‘Cat Tracks

The story of yesterday was definitely NU basketball related. Our preferred walk-on legend, Aaron Liberman, got a rare Wildcat feature hoops article that wasn’t angled on the fact we have never been to the NCAA Tournament. Instead, this 6-10 freshman from the Los Angeles area serves as the focal point of a rather interesting story. It turns out Liberman is only the third Orthodox Jewish basketball player to play at the Division I level and the on ramp in to his personal life, including the fact he lives in the family basement of a Jewish chaplain and that he once walked eight miles to practice on the Sabbath. I also learned that he has shin splints and will be redshirting this year, adding a seemingly ever-growing list of redshirts along with Chier Ajou and Drew Crawford. Take a read here and kudos to Ben Strauss for a neat feature.

‘Cats Hoops Schedule Just Got Harder

It seems almost impossible, but Northwestern men’s hoops schedule just got a bit harder. Michigan was named the nation’s #1 team in America when the rankings came out yesterday. Michigan’s top spot in the AP poll is their first since the Fab Five regime in 1992.  The ‘Cats got some back door pub as Wolverine’s head coach, John Beilein downplayed it a bit saying “I’ve been absorbed in Northwestern tape”.  Let’s hope that tape is stuck all around several key players as our team has a tall task on Wednesday night in Ann Arbor.

Recruiting Game Changers

An interesting read on ESPN.com about the communication rules changes that are coming on August 1.  It’s fascinating how the communication platforms, especially social media, are really changing the way recruits get contacted. Deregulation on communication devices is coming and as this article points out, it further puts an emphasis on real relationships surfacing as the key. With that in mind, I think we all know that it is another benefit to the Pat Fitzgerald approach.

10-Game Conference Slate?

Whoa. I’ll never say never, after what’s transpired in recent years, but man, this Brian Bennett feature from ESPN.com on Monday discussing a possible nine or ten game conference schedule is a daunting mental task.  There are all sorts of financial models that would need to be worked out as non-conference games are almost synonymous with “home gate” for most B1G schools.  When you look at Northwestern’s future schedules, this would actually potentially decrease our strength of schedule, considering the likes of Stanford, Notre Dame and other up-and-coming academic minded schools are on the slate.

2013 Coaching Connection

Western Michigan new head coach, PJ Fleck, hired Northwestern offensive grad assistant John Kuceyeski as the Broncos director of player personnel.

LTP N Flag Project

I’ve got a stack of the photos to get to so thanks for your patience. I’ve been having some issues inserting them in to the blog. We’ll get there and man, do we have some great ones.