Inside NU: All Posts by Daniel OlingerRoll Damn 'Catshttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52532/insidenu_fav.png2023-01-16T12:24:35-06:00https://www.insidenu.com/authors/daniel-olinger/rss2023-01-16T12:24:35-06:002023-01-16T12:24:35-06:00Even in a loss, Northwestern might have found its best lineup against Michigan
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<figcaption>Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>Confronted with foul trouble on the road, Northwestern went small and started scoring at will.</p> <p id="ntPXPW">It feels weird, doesn’t it?</p>
<p id="U5VxFY">Northwestern lost, but no one is too mad. It was another close-margin defeat, another loss where victory seemed well within reach, another trip to Ann Arbor where the ‘Cats didn’t return to Evanston with a W, and yet the vibes around this Northwestern men’s basketball season are... quite good?</p>
<p id="Tf6IIk">Part of that is the nature of exceeding expectations. Some (including myself, an idiot) were projecting a near winless season in conference play and almost certainly the end of the Collins era. Instead, roughly a third of the way through B1G play, Northwestern has road wins over Indiana and <a href="https://www.theonlycolors.com">Michigan State</a>, its first win over Illinois in four years and a suffocating defense that ranks well in just about every metric. An 85-78 road loss to a talented (albeit inconsistent) Michigan squad is far from the worst loss a Wildcat fan has seen on the basketball court over the years. </p>
<p id="qtBLsl">And ultimately, the main reason Northwestern loss is bittersweet — it found its best lineup, but then didn’t play it quite enough to hang on for the win. </p>
<p id="y6uv5r">The quintet of Boo Buie, Chase Audige, Ty Berry, Brooks Barnhizer and Robbie Beran had not even shared the court for more than a single minute throughout Big Ten play entering Sunday’s game, only to be the spark behind Northwestern’s 27-10 run in the first half, and its lone glimmer of hope in the second. </p>
<p id="5zqLX3">Despite playing great defense for most of the year, the ‘Cats’ ball-screen coverage is a bit rigid and predictable. Neither Matt Nicholson nor Tydus Verhoeven has the foot speed to hang on a switch, and playing a deep drop consistently overtaxes one’s guards and lacks the aggressive mindset most coaches want to instill on defense. Thus, Northwestern has relied on two main types of coverage throughout the season — having the big either hard hedge or show at the level. </p>
<p id="n28LFH">The principles aren’t immutable to my knowledge, but there are definite trends. Screens where the ball handler is turning toward the middle are often met with a hard hedge, where the big lunges out in order to slow the ball handler down and hopefully buy himself time to recover back to the short roll, as you can see in the clip below. </p>
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<p id="vG45wG">Northwestern even had Beran hard hedging while playing at the four position early in the second half, as you can see on this possession where they get two hard hedges against screens that threaten a drive to the middle for the opponent. </p>
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<p id="0OcdsF">Northwestern forces a turnover here on a pretty iffy charge call, but even then, you can see the danger in playing with the big so aggressively above the screen. Not every rolling big is Draymond Green dissecting 4-on-3’s, but conceding a numbers advantage is never great. </p>
<p id="JDg0vg">On the other hand, whenever a ball handler threatens to turn toward the baseline coming off the on-ball screen, you’ll more often see the NU bigs showing at the level or playing a modified drop defense that nears the pick’s level.</p>
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<p id="1d26lb">Does that play look familiar? That’s because it’s essentially the same concept <a href="https://www.onthebanks.com">Rutgers</a> ran on its game-winning play against NU, and one that I broke down in a video on Twitter last week, showing how no single Northwestern defender was really to blame for the breakdown, but rather, how the Scarlet Knights exploited the ‘Cats’ at-the-level defense to generate a three for Cam Spencer. </p>
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<p id="O8N6a1">Rutgers spaced its floor better, while Verhoeven did a better job than Nicholson in not overextending his coverage on a meh shooter, but both plays clear out the weak side and lift the shooter stashed on that end to put the tagging defender (Audige in both cases) in a tough situation. </p>
<p id="eJufnu">It’s not a personal failing of Nicholson or Verhoeven, but the options at play are simply limited when one of them defends a ball screen. </p>
<p id="8V2F0q">Enter Robbie Beran at the center position.</p>
<p id="5ffFY1">While not the mythical one-through-five position defender with nary a weakness in sight, Beran is capable of switching onto smaller guards and containing at the point of attack, while also being able to perform the basic schematic coverages that the other two bigs already operate in with regularity. </p>
<p id="AatJ0c">It’s not even about defensive skill more than it is in variability. Switching one-through-five is another bow in the quiver for Northwestern whenever it plays big Beran at the five. </p>
