‘Cats Shining Moment Falls Short In OT; Wait ‘Til Next Year

I really think if we’d gone 2-0 against Penn State instead of 0-2 both this year and last year, we’d have made the tourney both years. 9-9 in the Big Ten or 10-10 including Big Ten Tourney games combined with 20+ wins (instead of 18 wins, 7-11 Big Ten) is a lock. This game stings, but it’s Penn State that’s been the poison pill two years in a row.

Good analysis. Tough loss. Note that Sullinger is a 71% FT shooter, but if he shoots his average it’s still a 3 pt game to OSU. To your point he shouldn’t he been on the line that much.

I normally turn off Dakich, but he was tolerable today, effusive in deserved praise for Juice.
He will be missed, but IMHO our point guard next year will be Marcotullio, and without much drop off in point production and a likely improvement in D. If the incoming frosh can help, great. I also think there’s reason for optimism next year with a healthy Shurna, and the normal improvement of players from year to year. Add to that the graduation of so many quality players in the B10, recently chronicled in the media, and maybe next year…

I know they were showing that Sullinger was a 54% FT shooter, but he actually shoots 71% http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=51405

I think someone on the production team screwed up. I know it was incredibly frustrating to watch and after the game I kept saying “If a 50% FT shooter is going to go 16-18 then you can’t complain too much”…so hopefully that makes a little more sense for everyone.

@kinsella316: I’ll respectfully disagree. Northwestern student-athletes playing the game hard always make me proud, win or lose.

Am I chalking this one up as a win? Hell no. Like Fitz said, there are no more “moral victories” for the Cats, in any sport.

But I’m always proud of our student-athletes, when they give effort on the field of play and in the classroom and community.

Have to respond to Rick, and make a comment to any fan or anyone who remotely follows NU basketball. If Marcotullio is our main PG next year, this team will be fighting with Iowa and Indiana to stay out of the basement of the Big 10. If anyone believes that Marcotullio can be effective at PG, you haven’t understood what Juice has meant to this team for 4 years. Sure, Juice is undersized and everyone makes a point about it, and sure he can’t drive and finish at the rim like other guys in the league, but don’t underestimate what 40 minutes, every game, with the ball in his hands the majority of the time means to this team. Besides the fact that he seems to be the only player on the team that consistently comes to play, no one on this team has close to the ball handling/decision making skills that he has (not close), and no one on this team can come close to replacing his minutes. If next year’s freshmen can’t contribute significant minutes and play 30+ minutes at the PG spot, NU is in for a long year.

@kinsella316 – A warrior may not always win but they play with heart, desire and the best effort they can muster. I will take the warrior effort today. Yea, I’m sad they are watching the rest of the tournament, but looking at what they were facing, it would have been easy to give up before tipoff. All I ever want from our athletes is to compete like warriors. Leave it all on the field/court.

@Sam – I totally agree. I also thing some tougher games will lead to closer games and help the team learn how to close out. The two MSU games or the OSU regular season game are my case for that. I believe a more battle tested team wins at least one of those games. Maybe even two. There has got to be some middle ground between Chicago State and Ohio State that would help us in the preseason. As a season ticket holder, I would even give up some home games to get better ones.

Folks, let’s give the Cats some credit for the year they had. C’mon, if most are candid we would have said this would have been a decent showing when Coble left the team via whatever means or motivation. For my nickel the kids played hard and pretty much to the collective ability of the team far more often than not. Hopefully they advance on to the NIT and send Juice out with a very deserving win or two… The young man was a warrior and had huge heart in recent weeks. More than a few on this blog were giving NU up for dead with what looked like a bad loss to St.Johns in non-conference. No Coble and an injured Shurna for a good portion of The Ten? All in all, not a bad showing. Still, Carmody has had his shot and time for a change. Was apparent to most, The Princeton system would not work at this level five years ago- nor encourage the quality of athlete needed to particpate at the highest levels of Power Conference Hoops- specifically The Big Ten, to seriously consider NU… New coach, new system, new culture, renewed hope… And all due respect to Tavaras Hardy, someone above his paygrade and capability is needed to break this iceberg that is the continued lack of NU participation in the NCAA Tourney…

