTW – Miller Kopp was effective (126 ORTG), but couldn’t get loose (only 17% usage) – he needed someone else to pull focus, but couldn’t get it from Boo, Spence or Robbie Beran. Speaking of Robbie – he’s hitting that proverbial frosh wall. He was able to grab 6 boards on a down shooting night.

Overall, the fight is still there. I’m looking past Ws right now and looking to see how the team stays together and continues to put in work. I was pleased with the effort.

The fans may have given up, but the fellas sure haven’t.

…it probably did him no favors on the recruiting trail, or attracting highly hyped 17 year olds. However it was the sarcastic frank jibes like, "We never made them sweat," that made me fond of him. Ahh, the shrugs and sighs. Perhaps the peak Coach Carm moment was on a BTN season preview coaches panel, and he sat through Tom Izzo lamenting that he only had freshmen coming in and it was going to be a tough year, only to have Coach Carm follow up with rolling his eyes and snarking on it.

On the other hand – I understand why CCC can’t really go that route, as he may feel it on the inside – but he really can’t show that externally. That being said, from watching at home when the camera spies him as the ‘Cats suffer through a scoreless streak, he’s got the stone cold pragmatist stare of, "we just gotta get through this." I did like seeing him try to bring Pete Nance’s spirits up – that’s the right look.

It wasn’t a good sign that we couldn’t generate a double digit lead after UM went 0/11 in the opening minutes.

UM defense was good. And for us to have a chance, it wasn’t gonna be on us beating them in half-court after their makes. They didn’t give Kopp any space to shoot, and were too big for Ryan Young to work on the block. Any success was going to be dependent on PG – and despite Spencer’s quick start, Buie needed to go supernova to force UM out of the pack. (Narrator: He didn’t.) While it was great to see JJ hit mid-range shots, that’s not sustainable given he’s not LaMarcus Aldridge.

UM’s depth really showed out and ultimately overwhelmed us. Teske and Simpson were on the bench and the Wolverine bench mob buried us.

Flush the tape and on to the next one.

Mid range jumper off the pick and pop. Taking charges. Getting out on the break. Next year our frontcourt will be Beran / Jones / Young and Nicholson…. hmm… intriguing.

I get getting beat – Michigan is solid. It’s the lack of poise and focus, which reveals how down they are. The offensive sets aren’t crisp, and they’re just allowing layups. Meh.

…and we still don’t know if Buie is 100% from his stress reaction.

Also, if the kids keep fouling early then they won’t get enough minutes to get a flow going. Hopefully JJ has earned more run (and ideally he should stay away from midrange jumpers and keep attacking the rack).

I’m having a hard time jumping on the "Collins sucks at coaching" train, as they looked awesome in the first half sharing the ball and working off back cuts. Yeah, JJ could’ve seen more minutes down the stretch, but Ryan Young was doing a decent job fighting underneath. Aside from that, perhaps you put Buie off-ball, but Spencer’s been prone to lose handle as well as Buie’s gonna need those crunchtime reps anyway. It’s a shame that the ’Cats are among the best FT shooting teams in the B1G, and tonight they go 4 for 10.

Loretta’s right – the team is paying the penance for two lost seasons of recruiting. Kopp and Buie filled it up tonight. Seeing moments from JJ as well as seeing Beran hit that corner 3 are greenshoots that this talent may stick. And I think Pete Nance may not get to "lottery pick", but I think he can get to productive player in years 3 and 4. As long as they stick together, this team will trend up.

They were gonna close on Buie, and not let him beat them. AJ didn’t even pop out… just awful execution.