[NU Sports] An orange crusher

[Weinbaum, Willie]

I think Tom's analysis is right-on.  Would add that without any real offensive threat from NU's centers, the Illinois big guy (who blocked the last shot by Crawford) and his understudy could slough off and intimidate all of the other Cats...and that seemed to be in the heads of all would-be NU helpers - - those mentioned by Tom, as well as Cobb, Marcotulio and Hearn.  All showed some brief flashes of helping on offense, but none could sustain it.  And there's no doubt the top NU scorers need the help.  The good news was the improved defense and rebounding...but the woeful shooting from the floor and the line was devastating.  


----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Maycock [mailto:tkmaycock at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2012 08:41 AM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] An orange crusher

>Carmody looking like a day in the park. we need some passion from a coach,
>tough loss


I don't know, Carmody looked pretty fired up to me. He took the jacket off, had to loosen a few buttons, and was his usual expressive self when someone (usually a center) did something silly.

Really heartbreaking loss last night. The Cats were so fun to watch in the first half, with a really aesthetically pleasing offensive game, and lots of joy and enthusiasm. The Illini really stepped it up on D, and really took Shurna out of the game in the second half, so you have to credit them for that effort. But the Cats were playing good D as well, and all they needed was for a couple of others guys to make just a couple of shots, but it didn't happen. And poor free throw shooting ultimately did them in. In addition to a fairly poor percentage overall, they missed a few front ends of 1-and-1s, which really hurts.

I think it really came down to the fact that Drew and Sobo both had really bad shooting nights. If just one of those guys had been able sink even 2 or 3 of their open looks, the Cats win.

That sure-thing dunk slipping out of Crawford's hands late in the game was sort of emblematic of the whole night.

Tom


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