<p id="fkVBjI">Now given, Northwestern mainly had Beran remain in coverages akin to its usual tik, and Beran performed quite well in those. He’s fast enough in hard hedges to recover well before ceding an advantage, and savvy enough when playing near the level and choose correctly in the cat and mouse game that is pick and roll defense. </p>
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<p id="lH1MgQ">Beran’s speed and versatility opens up the ‘Cats’ options on defense, though that might be harder for the casual viewer to notice on first glance. What isn’t hard to intuit is what starting the redshirt senior at center does for Northwestern’s offense, as the slow and somewhat clogged unit turned into a free flowing one with ample space during the lineup’s usage yesterday. </p>
<p id="Rfsci0">Just look at how easy this drive becomes for Beran as the Wolverines refuse to help off of any of Northwestern’s perimeter players.</p>
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<p id="OFacqs">Per CBB Analytics, the Wildcats spent 11 minutes on the hardwood yesterday with Robbie Beran at center while Nicholson and Verhoeven rested on the bench. Northwestern won those minutes at a whopping rate of +38.6 points per 100 possessions. </p>
<p id="NGWJzX">That’s a very small sample, but it’s glaring how even in a game that Northwestern lost by seven and trailed in by double digits late, its best lineup still absolutely dominated when it was on the court. The small-ball unit ran into just a few problems in the second half as Michigan supersized by putting both Hunter Dickinson and Tarris Reed Jr. on the court at the same time, opting to harass the Wildcats on the glass for second chances on offense, but that just proves the same thing for this lineup that’s true of every lineup — you can’t play it 40 minutes a night without changing. </p>
<p id="2Ffhrq">Heck, I’m not even demanding that Collins drops everything, benches his two traditional centers and tries to spin the 2016 Warriors revolution on the traditionally old-fashioned Big Ten. But if this is Northwestern’s best, most versatile and unpredictable unit, then it needs to become their crunch-time five, capable of scoring with a spread floor and switching screens between every position whenever the game gets close. </p>
<p id="4Qlb90">Northwestern fans have begun to drink the kool-aid of March Madness soon, and though yesterday’s defeat in Ann Arbor was a significant setback for those ambitions, the Wildcats found something in Robbie Beran that might turns those dreams into reality once more. </p>
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https://www.insidenu.com/2023/1/16/23556484/even-in-a-loss-northwestern-might-have-found-its-best-lineup-against-michiganDaniel Olinger2022-11-27T11:48:47-06:002022-11-27T11:48:47-06:00The worst Northwestern football season in 30 years is finally over — where does the program go from here?
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<figcaption>David Banks-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>Everyone expected a result akin to what took place yesterday. Where do the Wildcats go from here?</p> <p id="Q7JzXw">Northwestern and Massachusetts — what do you think of when you hear the names of those two schools? Some of you might have fond(?) memories of the 45-6 drubbing the ‘Cats laid out on the Minutemen back in 2019, when NU was 1-8 entering the game and was at that point considered the worst team Pat Fitzgerald had ever coached in Evanston.</p>
<p id="lZ8c5u">Well, here’s another thing you can now associate UMass with for as long as you so choose — it is the only other school in the FBS that has gone 1-17 in its past 18 games along with Northwestern. Yes, you read that correctly. Following its dismal 41-3 defeat at the hands of rival Illinois yesterday, Northwestern is now tied with lowly UMass football as the least winningest program D-I football has witnessed in the past year-and-a-half. </p>
<p id="lqZCCB">That intro wasn’t about Illinois and this whole story likely won’t touch much on the HAT game at all because, as Dr. Dre once said, what’s the difference? It didn’t matter who was on the opposing sideline at Ryan Field yesterday, because everyone in the stadium knew exactly what was going to happen and had entered a state of sad acceptance about it. </p>
<p id="NhbOvc">Some of you could probably have guessed this one without looking it up, but this 1-17 stretch encompassing the 2022 season and the six-game skid the ‘21 season ended on is the worst stretch of football Northwestern has produced since the infamous 34-game losing streak that spanned all the way from 1979 to 1982. The only thing separating the current Wildcats from Rick Venturi level losing is a win in the Eastern Hemisphere over a Scott Frost-coached team that specialized in snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.</p>
<p id="BYIpaW">Ironically, it’s that same apocryphal state the program was in in the early ‘80s that gives Fitz job security at Northwestern both now and likely for the future. I’m not saying that’s the right decision, and maybe I just have the completely wrong read on Derrick Gragg and people in the building at NU, but it feels like that era of ‘Cats’ football created an eternal backstop in which a coach with as much success over the years as Fitz just will never be pressured. Prior to the 1995 <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/rose-bowl">Rose Bowl</a> run, this is what they were dealing with. </p>
