Covering college sports in the offseason tends to turn into an exercise in creative frustration. When there’s nothing going on in the real world – on the field or court, where real people engage in real interscholastic competition – we like to talk about conceptual or speculative things, things grounded in analytical thought or reaction. We’re opening up our window of our collective offseason stream of consciousness with a new little feature called “offseason musings.” Original, right? You probably don’t need further explanation, but the crux of the idea is for yours truly to relay a random Northwestern-related thought, question or conversation tidbit in extended form.

Any particularly compelling NU-sports related subject is fair game here, and want to hear from you, too: if you have anything you’d like addressed, feel free to tip us on Twitter (@Insidenu) or head on over to the contact page and shoot us (or your writer of choice) an email. This is a purely fun and spontaneous endeavor, and the topics could get wacky from time to time, but hey, what else is year-round Northwestern sports coverage if not diffusely entertaining? Consider this an official invitation into our offseason thought box.

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The domino of running back commitments Northwestern secured over the past two weeks, a one-week stretch that saw both three-star Auston Anderson and four-star Justin Jackson give their verbal commitments, has allowed us to gloss over a few important things. For one, Northwestern still has a set of very good running backs ready to contribute this season. Venric Mark’s abilities do not need some instructive expository endorsement. Everyone – Big Ten defensive coordinators very much included – knows what he’s capable of in space. Mike Trumpy is a reliably physical complement, durable enough to double as the Wildcats’ No. 1 back for select stretches (see: Boston College, September 2012). Treyvon Green appeared to regain some of the explosiveness he flashed in spurts during his freshman season. Redshirt freshmen Malin Jones and Stephen Buckley were one of the main stories coming out of spring practice, and look ready to contribute from day one.

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Negative recruiting is an unavoidable fact of any highly regarded prospect’s college-sampling cycle. Coaches bash other programs, sometimes completely untruthfully, in attempts to eliminate potential competitors, carelessly violating every level of existing common coaching courtesy and copping to a cutthroat recruiting venom that doesn’t pay any mind to one simple fact: the players notice. Noah Westerfield noticed.

When he spoke to Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald Tuesday night, Westerfield was immediately greeted by a wholly understanding and liberal approach from the NU coach – Fitzgerald not only didn’t apply undue pressure on Westerfield’s decision-making process, he openly encouraged the 6’4’’, 220-pound defensive end from Frisco, Tex. to explore any and every option before making any rash decisions.

“He’s in it for me,” Westerfield said Tuesday, emphasizing Fitzgerald’s sincerity throughout their relationship. “He wants me to go look at other schools and make the right decisions. I appreciate that.”

Those other schools, or the most relatively important grouping, reads as follows: SMU, Boise State. Westerfield currently holds nine scholarship offers, including NU, and considers the Wildcats and Mustangs his top two schools at the moment, with Boise a close second.

In late April, Westerfield praised Northwestern’s combination of outstanding academic reputation, favorable Chicagoland location and coaching staff. He longed for a scholarship offer from the Wildcats, got one a few weeks later, and then, all of a sudden, a strange and disconcerting feeling set in. Westerfield didn’t know if he fit into the Wildcats’ plans.

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Northwestern released its 2013-2014 non-conference basketball schedule today, filling out in the pieces of what we already knew was a very difficult schedule. One note: NU was originally supposed to play at Butler this year as the back end of a home-and-home series, but the Wildcats’ trip to Indianapolis was postponed to 2014, presumably because this year’s slate already featured so many marquee away games. The full schedule and our analysis are below, as well as the video announcement.

RPI Loaded

After Northwestern missed the NCAA Tournament in 2012, Bill Carmody noted that the Wildcats had to improve their non-conference schedule, because that ended up being more important in the selection process than he thought. That improvement started last year, with the additions of games against Stanford and Butler — NU will travel to Stanford this year — and it continues this year with the Las Vegas Invitational, which will likely feature games against UCLA and Missouri.

This might be the most loaded schedule the Wildcats have ever played. Stanford, UCLA and Missouri are all expected to at least compete for the NCAA Tournament, while a game at NC State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge won’t be easy, either. Additionally, NU will get DePaul at home, and while the Blue Demons figure to be terrible this year, it’s still a game against a Big East opponent.

