Unable to capitalize
NU's loss last night resulted from their inability to take advantage of two long stretches where Tulsa struggled to score. especially when playing on the road, you have to take and increase the lead while the home team isn't putting points on the board.
the first of these stretches was the last 12 minutes of the first half. of course, some of this wasn't televised because the VaTech game hadn't ended yet, but in the last 11:45 of the first half, Tulsa made exactly two field goals. yes, they made seven free throws in that stretch to hang around, but NU only had a two point lead at the break. that had to be encouraging for the Hurricane, especially after they shot only 33% (including 2/13 from 3PT) and figured to shoot much better in the second half of a home game. which, of course, they did.
the other stretch that killed the Wildcats was - SURPRISE, SURPRISE! - the last seven minutes of regulation. Tulsa scored their 60th point at 7:27 and didn't score again until free throws with 20 seconds left. while NU cut an 11 point lead down to 3, they still had trouble getting baskets on key possessions. check out this sequence to end the game. we'll start at the under 4 timeout; NU has the ball, down 60-55.
N - Shurna throws up (and misses) a fadeaway three at the shot clock buzzer
T - missed three
N - Moore misses a long three
T - offensive foul
N - NU disoriented, calls timeout. Mirkovic airballs an 18 footer, but Coble hustles to keep possession. Shurna misses another long three, another NU offensive rebound. Thompson makes layup, NU trails 60-57
T - alley oop dunk, NU trails 62-57
N - Shurna backdoor layup, NU trails 62-59
T - missed shot
N - NU disoriented again, calls timeout. Mirkovic sets a bunch of ball screens for Thompson while the other three guys stand around. what looks like a broken play ends up with Moore getting a pretty open look at the tying three. miss. game over.
and thus ends, with a resounding thud, what many are calling one of the most successful basketball seasons in Northwestern history. it sure didn't feel that way.
the first of these stretches was the last 12 minutes of the first half. of course, some of this wasn't televised because the VaTech game hadn't ended yet, but in the last 11:45 of the first half, Tulsa made exactly two field goals. yes, they made seven free throws in that stretch to hang around, but NU only had a two point lead at the break. that had to be encouraging for the Hurricane, especially after they shot only 33% (including 2/13 from 3PT) and figured to shoot much better in the second half of a home game. which, of course, they did.
the other stretch that killed the Wildcats was - SURPRISE, SURPRISE! - the last seven minutes of regulation. Tulsa scored their 60th point at 7:27 and didn't score again until free throws with 20 seconds left. while NU cut an 11 point lead down to 3, they still had trouble getting baskets on key possessions. check out this sequence to end the game. we'll start at the under 4 timeout; NU has the ball, down 60-55.
N - Shurna throws up (and misses) a fadeaway three at the shot clock buzzer
T - missed three
N - Moore misses a long three
T - offensive foul
N - NU disoriented, calls timeout. Mirkovic airballs an 18 footer, but Coble hustles to keep possession. Shurna misses another long three, another NU offensive rebound. Thompson makes layup, NU trails 60-57
T - alley oop dunk, NU trails 62-57
N - Shurna backdoor layup, NU trails 62-59
T - missed shot
N - NU disoriented again, calls timeout. Mirkovic sets a bunch of ball screens for Thompson while the other three guys stand around. what looks like a broken play ends up with Moore getting a pretty open look at the tying three. miss. game over.
and thus ends, with a resounding thud, what many are calling one of the most successful basketball seasons in Northwestern history. it sure didn't feel that way.
posted by Fire Bill Carmody at
8:26 AM
3 Comments:
So the best team in NU history just went to the junior prom, had their date drop some ruphies in the punch, bend them over, pull a Rodeo (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rodeo) on them, and then leave them alone in their room in a pile of vomit crying for mommy. I’ve been through the details before but just for shits and giggles, here are the quick points about NU’s supposed best year ever.