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<p id="MpYkh7">It makes Fitz’s grandiose list of accomplishments at NU in his 17 years as head coach — 10 bowl game appearances, five bowl game victories, five finishes in the top 25 of the AP poll, two Big Ten West titles — all the more impressive. </p>
<p id="9dQu3o">But all that winning was supposed to change the program for good. It’s why so much money was spent on the aesthetically pleasing new practice facilities, why you have to see a Chicago Tribune article get quote tweeted into oblivion every other week when it brings up the near billion-dollar stadium that Northwestern plans to build in replacement of Ryan Field in the coming years. Programs that are “bout it” spend a lot of money on said program. </p>
<p id="5TEMhG">But everything else about Northwestern football from the past few years screams of a program that is “unserious” as people like to joke about on Twitter. In a time when NIL and the transfer portal are now legit tools a good football program needs to know how to use, NU is seemingly far behind. Aside from a 10-out-of-10 hit in landing Peyton Ramsey back in 2020, the transfer portal has more been used by Northwestern players to get out of Evanston than to come to it. The past two years saw the departures of some of the program’s most talented players in Brandon Joseph, Eku Leota and Kyric McGowan, while the only major-level impact an incoming transfer had on the team was Stephon Robinson Jr. stepping in as the team’s WR1 in 2021. </p>
<p id="6zqSEA">The other major complaint Wildcat fans have had of late is with the two men at the right hand of Pat Fitzgerald in offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian and defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil. It’s a weird and unusual place for 21st century Northwestern to be in where the coordinators’ job security is a talking point, seeing as most assumed Fitz would just keep Mick McCall around forever, and the only people who ever wanted Mike Hankwitz gone were the teams that had to play against his defenses. </p>
<p id="MXxwMn">Asked about whether he’s considering changes that need to be made on the macro level for the program after the game, Fitz reiterated that he’ll start considering that next week, but that he understands that question, similar to what he said two weeks ago following team’s 31-3 loss to Minnesota. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Fitz on the need to make changes: "I think that's a fair question, and that it'll be something that I look into after the season. We've gotta be better across the board."<br><br>Said that he's primarily concentrating on this season and wrapping up seniors' careers.</p>— Inside NU (@insidenu) <a href="https://twitter.com/insidenu/status/1592218386582626304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2022</a>
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<p id="pF0kYg">(Fitz understandably cut his press conference pretty short seeing as his son was playing in a HS state championship game down in Champaign and had to book it after the game to get down there. I too would rather watch my son in a meaningful football game than talk to media members about how my team lost a game by 38 points despite having more yards from scrimmage than the opponent). </p>
<p id="kjDY2G">Unlike basketball, I’m not an X’s and O’s expert when it comes to football. I can’t tell you what schematic shift is needed on the field for the Wildcats. I can’t tell you whether the departures of Bajakian and O’Neil for some fresh faces would fix all of the problems. To my eye, the players on the field don’t look comparable to their opponents in the Big Ten, but I also know that I am definitely not a recruiting or talent development professional in the sport of football and cannot offer the three-step plan needed to fix that either. </p>
<p id="2mwgwL">What I do know is this — in the four years I’ve been an undergrad at Northwestern University, it’s had one non-dismal season of football, in what was undoubtedly the strangest football season of the modern era, and in which a lot of the success can be accredited to Northwestern trotting out a roster that started roughly 15 seniors across both sides of the ball to my best memory. The other three seasons, the Wildcats have gone 7-29, have had only three wins in conference and have suffered nine losses by a margin of four scores or greater. </p>
<p id="0KFSz4">There’s no reason to talk about what happened in the HAT game yesterday because none of it really mattered. It was good and important to recognize the seniors, especially impact players like Evan Hull and Adetomiwa Adebawore, but the team NU put out there very clearly stood no chance against Illinois and is in the darkest phase the program has ever been in under head coach Pat Fitzgerald. </p>
