Podcast Episode #1: Setting the table for Michigan
By Brett Kurland on
We’re gearing up for tonight’s huuuuuge game against Michigan by debuting Lake The Posts’ newest feature – a regular podcast featuring all three Lake The Posts contributors – me, Philip Rossman-Reich, and LTP himself.
Well, here we go. Gameday for the biggest Northwestern basketball game since… well, I’m inclined to agree with LTP that this is the biggest game for the Wildcat basketball team since the 1994 game against the very same school from Ann Arbor. Four games to go, and I’m pretty sure this is the latest point in the season when Northwestern’s been in a projected NCAA Tournament bracket (Thank you, Joe Lunardi. Although Joe – putting us in one of the “first four” games in Dayton. I’m not sure how I feel about that.)
So, given the high level of excitement and anticipation, we figured this would be the perfect time to debut a new regular feature here at Lake The Posts – podcasts. We’ve dabbled in podcasts with our recent Purple Mafia profiles on SI.com’s Stewart Mandel, the Fiesta Bowl’s Andrew Bagnato, and 1995 football co-captain William Bennett. But this podcast is the first one to include all three Lake The Posts contributors – me, Philip Rossman-Reich, and LTP himself. We hope to do these on a regular basis. Please take a listen and let us know what you think and what you might like to hear us discuss on future episodes.
Listen in as we look back at the win over Minnesota that kept the dream alive, celebrate John Shurna’s amazing scoring accomplishment, break down tonight’s Wildcat-Wolverine matchup, explore the remainder of the schedule, analyze the team’s true tournament chances, and place a possible NCAA Tournament berth into the larger Northwestern historical context.
And, not that we as fans need any more motivation for tonight’s game, but thanks to Michigan guard Stu Douglass, we have some. When asked about traveling to the Chicago area to play NU here is what he said “..that gym is pretty small and it doesn’t get too loud”. Hmmm, we shall see.
(Please bear with us. It’s our first episode and we are working through some technical difficulties that we apologize for but will be improved in our next episode).
“When you go on the road to play, it’s always difficult – at Northwestern especially.” -Wolverines coach John Beilein
As they say in sports, “control what you can control.”
Carmody needs to go. Regardless of what happens this season. Look at this quote below regarding rebounding — this is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. This kind of attitude makes me livid. As I have said before, we need to go get Chris Collins from Duke as our head coach and then with him, need to lock down Jabari Parker (#1 recruit in the nation) from Simeon who shockingly is considering NU.
………NU is the worst rebounding team in the Big Ten, a fact coach Bill Carmody seems to have gotten used to. “We clearly got beat badly off the boards (against Minnesota),”Carmody said. “But that’s been our MO for a number of years. Could we be better at it yet? Yeah, but I don’t know. It’s rough. I don’t think there are any drills you can do.”…………
I hear you there. Some of it though is purely about opportunity. This is where advanced stats help.
Northwestern is 11th in the league in both offensive and defensive rebound rates and 11th in total rebound rate. Ironically, Michigan is last.
Does this make it any better? No. Northwestern has to be better at securing rebounds on both ends of the floor. Rebounding is mostly an effort and positioning thing. There just aren’t good rebounders on the roster. And, yes, that falls on Carmody and his recruiting.
Who knows, maybe Cerina will save us all next year!
Late to the party, but congrats to John Shurna. As a contemporary of Billy McKinney’s at NU (so I find it interesting that an early ’90s alum referred to himself as “old” recently–what does that make ME?), I was Billy’s biggest fan. There are all sorts of reasons to footnote Shurna’s record (no 3-point shot in the 70′s, fewer games, etc.), but I was glad to see Billy offering his sincere congrats. The black-and-white photos made McKinney look like he played in the era of the center jump (c’mon, BTN, not even one film clip?). McKinney was an exciting, slashing, dynamic player, but frankly John Shurna plays a more complete game, and has particularly improved in shot-blocking and rebounding these last couple of years. All hail the new scoring leader, and let’s beat Michigan!
Enjoyed the podcast. It’s nice to listen to an informed and interesting take on NU athletics. Hope the technical issues get resolved. I look forward to more podcasts.
I tend to think of this game as the biggest for NU since hosting Michigan in… 2004. I never see this game mentioned, but a win would have given us our first winning conference season since 1967-68. I can still see Davor Duvancic front-rimming a three that would have given us a late lead. Instead, we came up just short and that streak continues.
Yep. That’s right, and because we went 6-7 in non-conference and couldn’t muster more than one win in the BTT tournament, we ended up 15-16 and out of the NIT. It was a heck of a sad way for Jitim Young to end his NU career.
@PeterSkillz -indeed, we’re working on simple solutions (read, microphones) to ensure much better audio moving forward. GREAT call on ’04 as that one is so far off my radar screen. Great one to revisit in the big game factor.
Great job, guys. Loved listening to it while doing work.
@LTP: Couldn’t agree more with your theory of us landing in Dayton for ratings purposes. I have been saying that for MONTHS. However, if we somehow are in a Thursday/Friday game, I’m pretty sure we’ll get a prime time spot on CBS for the same reason.
@Brett: Since I live in St. Louis, I have indulged in the exact same kind of delusional daydreaming about the Cats making it to the Sweet 16 since the Midwest regional is going to be here.
@Peter Skillz: I vividly remember that ’04 Michigan game. They passed out a picture of Jitim Young’s head on sticks with “Player of the Year” printed on them. (Although he was not named conference PoY, he hands down the most valuable to his team in the Big Ten.) I also remember Michigan’s Deon Harris going off, draining multiple threes from the corner.
So even if Carmody leads NU to the promised land, he still must go? Wow!