Finally, one former NU Football player is on record varifying a decided lack of enthusiasm for March Madness… Marquice Cole was featured in the ESPN The Magazine “Scale Of 1 to 10″ rating his interest level at a three… Maybe, when/if NU ever dances, that goes up a bit! I’d like to get his level of enthusiasm on the Defense shown against Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas Tech… A zero is not an option…

It’s difficult to say anything too negative about the in-game coaching and pre-game preparation that went into the season against OSU because clearly NU came prepared. But 2 games against OSU and we did the same stupid thing at the end of regulation. If a team is down or tied with the ball near the end of the game (within the last few seconds, i.e., only time for 1 shot), you MUST put yourself in a position to get fouled. It makes very little difference what the shot looks like it just has to be one that you could get fouled taking (of course if you have a wide open look and you are a decent shooter that would be best but it’s not usually that easy).

In the game at home against OSU, with 3.5 seconds left (plenty of time to dribble to half court and still have at least 1.5 if not 2+ seconds left) instead of using a timeout at half court which allows you to inbound from halfcourt (NU used 2 timeouts to set up the last play, instead of saving one) and throwing something towards the basket where someone could get fouled on a quick catch and shoot–or even cutting towards the basket (without a shot), Carmody called a play where a Crawford dribbles it up the floor and heaves it from halfcourt. Today, Juice dribbled across looking for an outlet (not to shoot), and found Drew too late to do anything (and in a position to shoot and not drive anyway). Again, Carmody had timeouts left to run something today. To be fair, Matta did the same thing at the end instead of having Sullinger throw up something inside the paint, he faded away with a terrible shot to end regulation. But OSU and Sullinger learned the lesson and just pounded the interior in OT, and got the win–without making any of the baskets. Don’t remember specifics about the MSU games, but wouldn’t be surprised if similar things happened.

Point is, just as players learn from late-game situations, and can learn to execute in key situations same goes for the coach. Carmody failed to get anything good in those key situations and it hurt our chances big time (might have lost the game today, and lost a chance for upset at home earlier in the year). I’d hope that a veteran coach like Carmody would know better.

One comment on the “bad call” on the 3-pointer by Marcotullio. No good referee in making this call are looking at the shot clot above the backboard as implied by the replays and subsequent criticism of the call. Instead, they are listening for the violation buzzer and then judging whether the ball had left the shooters hand. For ESPN to show the clock, without the sound of the buzzer, is useless. And then to make a big issue of it (and what a huge issue it would have been if NU had won) by the several replays just shows how little they know of refereeing. Can you imagine the criticism of the referees if they had been looking at the shot clock and instead missed an obvious foul on the shooter? The obsession with instant replay is ruining sports.

As I have posted many times before……get marketing on the line…..new slogan for 2011
“Expect Close Painful Losses” get rid of Carmody!!!!

@chad – of course i’m proud of the team playing hard and whatnot… but i’m not taking any solace in “well we played the number one team in the country tough and almost won.” we had the ball twice against the number one team in the country in a tie game WITH A CHANCE TO WIN TWICE and don’t come through. proud of the effort? hell yea. proud of the result? never.

@LTP- If a quarterfinal exit from the B10 tourney is enough to save BC’s job, then we should probably just grant him tenure. Gotta look at the entire picture. We were universally tabbed as tourney quality to start the year. We didn’t even end the season on the bubble. Again.

It’s been 11 years. No more excuses.

One last BC comment from me and I’ll shut it for awhile.

If you had an employee for 11 years who was running one of your most important divisions, and not once in 11 years did that employee meet HIS OWN goals for that division, would you keep that employee?

BCs had given his best. I thank him for that. But it turns out his best isn’t good enough. Maybe the next guy will fail too. But we have to keep trying. If we dont make a change, I promise we’ll be right back having the exact same tedious exchanges next year.

Up until OT, Mirkovic and Curletti did a good job containing Sullinger. For example, Luka was guarding Sullinger at the end when Sullinger had to throw up the wild off balance fade away that fell far short and allowed the OT to happen. Luka hit the critical 3 pointer. Unfortunately, we tend to remember the technical (but where Buford missed both foul shots). Even with the loss (against the #1 team in the country), NU played darn well.