<p id="YZspjF">Everything needs to change. Whatever you’ve been doing the past two years, you need to do the opposite, because the standard has to be somewhere above this. The program is broken right now, and even at a school with as historic football lows at Northwestern, it is not unjustified for fans of the team to angrily demand that it be fixed. </p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/11/27/23479815/the-worst-football-season-northwestern-has-had-in-30-years-is-finally-over-where-does-the-programDaniel Olinger2022-09-23T11:58:28-05:002022-09-23T11:58:28-05:00“That game made us realize there’s a fine line between winning and losing” — A look back at Northwestern’s 1995 loss to Miami (OH)
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<p>The RedHawks dealt a low point to the Wildcats during an otherwise surreal season. </p> <p id="PlfTXS">No one ever expected anything from Northwestern football prior to 1995. </p>
<p id="GcLySy">Well okay, that’s not true. People expected Northwestern <em>to lose </em>every single Saturday when it took the field, often in horrific 70-0 fashion. </p>
<p id="3U2ROe">From 1950 to 1994 — nearly half a century — the program racked up a whopping 130 total wins, good for an average of 2.9 victories per year. Unsurprisingly, this was dead last among all 10 teams that inhabited the Big Ten throughout that 45-year period. </p>
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<p id="WGtSXy">But as you all know, 1995 Northwestern changed everything. </p>
<p id="KzCN0G">A season-opening win at No. 9 <a href="https://www.onefootdown.com">Notre Dame</a>. A perfect 8-0 conference record. The Butkus and Nagurski Award winner in linebacker Pat Fitzgerald. </p>
<p id="XilBs5">And of course, a trip to Pasadena for only the second time in school history to compete in the <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/rose-bowl">Rose Bowl</a>. The ‘95 ‘Cats are undeniably the greatest football team Northwestern has ever seen. </p>
<p id="wB8YUA">They also lost to Miami (OH) in their second game of the season. </p>
<p id="k5XEgD">Any die-hard fans or attendees of the university during that glorious year were already well aware of that fact, but tell that to any current student walking around Evanston in a 1995 Rose Bowl crew neck that the RedHawks were responsible for ‘95 Northwestern’s lone regular season blemish and they’d be absolutely flabbergasted. </p>
<p id="qhW50j">“That game made us realize there’s a fine line between winning and losing,” Steve Schnur — quarterback and captain of the ‘95 team — told Inside NU earlier this week. “We weren’t good at winning yet. We still needed to figure that out.”</p>
<p id="wWw7KI">In defense of the ‘95 ‘Cats, that September loss was one of the weirder games college football has ever produced. Just looking at the quarter-by-quarter box score would tell you that something bizarre and unnatural had happened. </p>
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<p id="u3io55">A 21-point fourth-quarter comeback against a team with a defense that suffocated the entirety of the Big Ten in ‘95? How exactly does that happen?</p>
<p id="fE50xN">Answer — a damn long snapper injury. </p>
<p id="1ZSBoY">“Paul Janus is our snapper, and he got hurt on the second play of the game,” said Northwestern head coach Gary Barnett after the game as he explained the loss to the media. “Larry Curry is our backup, and he had a bad day.” </p>
<p id="LDrtfy">Which is entirely true, as the defensive tackle turned emergency long snapper faulted on two different snaps that day, including a low snap that rolled past punter Paul Burton (uncle to the one and only Veronica Burton) and was recovered by Miami at the one-yard line with just 43 seconds left to play as the RedHawks trailed 28-27. The MAC visitors had just missed out on an opportunity to take the lead, failing on their two-point conversion after scoring a touchdown while trailing 28-21, but the miscue from Curry paved an easier path to victory, as Miami simply ran the clock down to its final seconds before kicking a 20-yard field goal as time expired. </p>
<p id="gHphs8">Curry’s final snap (along with an early fourth-quarter field goal snap that instead became a 17-yard loss) might have sealed NU’s fate that day, but his insertion into a vital special teams role was only one of many strange phenomena that struck Northwestern that day. </p>
<p id="jbbYGA">For example, instead of cruising into halftime with a secure 21-0 lead, the ‘Cats let Miami on the board via a blocked punt touchdown with just under two minutes left in the second quarter, giving the visitors life. That 23-point fourth-quarter surge? It was led by Sam Ricketts, a backup quarterback seeing his first real action of the season after long-time Miami starter Neil Dougherty got injured in the first half. That was a quality RedHawks team, one that finished 8-2-1 and was led on offense by soon-to-be Northwestern great Randy Walker as head coach, and a promising young offensive coordinator by the name of Sean Payton. But still, there’s no way to look back at that game and be anything but utterly confused as to how Northwestern lost it. </p>
<p id="DeaVJI">“It felt like you were stuck in a whirlpool and you were going down and there was nothing you could do about it,” Schnur told INU. “The offense should have gotten more first downs. The defense could have stopped have kept them from scoring. Yeah, we kept missing snaps on punts, but there were a lot of things that went wrong in that game.”</p>
