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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Dave Sobolewski

Stats to know (from 2012-13 unless indicated otherwise) 

PPG: 10.8

MPG: 34.5

FG%: 0.384

Offensive Rating: 97.9

Effective Field Goal %: 47.5

Usage Rate: 19.5

% Shots: 18.0

Past history

One of the most overlooked stats in basketball at any level – AAU, high school, college, professional, you name it – is minutes played. Dave Sobolewski knows this better than anyone. Over the past two seasons, not only has Sobolewski played at least 86 percent of available minutes, he’s been among the top-100 minutes guys in the country.

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The college basketball season 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.

———-

Sanjay Lumpkin

Past history

The early feedback from practices and the few games Lumpkin did play in last season were no doubt positive. His length and versatility were welcome assets on the perimeter, inexperienced and relatively unschooled in the Princeton offense though Lumpkin was, and it was beginning to feel like, after playing just four games and 26 total minutes, he had a chance to grow into a valuable reserve piece in a larger workload.

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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.

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Almost everyone agrees the Big Ten was the best basketball conference in the country last season, littered with some of the nation’s very best players throughout its variously qualified teams. The Big Ten was just as good on a macro team-level – eight of its 12 teams finished in the top 40 of Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency ratings, seven of which received NCAA Tournament bids – as it was individually. Trey Burke won every national player of the year award of note, DeShaun Thomas offered the rare blend of high-usage, high-efficiency scoring, Cody Zeller was a national player of the year candidate veiled by the immense star-turn of teammate Victor Oladipo, and on, and on and, you get the point.

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The college basketball offseason is a dark place. From April to November, teams across the country revert into a quasi-hoops hibernation, shielded from the 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 earlier than ever this season.

Those extra two weeks are a welcome development, but the start of 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 reasonably 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 help expedite the long respite.

———-

James Montgomery III

Height/Weight: 6′ 4”, 190 pounds
Class: Senior

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Northwestern has yet to officially find out its opponents for the 2013 Las Vegas Invitational — matchups won’t be announced until June or July — but thanks to the Missouri athletic department, we got some clues as to which two teams the Wildcats will be playing in the four-team field. If the Tigers’ athletic department is correct, it looks like the Wildcats could draw both Mizzou and UCLA. The release from Missouri:

As part of the event Missouri will host two home games at Mizzou Arena and will then travel to Las Vegas for games against Northwestern and Nevada. The tournament will be hosted as a “Classic” with Mizzou and UCLA scheduled to finish a home and home series at Mizzou Arena next season.

The Missouri-UCLA home-and-home figured to cause problems from the beginning, and it seemed likely that at the very least, Missouri and UCLA would start on opposite sides of the bracket. Now, from the looks of things, there won’t be a bracket at all. Rather, Missouri will have a predetermined schedule against Northwestern and Nevada. That means Northwestern’s other game must be against UCLA. Again, these matchups haven’t been officially announced, but unless Missouri was extremely misinformed, the only schedule possibility for NU is to draw Mizzou and UCLA.

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The college basketball offseason is a dark place. From April to November, teams across the country revert into a quasi-hoops hibernation, shielded from the 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 earlier than ever this season.

Those extra two weeks are a welcome development, but the start of 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 reasonably 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 help expedite the long respite.

———-

Tre Demps

Height/Weight: 6’2”, 200 pounds
Class: Sophomore

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As originally reported by Joe Giglio of the Raleigh News Observer and Charlotte Observer, the Big Ten and ACC announced that Northwestern will play at NC State in the 2013 ACC-Big Ten Challenge. NU last played NC State in 2009, when the Wildcats won in Raleigh. NU lost to Maryland in last year’s Challenge, while NC State lost to Michigan.

As Giglio noted, there are lots of storylines surrounding this game, particularly Chris Collins heading back to North Carolina to face one of his former rivals while he was at Duke. But it also shows something about where the ACC and Big Ten think their respective teams will end up. These matchups are based on speculation about this season and they’re meant to be relatively even.

Last year, NC State was considered a top 15 team in the preseason, but ended up being a relative disappointment and now loses most of its talent to graduation and the NBA. Northwestern, meanwhile, is coming off a 13-19 season, but the Wildcats have a lot more talent this year than they did last year. Overall, the ACC and Big Ten expect NC State to be worse than last year and NU to be better than last year.

As far as the rest of the schedule goes, this is shaping up to be NU’s toughest non-conference schedule in a long time. The Wildcats will play at Stanford and Butler, and they’ll also play in the Las Vegas Invitational where they’ll play two of these three teams: UCLA, Missouri and Nevada. Now they’ll go to NC State, and expect at least one high-profile opponent to go to Evanston, as NU tries to drum up fan interest in Chris Collins’ first season. NU’s full non-conference schedule should be announced soon.

The full ACC-Big Ten Challenge schedule is below. All games will be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, and all will be available on WatchESPN:

Tuesday, December 3

Indiana at Syracuse
Michigan at Duke
Notre Dame at Iowa
Florida State at Minnesota
Penn State at Pittsburgh
Illinois at Georgia Tech

Wednesday, December 4

North Carolina at Michigan State
Maryland at Ohio State
Miami at Nebraska
Wisconsin at Virginia
Boston College at Purdue
Northwestern at NC State