Illinois 57, Northwestern 56: Postgame Thread

I managed to watch a game with NU Alum c/o 2002 and not stab myself in the eye or him in the eye. I want to stab that ref who put away his whistle on that obvious charge, though, and then had the gumption to call a loose ball foul.

Ugh.

That defense and the energy was excellent tonight, so … okay, we’ll just leave it at that.

First off, it was fun watching the game with Herman. It is amazing how fun it is to debate with someone in-person about NU sports, whether we agree or disagree. Plus, I have TONS of respect about how many interviews he has done for SoP, just awesome. Herman, I look forward to our next game.

Positives
1. Defense, defense, defense. Not only was the effort by every player significantly better, the strategy, rotations, schemes were all better. While ILL made some boneheaded plays, NU forced them into many of them. It was such a nice change.

2. Cobb’s defense. Just great athleticism, quickness, instincts, and some great plays.

3. Mirkovic/Curletti. They were solid, we all have such low expectations of them, and for the most part, they played well. Definitely a nice effort from them.

4. Sobo. He is a solid, composed, clutch, and good floor leader. He is not Juice Thompson, yet, but a very nice player. When he shot those FTs late in the 2nd half, he looked so composed and confident.

Negatives
1. FT’s – 11/18 is unacceptable, especially considering some of them were on the front end of 1 and 1s.

2. Marco/Cobb’s offense. Some of the most boneheaded shot selection, it was silly and unwarranted. You could see the frustration on Carmody’s face, and I don’t blame him at all for that.

3. Shurna/Crawford. I don’t know what the deal is with Shurna. He is just not a great player, forget the NBA and All-American status, he will be lucky to be 2nd team All Big Ten. Just when everyone is ready to put Drew into the #2 or heck #1 role on the team, he pulls a very weak offensive effort. At least his defensive effort was there.

4. Tough loss. Home, in-state rival, weak ILL team, 10 point lead at one point, and horrendous 2nd half offensive effort.

I don’t want to overreact to one loss and want to be consistent in waiting for the full Creighton – Purdue slate before making a definitive statement about this team, but what was considered to be our toughest stretch now includes only four ranked opponents (Cre, OSU, UM, MSU) instead of what could have been seven ranked opponents (ILL, Wisc, PU). But four games into this nine-game stretch, NU is 1-3 and not looking stellar.

Let’s hope a full week off gives NU time to rest, game plan, and get a SOLID road victory.

It was nice to see a bit more from Cobb tonight. i think we saw what some of us were talking about over the last couple days.

Unfortunately, there were also a few of those ugly mistakes, but he wasn’t the only one. (That’s one of my issues tonight – the contagious rash of fundamental mistakes with this bunch).

Anyhow, I think the good side of Cobb’s game was a bit brighter than the uglu side for the first time this year.

But I agree with NUCA02 that we need to wait until this stretch is over before panicking. Silver lining: this being the B1G, every game is a chance to atone for this loss.

Sec, your shipment of crawfish must’ve gotten there in time. That was the best defensive effort we’ve seen all year.

The loss sucks because we need to defend our floor. And like 02 said, clanked the front end of one and ones.

While our offense sucked, I don’t expect it to suck all year. I just want that kind of defensive effort every night. Protect your glass, keep diving on the floor, make them work for each basket. My hope is that we keep building off of this effort — however, those looking at past performance wouldn’t be wrong to say that this was an aberration more than the new normal.

What we’ve learned? Cobb can be a good 1:1 defender, and is useful in the “1-man press” at times. Perimeter pressure does cause us to wilt — we need to keep pounding it inside, if anything to force them to cover Mirkoletti and create space on the perimeter. And apparently, they don’t call charges in the final 2 minutes of a game. (Awright, that was a cheap shot.)

Anyone want to speculate whether a Duke player would get that charge call at the end of the game?