<p id="m51E0b">The Chicago Tribune headline the following day read, “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-09-17-9509170213-story.html">BACK TO REALITY: MIAMI OF OHIO 30, NORTHWESTERN 28.</a>” It reiterated what all NU fans were thinking at the time — that the win over Notre Dame was nothing but a fluke, and would be a mere funny footnote in another 3-9 ‘Cats’ season. </p>
<p id="cEvSvr">But that’s where the ‘95 team separated itself. They weren’t okay with business as usual. </p>
<p id="VR8rip">“Guys on the team weren’t mad at each other, they were mad at the squandered opportunity,” said Schnur, describing the mood in the locker room following the loss. “We were ticked off after that game and swore that it wouldn’t happen again. And it didn’t.”</p>
<p id="LpuBz3">And what an on-ramp it was. Following that loss, the ‘Cats ran through every big team on their schedule. Despite allowing 30 points to Miami, Northwestern surrendered no more than 20 points in any of its next nine regular season games, becoming a national darling of a team and rising up the ranks in the process. </p>
<p id="EbBfDD">“His whole slogan — Expect Victory — was all about changing the culture, not just changing the football team,” Schnur told INU. “The expectations [that Northwestern fans have now] didn’t exist back when I went there. That year in ‘95, I think we were underdogs in damn near all of our games.”</p>
<p id="K6Afpo">“That’s why Coach Barnett should go down as one of the greatest ever when it comes to changing a program, because not just in football, but in everything, that’s really hard to do.”</p>
<p id="cgpFPa">The 1995 squad set an example for Northwestern teams to come in more ways than one. Their success made people take Wildcat football seriously on a national level for the first time in decades, and in the near three decades that have followed, every college football fan expects Northwestern to be a Big Ten team capable of pulling off major upsets and even potentially sneaking into the championship game. But local fans also expect an inexplicable non-conference loss from the ‘Cats even in their best seasons. </p>
<p id="TVSAdr">The 2018 team that swept the West lost by 11 points to a Terry Bowden-coached Akron team (somehow even worse than usual Akron). The 2016 edition of the Wildcats fell 9-7 to Illinois State only to later drop scores of 54, 45 and 42 points on Big Ten opponents en route to a winning season. Heck, we’re not even through September yet and the 2022 season already includes losses to Duke and a B-A-D FCS team. </p>
<p id="ErjUPT">The 1995 season was everything that any Northwestern football fan to that point could have ever asked for, and if you had told a Wildcat supporter at that time that 30 years of consistent success was in their future, they would have collapsed and wept tears of joy. </p>
<p id="szmTRL">And though it’s tempting to ask what might have been had Northwestern held on against Miami — as the ‘Cats ranked No. 3 in the nation entering the Rose Bowl, and *potentially* could have been playing for a share of the ‘95 title had they then beaten USC and had some truly deranged voters put them ahead of likely the greatest CFB team ever in ‘95 Nebraska — there's also a timeline that exists where NU wins against the RedHawks but stumbles in Big Ten play, robbing the purple and white of the Rose Bowl trip. </p>
<p id="RraBFH">Northwestern was a ghastly 8-24-1 in Barnett’s three years prior to ‘95. This wasn’t a program building on years of increasing success, it was a historic team that shocked everyone with their immediate rise to prominence. That loss to Miami was a reminder to them of what they had been before that year, and more importantly, how much work and focus was still needed to change the entire Northwestern football program on its head with their success that year. </p>
<p id="lJ3jbz">“If we had squeaked out a win [against Miami], I’m not sure we would have learned the lesson we needed. I’m not sure we would have won all those games,” Schnur told INU. “We sure knew what it was like to lose. All we had done is lose to that point. It was a very hard pill to swallow, but sometimes the best lessons in life have to come in hardship.”</p>
<p id="6EEZNZ">That loss was a shocking disappointment, as would another defeat to Miami this Saturday for the Wildcats, but the fact that Northwestern over this new millennium has achieved enough success for fans and national media to be disappointed in it is a huge success coming from <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2020/5/23/21267230/an-ode-to-the-1976-81-northwestern-wildcats-the-ultimate-underdogs">where the program was just 40 years ago</a>. </p>
<p id="5X3pLu">Anything is possible when Northwestern and Miami (OH) play. It’s one of college football’s strangest symbiotic relationships, and this Saturday we all get to see its glorious 10th installment. </p>
<p id="kT5IRR"></p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/9/23/23361534/that-game-made-us-realize-that-theres-a-very-fine-line-between-winning-and-losing-look-northwesternDaniel Olinger2022-08-20T11:50:28-05:002022-08-20T11:50:28-05:00What constitutes a successful season for Northwestern in 2022?
