21 February 2015
B1G Projections - Stretch Run Edition
Things are really starting to come into focus with just four or five games remaining in the B1G regular season. We have some thoughts but will have to save them until next update. Don't have time to provide commentary except to say we are exhaling now that it looks like NU won't finish in 13th or 14th thank to a three game win streak. It's the little things...
Green shoots
Tonight NU (4-10) walloped Penn State (3-12) in Evanston to the tune of 60-39 and extended the Wildcats' win streak to three. While the prior win at Minnesota was eye opening we suspected human nature would take hold of this young team and allow another sad home loss to a bad Penn State team. Instead what we saw was a team that is showing signs that it will come of age under CCC.
CCR
The Penn State was easily NU's best performance of the season and continued what is now a three game rebound from what was NU's worst performance of year against Michigan State. What's most heartening during this surge has been that each game's performance has been stronger than the prior game. And for the first time all season NU outperformed an average B1G squad on both ends of the court!
We'd like to say that we saw this coming when we wrote last time that we suspected NU would snap back to put the wheels on this train. We in fact could envision the team going on a run once it got over the mental hurdle of breaking the losing streak. But the truth is we didn't envision that the team would play as well in its wins as it has in the past two games.
We give credit this strong three-game stretch to Vic Law for beginning to live up to the hype -- especially over the past two games. If he can continue to shoot this way and continue to learn to move without the ball then we really can see this guy growing into a star for NU.
We also like the brief flashes that Gavin Skelly has showed of late. The guy needs to build some strength to bang down low, but hopefully it won't come at the cost of his agility and energy which has been a real asset.
With these two guys stepping up we can see the rest of the team relax a bit on offense and get into a better flow and rhythm. This has been apparent with Demps who hasn't had to force the action nearly as much of late. BMac has seen his point production go down, but this is not a bad thing. He has good vision and knows where and when to pass the ball, so the fact that he has gone into more of the facilitator role can only be a positive. Olah also looked much more relaxed on offense today knocking down some baseline jumpers that he's short armed in recent games.
In the bigger picture with the three game win streak NU is now expected to win 5.5 games. While 5.5 wins isn't something to write home about it still is a huge improvement from where the team was just ten days ago.
We are also pleased that this little win streak has pretty much guaranteed that NU will not make B1G history by becoming the first 13th or 14th place teams; those honors look likely to be bestowed upon Penn State and Rutgers, respectively.
CCR
The Penn State was easily NU's best performance of the season and continued what is now a three game rebound from what was NU's worst performance of year against Michigan State. What's most heartening during this surge has been that each game's performance has been stronger than the prior game. And for the first time all season NU outperformed an average B1G squad on both ends of the court!
We'd like to say that we saw this coming when we wrote last time that we suspected NU would snap back to put the wheels on this train. We in fact could envision the team going on a run once it got over the mental hurdle of breaking the losing streak. But the truth is we didn't envision that the team would play as well in its wins as it has in the past two games.
We give credit this strong three-game stretch to Vic Law for beginning to live up to the hype -- especially over the past two games. If he can continue to shoot this way and continue to learn to move without the ball then we really can see this guy growing into a star for NU.
We also like the brief flashes that Gavin Skelly has showed of late. The guy needs to build some strength to bang down low, but hopefully it won't come at the cost of his agility and energy which has been a real asset.
With these two guys stepping up we can see the rest of the team relax a bit on offense and get into a better flow and rhythm. This has been apparent with Demps who hasn't had to force the action nearly as much of late. BMac has seen his point production go down, but this is not a bad thing. He has good vision and knows where and when to pass the ball, so the fact that he has gone into more of the facilitator role can only be a positive. Olah also looked much more relaxed on offense today knocking down some baseline jumpers that he's short armed in recent games.
In the bigger picture with the three game win streak NU is now expected to win 5.5 games. While 5.5 wins isn't something to write home about it still is a huge improvement from where the team was just ten days ago.
On the twitter we've honored this win streak but more symbolically our getting off the CCC fence by changing our name to "Coach C Court". It's still premature to draw any conclusions, but we've now seen enough from the frosh and CCC's coaching abilities to think there is at least some evidence to go with the belief of brighter days ahead.
11 February 2015
Updated B1G Projections
Given the state of affairs with NU basketball you will have to forgive us for mailing this one in.
NU is now the favorite for the basement. Wisconsin has locked up first place. As mostly expected there is a heated race for second; only surprise is that Indiana and Purdue have a puncher's chance at it.
NU has sealed its fate for a losing season. Realistically 4 B1G is the Wildcat ceiling. Same goes for Rutgers. The impressive Badgers have a realistic shot of winning out but will likely drop one more game along the way. Other teams have a realistic ceiling of 13 wins.
