[NU Sports] No one talking basketball

[wildelk2 at aol.com]

   I'm trying to take my mind off Friday, so in light of truly a lousy NU week (2 losses including Friday) I setmy sights on the basketball team.  Illinois (at home) and Sparty figured out that they can "run amok:" inside, but we're better, and perhaps we're good enough to correct descepancies against most teams, so an NCAA berth still isn't impossible.
  I broke down our schuedule; including the 2 losses against Ill-noise and Michigan St., we need to go 4-6 with (3) of those wins in conference.  Conference games this month includes at Mich., Wisc., Purdue, at OSU, vs. Ill., at Minn., at MSU.  If we win (3) of those...a tall order, we'll be 14-7, 3-6.
   The 2nd half of our conference schuedule is much more favorable. Consider: Mich., Ind., at Iowa, Minn., PSU, at Wisc., Iowa, at PSU, at Ind., as well as a lay-up at home against Chicago St.  If we stay healthy and don't get overwhelmed by the hearty front-ended conference schuedule, we should win 20-21 games and finish 10-8 or 9-9 in conferece.  If we go 9-9, it may take a win or 2 to get us in the tournement.  
   Problems:  As Dennis has pointed out: problems at center offensively and defensively. We've had problems with teams pounding the ball inside, but (hopefully) only a handful of teams will be able to exploit that weakness. Other than that we're solid with a better bench than...I can remember.
   I'm not concerened with rankings.  65 teams make the tournement and only 25 are ranked.  As we were 0-2 this week, we won't have that to worry about for awhile anyway.  Hopefully we'll be a "bubble" team" with a late push; late February and March wins always are a good thing.
   Other: I went to see #1 Kansas at Temple; great googlee mooglee is Kansas good.  Temple was #19 and they looked like a high school team compared to Kansas.  10,000 at the Temple game, 4,000 were Kansas fans.  That was a surprise.

    GO CATS!!!      Eric


-----Original Message-----
From: Beamsley, Jeff <Jeff.Beamsley at covisint.com>
To: bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com
Cc: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Sun, Jan 3, 2010 10:09 am
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] No one talking basketball


Our challenge this year was the lack of a reliable running game. When you have to pass as much as we did, it puts a lot of pressure on the QB to make plays. 
 
In years past I would be concerned about next year too. A lot of our playmakers are graduating. 
 
But the transformation of Kafka from a run only QB to one of the best passers on the BT was inspirational. I am now a believer in the ability of this coaching staff to reload rather than rebuild. 
 
I look for the running game to improve as the o line matures and hopefully the kicking game will improve too. 
 
Next year will be the first all-Fitz team. I have no evidence to support it, but my gut tells me it is going to be special. 
 
Jeff 
 
Sent from my iPhone 
 
On Jan 3, 2010, at 2:30 AM, "bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com" <bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com > wrote: 
 
> ... Thank goodness. 
> 
> I was at a 2003 (I think) game against Wisconsin when the > fumblerooski Fg worked for a key score and the Bucky fan I was with > was yelling "Fake!" from the outset (not that that helped any) so > perhaps it is easy to spot. 
> 
> I still agree with going for the win, though. 
> 
> To my mind the biggest thing about next year is eliminating the need > this year's team had to get (at the least) 10-14 points behind > before starting to play (PSU and Wisky the exceptions). We were > exceedingly fortunate to beat Purdue, Indiana, and Iowa after double-> digit deficits and we lost to Syracuse and Auburn because we fell > behind early. That has to stop. 
> 
> My second worry is special teams and no one who watched the Outback > Bowl could disagree. 
> 
> Third is who replaces McManis, to my mind the biggest defensive > playmaker at NU since Fitz. 
> 
> Brad Wilson 
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry® 
> 
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