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<img alt="NCAA Football: Big Ten Media Days" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/skSRa6gvbapmbTJAloeC2YDG7VY=/0x162:3938x2787/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71265173/usa_today_18748456.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>Rose Bowl soon come. </p> <p id="hjhhya">What should you expect as a Northwestern football fan? </p>
<p id="A73gRJ">I know the tempting one word response is “pain,” but hold off on that admittedly satisfying punchline for the time being. </p>
<p id="r79pTl">For years under Pat Fitzgerald, the answer was, “good, but not great.” Following his understandably difficult first year as head coach in Evanston, Fitz’s teams won 83 games over the next 11 seasons, which averages right out at 7.5 wins per season. For a program that once celebrated tying the longest losing streak in CFB history by laking its posts, consistently posting seasons above .500 was a major success.</p>
<p id="Bium8s">Then something out of the ordinary happened — Northwestern won the Big Ten West. Sure, the Wildcats evened things out with home losses to Duke and Akron in the same calendar year, but it was perfectly reasonable for fans to believe that was a breakthrough moment for the ‘Cats. The team itself sure did, placing a spot for their eventual Big Ten Champion trophy right next to West Division crown in the awards display outside its indoor practice field. </p>
<p id="9E0KYZ">You all know what happens next. Cue the somber music of the 2019 football season. </p>
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<p id="wrazrs">Hopes NU’s purple reign of terror over the West division were quickly quelled, and expectations for 2020 plummeted, so naturally Fitz and Co. responded by producing the best team of his entire tenure and winning the West yet again before capping it off with a demolition of Auburn in the Citrus Bowl to finish the season as a top-ten ranked team for the first time since the legendary season of ‘95. </p>
<p id="CTnEbA">Many expected a drop-off in 2021. The 2020 ‘Cats were laden with seniors at every position on the defense, not to mention that year served as the swan song for the one and only Mike Hankwitz, who time and again proved himself as a top defensive coordinator in the sport. But to regress back to 3-9 and get outscored by a whopping 23 points per game throughout the final six games of the season? That was a real vibe killer. </p>
<p id="mjSLYl">So what is success for Northwestern in 2022? Basic pattern recognition would suggest another West title is in store. Most national prognosticators suggest another round of 3-9 to soothe the soul. </p>
<p id="VbpVmI">Success, to me, is getting back to the consistency of old. It’s getting back near that 7.5 win-average, because the West Division title belt won’t be returning to Evanston any time soon. </p>
<p id="B7imGs">While the final records read the same, the 2021 season provided a far more dismal outlook than the 2019 campaign. Whereas the ‘19 squad only had one hole in its boat known as the quarterback position, the ‘21 team had so many to plug that abandoning ship would have been a much better plan. </p>
<p id="6T8ktI">To better show this, I’m going to use Defensive Fremeau Efficiency Index, or DFEI for short, a measurement tool courtesy of Football Outsiders. A succinct explanation (as provided to me by the wonderful <a href="https://twitter.com/acosta32_jp">J.P. Acosta</a>) is that DFEI, “is a metric that measures how much of a point per possession advantage a team has over their opponent at a neutral site, or said another way, in a controlled environment, how many points do they save?” </p>
<p id="TQGCCo">Here’s how the 2019 Northwestern defense graded out in the landscape of D-I football:</p>
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<p id="Bc7gwH">Coming in at 28th in DFEI, the Northwestern defense in 2019 was still plenty good, and the sole reason as to why NU was able to stay competitive in matches against teams such as Stanford, Nebraska and Wisconsin. And this was proved true in 2020, when the Wildcats vaulted up to first in the entire nation in DFEI. </p>
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</figure>
