[NU Sports] 2 Notes

[Michael Jackson]

17 or 18 wins will be difficult for this team.  They are playing well as
a team right now.  The offense is improving.  For a team with a number
of freshmen who contribute, the Cats have run the Princeton Offense very
well from early games all the way to the later games.  Usually, Carmody
teams have trouble scoring and running their offense until well into the
Big Ten season.  That hasn't happened this year.  They can score from
both outside and inside.  They still have trouble when their outside
shots fail to fall.  Their biggest problem is their lack of rebounding.
Scott is working harder at this but needs to improve.  Williams, Coble
and Doyle have improved greatly in this area.  

Two things concerned me during the Loyola game.  In the first half,
Loyola was able to break down our zone and run their offense without
much trouble.  We were forced to go man to man in order to contain them.
Fortunately, we played better defense the second half.  It helped that
one of their two scorers was in foul trouble and the other one started
to miss his 3's.  The other problem may have a bigger impact on the rest
of the season.  We were unable to solve Loyola's full-court trapping
press.  They made it difficult for us to get in a rhythm in out offense.
We need to work on this.  Big Ten teams with quick guards will be able
to disrupt our offensive game.  Combine that with our lack of
rebounding, and it will be difficult to win road games in the Big Ten.
It will be hard to win at home against the better teams in the Big Ten
also.  

The team has improved and continues to show promise.  Both Scott and
Doyle have stepped it up a notch.  Coble will be a great one soon.
Moore needs to make his shots.  If he does, we are a very dangerous
team.  I for one am looking forward to the Big Ten games.  I couldn't
say that after the Wheaton game. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of cherron604 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 11:33 AM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] 2 Notes

- On ESPN Classic Wednesday night, they had their ranking of top-20 Rose
Bowl games - ours came in at #10, although I'll have to watch for the
repeat, I only saw half of the '96 discussion.  It also seemed like 16
or so of the top 20 happened in the last 20 years - amazing if it is
true, certainly good for the Rose Bowl if its best days are the present,
but probably just typical ESPN bias (did anything notable happen in
sports before Bristol ?)
 
The basketbal team won again last night (vs Loyola of Maryland).   This
puts them at 9-3, with 18 games to go.  If I just use the Sagarin
numbers, they go 4-8 in 12 of those games (the ones with margins greater
than 5 points).  That would make 13-11, with 6 key games:
 
at Penn State
host Michigan
at Minnesota
host Ohio State
host Illinois
at Iowa
 
The Purdue and Indiana home games are just a tad over a 5-point
differential, so I marked them as losses also, although they could be
added to this list, based on the frequently-observed Welsh-Ryan factor.
 
9-3 is great, and I would like to think that they can win 17 or 18
games, or am I crazy projecting ahead for a team that struggled with
Wheaton College ?
 
Chuck Herron   Tech '85
 
 
 
 
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