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Recruiting is a really complicated thing. In ways observable and not, the art of gripping the fleeting attention spans of prospects and attending high school workouts and combating recriminations from rival schools’ recruiting staffs involves maintaining a complex balance of ethical standards and cutthroat competition. Everybody wants the best players, and each and every school has a different array of features to offer – football facilities, academics, uniforms, obsessive fan bases hardwired to show up 80,000 strong on any given Saturday and scream like mad for three and a half yours. That kind of stuff.

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The college basketball offseason is a dark place. From April to November, teams across the country revert into a hoops hibernation, shielded from media spotlight and mostly unavailable to the public eye in the same way as, say, football players are during spring practice. Things ramp up again over the summer, and a recent NCAA rule pushing the start of official practice back two weeks ensures teams will begin formal preseason preparations even earlier this season.

Those extra two weeks are a welcome development, but the college basketball season remains a distant entity, microscopically positioned in the most forward-looking reaches of our winter sports imaginations. We’re here to help you bridge the gap with some refresher-type player capsules. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be rolling out quick little offseason snapshots of each player, how they performed last season and what you can probably expect as the Wildcats prepare for new coach Chris Collins’ first season. So if you’re ever missing basketball, if you find yourself pining for what’s to come on the hardwood this winter, you have brief individual player breakdowns to hold you over. 

There is a lot of time to fill during a college hoops offseason, and convenient exercises like these can expedite the process.

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JerShon Cobb

Stats to know (From 2011-12; Cobb sat out 2012-13 due to an academic-related suspension)

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Covering college sports in the offseason tends to turn into an exercise in creative frustration. When there’s nothing going on in the real world – on the field or court, where real people engage in real interscholastic competition – we like to talk about conceptual or speculative things, things grounded in analytical thought or reaction. We’re opening up our window of our collective offseason stream of consciousness with a new little feature called “offseason musings.” Original, right? You probably don’t need further explanation, but the crux of the idea is for yours truly to relay a random Northwestern-related thought, question or conversation tidbit in extended form. 

Any particularly compelling NU-sports related subject is fair game here, and want to hear from you, too: if you have anything you’d like addressed, feel free to tip us on Twitter (@Insidenu) or head on over to the contact page and shoot us (or your writer of choice) an email. This is a purely fun and spontaneous endeavor, and the topics could get wacky from time to time, but hey, what else is year-round Northwestern sports coverage if not diffusely entertaining? Consider this an official invitation into our offseason thought box.

———-

There is only one token of progress that really matters, one achievement that demonstrates positive momentum in the most obvious way. For some programs, that means Final Fours and national championships. Northwestern just wants its first NCAA Tournament appearance, and this season may be its best chance to get there.

The Wildcats bring back scoring (Drew Crawford), elite defending (JerShon Cobb), long-range shooting (Kale Abrahamson), size (Alex Olah) – you name it. They arguably have more talent and depth at more positions that at any point during Carmody’s tenure, and probably just one year to put it all together, just in time for Cobb and Crawford to play one final season together.

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Most of the things we write on this site are serious. If you want an in-depth look at Northwestern football’s depth chart or a look at NU’s 2014 recruiting targets, we’ve got you covered. However, in the interest of keeping things light and fun in the offseason, we also sometimes write about scandals involving World of Beer, and other fun nonsense. Today, hopefully we can give you a suggestion to make your Twitter timeline a little more interesting.

Most college athlete and coach Twitter accounts are boring. Sometimes former Minnesota head coach and current Florida State tight ends coach Tim Brewster says some exciting things. Oregon running back De’Anthony Thomas HAS POSSIBLY THE BEST TWITTER ACCOUNT EVER and former Wisconsin and current Arkansas coach Bret Bielema says some occasionally snarky things to Badgers fans. But for the most part, you get boring, “Go Cats! Winners on and off the field!” kind of things. There’s nothing wrong with that, since just about anything can be scrutinized these days, as Pat Fitzgerald knows all too well.

However, every once in awhile, you get someone who says the right things and is also entertaining. Enter new NU assistant basketball coach Patrick Baldwin. He does a lot of retweeting of people who praise NU, but he also has some tweets that could motivate you to run a marathon, then go play a college basketball game. Yet somehow, he only has 340 followers. We report on NU — we’re not a fan blog — so we’re not usually in the business of promoting NU coaches’ Twitter accounts. However, if you want a daily dose of motivation and energy, following Patrick Baldwin might not be a bad place to start. Some samples:

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