The wheels have come off
We thought that the Purdue game that was over by the 15:00 mark of the second half was demoralizing. Little did we know that the fate of the next two games would be decided in the first half.
OK technically the Wisconsin game was effectively decided on paper at tip-off with NU having a scant 3% chance of winning, but any doubt was removed by the 15:00 mark of the first half when the Badgers jumped out to a 13-2 lead. By the 12:00 mark the formidable Badgers had forged as 23-6 lead at which point the Badgers and even their faithful appeared to lose interest in its over-matched prey.
On paper the MSU game at The Welsh was supposed to be more competitive with NU given a 30%+ chance at victory. Not so much. Over the final 10 minutes of the first half Sparty went on a 22-1 run to lead 38-14 at halftime. You have to hand it to Sparty: they didn't lose interest until their lead had ballooned to a laughable 56-21 by the 12:00 mark of the second half. A combination of a NCAA resume in need of padding and a road game must have done the trick.
CCR
It comes as no surprise that the MSU debacle was the season's nadir (to date). The Wisconsin game turned out to be a surprisingly OK defensive effort, but that had as much to do with the Badgers not caring enough to figure out the NU 2-3 zone unless the lead dwindled close to single digits.
In all NU's three worst efforts of the B1G season have come in their last four games with the Wisconsin game requiring an asterisk for lack of competitiveness. Even more troubling is that these efforts are growing worse as time passes. We suspect this team will rally to some degree and put the wheels back on this train given the inherent competitiveness embodied by most any athlete or coach at this level. But to say the middle part of this B1G season has been a letdown would be a gross understatement even with our already low expectations going into part of the schedule.
GAMBLE Report
The last two games have left a mark on the GAMBLE Report. The team as a whole is down 12 rungs, with the offense giving back 22 rungs of its season-long progress. The defense continued to its season-long regression with another 6 rungs of slippage. Once again this 2015 season looks quite similar to the 2003 season (B1G record 3-13, Overall 155, AdjO 118, AdjD 200). Both teams struggled within a fifth-ranked B1G although we never had to endure a 10 game losing streak in the 2003 season.
NU B1G Win Projections
NU is now most likely to win three games. Welp. At this point eyes are clearly set toward next season and beyond. The silver lining is that the losses from this team are not huge given Cobb's injury-hindered season. There is reason to hope that Olah and the other upper classmen improve this offseason, the oft-repeated hope by CCC and others that the freshmen stand to improve markedly with a year in the weight room and a year of college ball under their belts, and the incoming freshmen will fill in gaps in the lineup. But at the end of the day all we have to go on is hope. SOS
OK technically the Wisconsin game was effectively decided on paper at tip-off with NU having a scant 3% chance of winning, but any doubt was removed by the 15:00 mark of the first half when the Badgers jumped out to a 13-2 lead. By the 12:00 mark the formidable Badgers had forged as 23-6 lead at which point the Badgers and even their faithful appeared to lose interest in its over-matched prey.
On paper the MSU game at The Welsh was supposed to be more competitive with NU given a 30%+ chance at victory. Not so much. Over the final 10 minutes of the first half Sparty went on a 22-1 run to lead 38-14 at halftime. You have to hand it to Sparty: they didn't lose interest until their lead had ballooned to a laughable 56-21 by the 12:00 mark of the second half. A combination of a NCAA resume in need of padding and a road game must have done the trick.
CCR
It comes as no surprise that the MSU debacle was the season's nadir (to date). The Wisconsin game turned out to be a surprisingly OK defensive effort, but that had as much to do with the Badgers not caring enough to figure out the NU 2-3 zone unless the lead dwindled close to single digits.
In all NU's three worst efforts of the B1G season have come in their last four games with the Wisconsin game requiring an asterisk for lack of competitiveness. Even more troubling is that these efforts are growing worse as time passes. We suspect this team will rally to some degree and put the wheels back on this train given the inherent competitiveness embodied by most any athlete or coach at this level. But to say the middle part of this B1G season has been a letdown would be a gross understatement even with our already low expectations going into part of the schedule.
GAMBLE Report
The last two games have left a mark on the GAMBLE Report. The team as a whole is down 12 rungs, with the offense giving back 22 rungs of its season-long progress. The defense continued to its season-long regression with another 6 rungs of slippage. Once again this 2015 season looks quite similar to the 2003 season (B1G record 3-13, Overall 155, AdjO 118, AdjD 200). Both teams struggled within a fifth-ranked B1G although we never had to endure a 10 game losing streak in the 2003 season.
