We’ve blown out three really good teams so that’s still pretty cool.
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My takeaways:
Ignas is the truth. I think he made a couple mistakes but he and Poole are easily our two best at getting their own when the clock runs down. Matthews doesn’t have the handles to do it consistently.
Outside of Iggy, Poole and Teske and Brooks, I’d say the rest of the team played sub par overall. Brooks really didn’t do much until late but he stepped up BIG.
Matthews needs to get going again. Feel like he’s going into a rut like how he started last year. Turnovers, and his already shaky shot is looking worse. I feel like he is best when he gets the ball at the mid range area or high post and makes plays with his back to the basket like Demar Derozan loves doing.
Livers is still great on defense and is a great shooter but Northwestern took away his shooting by not helping off him a ton off ball. He still isn’t a threat off the dribble because he doesn’t want to. Not sure why because I know he had the skill in high school. His issue is he hasn’t really ever been a threat with the dribble. Take away cuts and open shots and there is nothing in between. No dribble drives of any kind. Iso or straight line. He NEEDS to get confident enough to do at least one of those once in awhile.
Simpson was awesome in the first half but the second half was a player I didn’t recognize. Almost every time he made a mistake with a turnover or poor shot Northwestern capitalized that next trip down the floor. He was 5-5 from 2. 0-5 from 3 and got caught up in NW’s momentum rather than controlling us.
We need Johns bad for that backup 5 spot. Like yesterday bad. Davis can’t not foul people and the team in general just isn’t as confident with him out there. The flow just seems off too. If not at the 5, we need him ready to play the 4 and Livers at the 5 to add size and help rebounding.
Overall, super happy still to win that. They played bad overall and still won in a hostile (great) environment. Hopefully the guys take away quite a bit from the game!
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I agree! Absolutely!
13-0 heading into 2019 is very doable. Last time they did something like that I think they played for a national championship
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The play where he tried starting a break after a made NW bucket that gave them a ton of momentum and then threw an oop to the defender stands out. Nice to have something like that on film as a learning moment in a win.
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At first it was but the last 2 or 3 were early in the offense or when it should have been swung. He played into the momentum on those last couple and they raced down and scored on them. And they were all in a very short stretch. Like consecutively. Just poor game management. He’s the type of player to learn from it though. And I’m sure Quincy (his dad) and the staff will talk to him about it as well.
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Absolutely. That moment really sticks out to me too. And then the last two threes he took almost back to back. Maybe it was back to back. I can’t exactly remember that part but there wasn’t a huge time lapse between them.
Really good time for the schedule to lighten up too. Gives them time to figure out the issues from this game against teams that probably aren’t equipped to expose them.
110% agree. Absolutely not good shots statistically and terrible game management/flow shots. Only positive I took is he still wasn’t afraid to take them. A lot of people would get scared off.
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I would be a lot less frustrated by the shots if they weren’t so early in the shot clock. If you can’t get anything else on a possession and they’re still playing that far off then sure, it’s probably as efficient of a shot as a Matthews iso. Just… Not so early please lol
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With the B1G Tournament going back to Chicago, I’ve gotta hope that Charles’ next games back home are better than this one.
All in all, this is my only fear with this team. I just worry about them winning games, especially on the road, against teams they should beat. Happy for the W in test #1.
Our free throw shooting didn’t really get tested at the end there. While I’m glad about that in terms of getting the win I would’ve liked to see us have some high pressure free throws in a game that doesn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things.
Haha definitely thought the same and agree. I’ve honestly never seen that from him before, he’s usually MUCH smarter than that.I really think he took offense to them daring him to shoot. (Wouldn’t doubt if there was a ton of crap talked to his face as well)
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Completely agree. The timing of his shots was the biggest issue. End of the shot clock, fine but those all were within the first 15-20 seconds I think. We got to get Matthews the ball more in the mid/high post too IMO. Poole and Iggy didn’t really touch the ball during that 2nd half NW run either. And Matthews wasn’t on the floor either so none of our go to guys were getting touches. That is a big issue that should be addressed. That was partly due to Zavier’s Ill advised shots. Hopefully the staff and players will address these mistakes and correct them before/during these next few games. Without losing ideally 
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Luckily there’s zero other staffs I’d trust more to do just that than this one. I’m confident we have the weapons to be a good offensive team. Getting them to work like a well oiled machine will take some work, however.
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Just to add in about Davis. FYI I don’t dislike Davis. I’d love to still have him get some minutes if he can because he’s actually a bigger low post presence than the others. But I’m not sure he can play in the second half of close games until he can avoid foul trouble and the team plays more confident with him out there.
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I have always been really really down on Davis ever since he was offered… So this game was my nightmare come to life.
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The Davis play that drew the most ire on here was the failed alley oop. It’s tough to be frustrated with him when Poole should know Davis’ athletic limits, but it’s tough not to be frustrated when those athletic limits are so low. Perhaps he’ll carve a consistent role against the generic Big Ten centers, but Pardon was a tough matchup for him. Unfortunately that makes skilled post scorers and stretch 5’s a bad matchup for him…
Also, we are only #2 in 2P% defense now. Ugh
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