1. NU had 2 wins against a team on program killing probation.
2. This was a down year for the big ten. Yes they got 7 teams in the tourney but the average seed is a 7.4 vs a 5.1 for the ACC and a 3 for the Big East.
3. We are losing the only guy who can bail us out of our shitty gimmick offense in Craig Moore. Notice when we staged our comeback last night it’s because Moore hit back to back threes from 5 FEET BEHIND the 3 point line.
4. We rely on a gimmick offense and gimmick defense which might surprise teams the first couple of times but after that IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO FIGURE OUT.
5. Our 8 big ten wins are under 1 standard deviation from Carshitty’s norm. This was just a random explainable statistical fluctuation for the Carshitty error.
6. We still finished 9th out of 11 big ten teams
So we were second to last place in a shitty league with one team not even with a real roster and we’re losing our one difference maker. You can argue all of those points if you want, but they are facts. I’m not even angry about this anymore. Sundial Bill Car-no-win-dy has done absolutely nothing with this program in 9 years, nothing, and it is so FUCKING OBVIOUS. If we bring him back we’re just going to get more of the same except the big ten should be better next year since Indiana will have scholarship players and I doubt there will be a lot of underclassmen jumping to the pros making teams weaker since there really isn’t all that much talent in the league right now.
Anyway, since I am now part of the coaching search committee as I am sure jim Phillips is an avid reader of the comments section of this random blog, I will offer another suggestion. You all know I have a major man crush on craig robinson (and obama gave 2-3 shouts out to craig and Oregon state yesterday when filling out his bracket, but that won’t help with recruiting or anything, glad we didn’t have the vision to hire him when he only sat on our fucking bench for a number of years, ugh. Good thing we kept sundial bill as well as he strives for below mediocrity), but I know we must look elsewhere. So my new suggestion is Anthony Grant of VCU.
This guy is a flat out winner. These are my criteria for a NU head basketball coach which I posted before:
1. Young and passionate about basketball
2. Has been around schools like Northwestern where academics are stressed
3. Knows Chicago and the Midwest
4. Is related to the first African American president of the United States of America.
While grant only has 2 of the 4 (young and passionate about basketball and some familiarity with the midwest due to playing at Dayton), #4 is probably unachievable and he can make up for #2. While he has never worked at a school that stressed academics (unless VCU does, fuck if I know), he has worked at big time programs. He was billy donovan’s asst coach at marshall and at Florida for a number of years. He knows what it is like to work in a big conference and he knows how to play the recruiting game. In his 3 years at VCU he has finished in first place every year and is in the NCAA tournament for the 2nd time in those 3 years.
He has a winning pedigree, he seems to be doing a great job recruiting with only one senior on the current team (meaning all of the other players he brought in, though the one senior, Eric Maynor, is fucking awesome and drives much of their winning), and he fucking wins.
Now, I see absolutely zero reason why Grant would want to come to NU and deal with the shit facilities and strict admissions criteria but he is exactly the kind of guy Jim Phillips should be out there wining and dining and even offering up rusty trombones if that is what it takes. Grant will move on to a better job next year, probably by passing the intermediate step of NU, but if it were up to me, I would already have a contract in his hands.
Of course if it were up to me carmody would have been fired years ago and dance marathon would be pants-less, but what do I know?
Fuck Carmody
absolutely, Anthony Grant has to be the top candidate this off-season, regardless of whether VCU knocks off UCLA tonight. but like you said, there is no reason he'd come to NU when he could have jobs at Virginia or Georgia.
if/when NU ever gets off their ass and makes a coaching change, they'll face the same problems that Oregon State had last year. before they got Robinson, the guys at St Mary's and San Diego turned them down.
but at the same time, Oregon State moved very quickly with Robinson and locked him up while Providence College was still dragging its feet. NU should move just as quickly in their search, and it would be irresponsible for Jim Phillips not to already have some names in mind.
I'd love to have Grant.
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