NU B1G Win Projections
NU is now most likely to win three games. Welp. At this point eyes are clearly set toward next season and beyond. The silver lining is that the losses from this team are not huge given Cobb's injury-hindered season. There is reason to hope that Olah and the other upper classmen improve this offseason, the oft-repeated hope by CCC and others that the freshmen stand to improve markedly with a year in the weight room and a year of college ball under their belts, and the incoming freshmen will fill in gaps in the lineup. But at the end of the day all we have to go on is hope. SOS
05 February 2015
NU Basketball 2015: Mid-season State of the Team
Zero: Equals the number of days in the month of January that San Francisco had measurable precipitation. Also equals the number of NU basketball wins during said month. One of these is a historic first. The other? Here we go again....
We've turned the page in our 2015 calendars to February. It seems a distant and laughable memory now with the benefit of hindsight, but prior to the basketball season there was occasional speculation that this would be an NIT year for NU. A few intrepid souls even fancied an NCAA invite this year. Good times!
While we never bought into this optimistic outlook from what we could gather this speculation was grounded in 1) a strong dependable defense -- with accompanying (implicit/explicit) baseless assertions that CCC is a defensive minded coach 2) (relatively) ballyhooed five freshmen with athletic youtube videos 3) ignoring the impact of personnel losses and 4) typical assumption of no losses (health or otherwise) from the roster.
Well NU (1-8) is now at the halfway point of its B1G campaign, and the folly of these optimistic underpinnings has become apparent. And with this sobering reality sinking in no one is mentioning possible NIT berths anymore.
NU's struggles has come as no surprise to anyone who places credence on the efficiency statistics, but even we NUrds have been disappointed by NU's failure to date in meeting even our already very low expectations. Some may say that the 1-8 record doesn't reflect the fact that NU has had some moral victories in close losses. We are sympathetic to that notion but only to a limited degree. These moral victories have been blown way out of proportion.
The most commonly cited moral feather in NU's cap is the heartbreaking loss at Maryland. Yes NU did play a good game, but it is also helped that Maryland has been in a funk that began shortly before they played NU and has endured as evidenced by their performances in its two subsequent games - a blowout loss at Ohio St and another near home loss to Penn State (2-8).
Worse yet are those who were celebrating the broader 5 game moral victory streak which includes a five point loss to Illinois. We don't know which Illinois team these folks have been watching, but the Illini have had some major personnel issues that have torpedoed their season and likely regulated them to the NIT (if only NU had such troubles!). The fact of the matter is that NU should compete at home against teams like this, and there is no moral victory in scraping over this low hurdle. Moreover statistically speaking that Illini game was NU's third worst effort of the year and well below that of an average team in this down year for the B1G.
More troubling to us is NU's performance in its last two games. Purdue may be an improved squad, but they are far from the world beaters that NU made them out to be in the second half that was all but over by the 15:00 mark. And that stinker of a second half at Nebraska added up to NU's worst B1G effort of the year -- yes even worse than the 23 point home loss to Wisconsin taking into consideration the quality of the opponent.
One slight silver lining to these two bad losses was the quieting of those who had been chirping recently about NU's improved play -- an assertion that had very little statistical support. Not that such things matter to those who place tons of stock in the eyeball test.
GAMBLE Report 2.05
As the our fifth edition of this year's GAMBLE Report demonstrates, NU continues its range bound trending within the kenpom rankings. NU is now at 137 overall, and is once again in line with the last two years. The offense has been improving which is one of the bright spots in an otherwise dismal year, but the defense continues to fade.
At our last report the teams closely resembled 2013 in terms of overall efficiency on both ends of the court. With this update we are now getting into NIT era defensive quality but without the very good offense to propel NU to victory. If one were to try to compare this team to one in NU's past then it would have to be 2002-03 when NU had an adjO of 118 and an AdjD of 200. That team was 12-17 overall and 3-13 in B1G. The B1G as a conference was also ranked fifth in the country that year. The good news is that NU went 8-8 in the B1G the following year. So we've got that going for us!
The updated bar charts projecting NU's B1G projections show that the two game relapse has taken its toll with NU's expected B1G win total now at 3.5 which is down from an already meager 4.7 projected wins prior to B1G play. Not shown here but possibly the worst part is that NU has now pulled into a dead heat with Rutgers as likely B1G basement finishers. NU and Rutgers each has about a 75% chance of becoming the first team to finish either 13th or 14th in the B1G. #NUEra?
Outlook:
The second half of the B1G slate begins with a trip to Madison and a visit from Sparty. With a defense that has regressed to levels worse than even CBC's final season there doesn't stand much reason for hope of repeating the heroics at Wisconsin or slowing down Sparty. The next realistic chance for a win is when Iowa comes to town Feb 15 which kenpom shows as NU having a 38% shot at victory. After that NU travels to the barn where despite Goldy's struggles this B1G season Minny has a 86% shot at victory.
