If I had more time, I would've written a preview or something, also, made fun of SIU Edwardsville as a place for being a confusing name for a place.
But it's not worth it. SIU-Edwardsville is so, so, so, overwhelmingly bad. Kenpom gives NU a 99.8 chance of victory. Sagarin gives NU a 100 percent chance of victory. In a ridiculously weak schedule, this is the worst team NU will play, by far. (340th out of 345 teams in the country, per Kenpom.)
They have the 340th best offense - 83.3 points per possession - and 324th best defense - 111.5 points per possession. That means against the average team, in a 100 possession game, they should lose by about 28.
They lost 111-50 to Iowa. 92-64 to Illinois State. 107-79 to IPFW - the Mastodons! - and so on and so forth. They have five wins: one over NAIA MacMurray, a double overtime victory over Kennesaw State, a regular overtime victory over South Dakota, and thrillers against Longwood and The Citadel. In only one of kenpom's statistical categories on offense or defense do they rank higher than 200th - block%, as only 9.1 percent of their shot attempts are blocked, a good enough stat to be 166th in the country.
They play four - FOUR - games against non-Division I schools. The fact that this team is 5-14 is miraculous.
I won't make the game because I don't typically get out of work until 5:30, when the game starts. Luckily I'll have Dave Eanet on the drive home. After flirting with 100 on several occasions throughout the year, this could very likely be the game where NU breaks the century mark, so it's a bummer I won't see it.
Go if you're in Evanston, if not, commenter Westside Brandon will be doing color for Bigtennetwork.com, so, rate his performance in the comments.
Filed under: