[NU Sports] Not Pretty, but its real

[Tom Maycock]

In other, other news, the Lacrosse team is off to a good start: 3-0 after 3 
games against ranked opponents. The first was a competitive but reasonably 
comfortable win over Notre Dame, and the third was an easy cruise against 
Vanderbilt. In between was a hugely entertaining game against North Carolina. I 
was able to catch most of it on NC's web feed. All 3 games were actually 
broadcast on the web, with the ND and NC casts being really well done. The Vandy 
cast had no play-by-play and pretty much unwatchable video. But the NC game was 
the one to watch anyway. 

The Cats had to score late to tie it up at 6-6, then missed some late chances, 
resulting in OT (Lax OT is two 3-minute, non-sudden-death periods, followed by 
sudden-death OT if no one is ahead after the first two periods). 

Carolina gained possession on the first OT draw and kept the ball the entire 
first period, but the NU defense held NC scoreless. NU won the second OT draw, 
held the ball, and then found Taylor Thornton streaking in from the restraining 
line on a switch with about 20 seconds left. Taylor split two defenders on a 
very pretty spin move and scored with about 15 seconds left, putting the Cats up 
7-6. The Cats were able to kill off the last few seconds to come away with the 
win. 

Carolina was the team that ended NU's huge home winning streak last year, and 
then lost to NU in the semifinal game, so it's been quite the rivalry lately. 

Couple more road games before the home opener on 3/11. 

As for b-ball, really hard to know what to say. It's been a very strange year. 
I'd like to replay the whole thing with a healthy Shurna just to see what might 
have been different, but I'm guessing the results wouldn't actually change all 
that much. Hard to imagine this team winning more than one game in the Big 10 
tourney. I guess an NIT bid would be nice, but it would be fairly anti-climactic 
given the hopes we had going into the season. 

Basically, not enough defense, not enough mid-range shooting, and not enough 
one-on-one scoring to be .500 or better in the Big 10 this year. I would say 
that Cobb has been the big bright spot--he got better every game on both offense 
and defense, and should have an excellent career. 

I'll be at the final home game this week--looking forward to seeing a nice 
Senior day ovation for Juice. We've had better players, but not many, if any, 
who have played harder. 

Tom