Mercifully Penn State comes to Evanston which NU is actually projected to win by 1 point; if NU fails to win that game then it could be two straight months without a win. That might start to become noteworthy even with NU sad history.
We've turned the page in our 2015 calendars to February. It seems a distant and laughable memory now with the benefit of hindsight, but prior to the basketball season there was occasional speculation that this would be an NIT year for NU. A few intrepid souls even fancied an NCAA invite this year. Good times!
While we never bought into this optimistic outlook from what we could gather this speculation was grounded in 1) a strong dependable defense -- with accompanying (implicit/explicit) baseless assertions that CCC is a defensive minded coach 2) (relatively) ballyhooed five freshmen with athletic youtube videos 3) ignoring the impact of personnel losses and 4) typical assumption of no losses (health or otherwise) from the roster.
Well NU (1-8) is now at the halfway point of its B1G campaign, and the folly of these optimistic underpinnings has become apparent. And with this sobering reality sinking in no one is mentioning possible NIT berths anymore.
NU's struggles has come as no surprise to anyone who places credence on the efficiency statistics, but even we NUrds have been disappointed by NU's failure to date in meeting even our already very low expectations. Some may say that the 1-8 record doesn't reflect the fact that NU has had some moral victories in close losses. We are sympathetic to that notion but only to a limited degree. These moral victories have been blown way out of proportion.
The most commonly cited moral feather in NU's cap is the heartbreaking loss at Maryland. Yes NU did play a good game, but it is also helped that Maryland has been in a funk that began shortly before they played NU and has endured as evidenced by their performances in its two subsequent games - a blowout loss at Ohio St and another near home loss to Penn State (2-8).
Worse yet are those who were celebrating the broader 5 game moral victory streak which includes a five point loss to Illinois. We don't know which Illinois team these folks have been watching, but the Illini have had some major personnel issues that have torpedoed their season and likely regulated them to the NIT (if only NU had such troubles!). The fact of the matter is that NU should compete at home against teams like this, and there is no moral victory in scraping over this low hurdle. Moreover statistically speaking that Illini game was NU's third worst effort of the year and well below that of an average team in this down year for the B1G.
More troubling to us is NU's performance in its last two games. Purdue may be an improved squad, but they are far from the world beaters that NU made them out to be in the second half that was all but over by the 15:00 mark. And that stinker of a second half at Nebraska added up to NU's worst B1G effort of the year -- yes even worse than the 23 point home loss to Wisconsin taking into consideration the quality of the opponent.
One slight silver lining to these two bad losses was the quieting of those who had been chirping recently about NU's improved play -- an assertion that had very little statistical support. Not that such things matter to those who place tons of stock in the eyeball test.
GAMBLE Report 2.05
As the our fifth edition of this year's GAMBLE Report demonstrates, NU continues its range bound trending within the kenpom rankings. NU is now at 137 overall, and is once again in line with the last two years. The offense has been improving which is one of the bright spots in an otherwise dismal year, but the defense continues to fade.
At our last report the teams closely resembled 2013 in terms of overall efficiency on both ends of the court. With this update we are now getting into NIT era defensive quality but without the very good offense to propel NU to victory. If one were to try to compare this team to one in NU's past then it would have to be 2002-03 when NU had an adjO of 118 and an AdjD of 200. That team was 12-17 overall and 3-13 in B1G. The B1G as a conference was also ranked fifth in the country that year. The good news is that NU went 8-8 in the B1G the following year. So we've got that going for us!
The updated bar charts projecting NU's B1G projections show that the two game relapse has taken its toll with NU's expected B1G win total now at 3.5 which is down from an already meager 4.7 projected wins prior to B1G play. Not shown here but possibly the worst part is that NU has now pulled into a dead heat with Rutgers as likely B1G basement finishers. NU and Rutgers each has about a 75% chance of becoming the first team to finish either 13th or 14th in the B1G. #NUEra?
Outlook:
The second half of the B1G slate begins with a trip to Madison and a visit from Sparty. With a defense that has regressed to levels worse than even CBC's final season there doesn't stand much reason for hope of repeating the heroics at Wisconsin or slowing down Sparty. The next realistic chance for a win is when Iowa comes to town Feb 15 which kenpom shows as NU having a 38% shot at victory. After that NU travels to the barn where despite Goldy's struggles this B1G season Minny has a 86% shot at victory.
Mercifully Penn State comes to Evanston which NU is actually projected to win by 1 point; if NU fails to win that game then it could be two straight months without a win. That might start to become noteworthy even with NU sad history.
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