[NU Sports] Another hard fought loss

[Tom Maycock]

I was in row CCC, which is just a few rows from the very back (yes, after you run out of two-letter rows) on the same side as the player benches. There were a LOT of Michigan fans up there, and on the other side. And, as usual, some empty seats in the comfy purple seats across the way. 

The students, and NU crowd in general, were great all night, but there were probably at least as many Michigan fans there as NU fans. That's pretty rough. And yeah, the air was certainly let out of the NU crowd early on in OT. 

For what it's worth, I thought it was a mistake to stick with the 1-3-1 going into OT, more based on intuition than anything else. 

Not that we were playing man D all that well, but Michigan was able to get open 3s against the zone all night, and I just had a bad feeling they were going to get a few to drop in OT if we played that D. And that's how it worked out. 

There were a dozen little moments in that game where one break could have made all the difference. We probably "lost" the game when we couldn't convert two chances to score at the end of regulation. 

Ultimately, though, I think the big problem was that Drew was never the same after he got hurt, even when he was in there trying to play. Michigan played great D, especially in the second half, and we were missing the guy most able to rise up over a defender for a jump shot, our best threat to take the ball to the rim, and probably our best rebounder. 

Hope Drew is OK.

Tom