<p id="d7oA7l">It should never be taken for granted how sensational that defense was. Going nine straight games without ever surrendering 30 points in modern football is an unbelievable feat, even in the ground-and-pound Big Ten. It’s also what made the monumental downfall in 2021 all the more concerning. </p>
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<p id="4Hhq2a">In the fall of 2021, Northwestern fell all the way to <em>103rd </em>in DFEI and surrendered well over 30 points in all but four of its 12 games. The 2019 team actually had the shell of a halfway decent team. The defense was legit, the skill position players had just enough juice and the offensive line still had Rashawn Slater mauling fools for fun on every snap. It was just held back by Aiden Smith’s quarterback play resembling whack-a-mole with the dirt more than it did actual football. </p>
<p id="lNqKFb">The 2021 team’s offense — though very bad — still had its moments of competence. Ryan Hilinski could complete a curl route, Evan Hull is an above average tailback and the offense as a whole always put together at least one touchdown drive each Saturday afternoon. But just being normal bad instead of Aiden-Smith-at-QB-bad didn’t matter when the defense had finally fallen off a cliff post-Hankwitz. All Fitz had to do to right the ship two years ago was grab Peyton Ramsey from the transfer portal. The 2022 team possesses no such easy paths. </p>
<p id="TJA2bQ">That’s why anything that looks like one of those six of seven-win seasons from the heart of Pat Fitzgerald’s tenure would be a major success. That falls just short of that 7.5 average I mentioned earlier (though if anyone could ever find a way to win half of a game, it’s Northwestern), but this is about building the program back up after last year left nothing but loose nuts and bolts. </p>
<p id="v7tm5m">Southern Illinois <em>should</em> be a guaranteed win. Duke and Miami-Ohio are definitely losable given Northwestern’s shaky track record against the two, but for optimism’s sake, count those as wins. From there, the ‘Cats would need to snipe three of Nebraska, Minnesota, Maryland, Iowa, Purdue or Illinois to reach .500, which doesn’t sound impossible when putting pen to paper. </p>
<p id="rrSRf4">It would require a lot. Expecting the defense to vault back into the ranks of the elite is a lot to ask especially considering it just lost its best player in Brandon Joseph, so anything middling is probably a step in the right direction. As for the offense, it’s hard to believe Hilinski has much more to give considering he’s been in a CFB for a solid while now and has roughly two seasons showing he’s probably not the greatest pass-thrower out there. That leaves the much-hyped Brendan Sullivan as the ‘Cats’ best chance at success. While he’s a complete unknown, it’s more likely NU finds something to push it another step forward in him than it is with Hilinski.</p>
<p id="gq7DXn">None of this sounds too enthusiastic or jovial. That’s sadly the position the Wildcats are in after the bottom fell out last year. But with a much more experienced defense, a hopeful upgrade at the quarterback position and a few trademark disgusting wins at Ryan Field, a 6-6 season with a competitive bowl game to cap is well within reach for the Northwestern, and something that the both the ‘Cats and their fans should aspire to this fall. </p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/8/20/23304512/what-constitutes-a-successful-season-for-northwestern-in-2022Daniel Olinger2022-03-24T13:07:16-05:002022-03-24T13:07:16-05:00My final farewell to a site that has given me so much
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<p>All’s well that ends with me covering a game where Northwestern gave up the Big Ten tournament record for points. </p> <p id="cjR0bh">I sucked at this when I first started. </p>
<p id="NTsf3u">It made sense why. I had never written an article in my life — or at least one that had to be reviewed by an editor before it was published. My school was far too small to support a student newspaper, and even if had been, I much preferred to be the one playing basketball than the one writing about it. </p>
<p id="gixurf">My plan for the longest time was to find a small school in Pennsylvania to play D-III basketball at, major in math and eventually get a job as a high school math teacher and basketball coach. Not exactly a storybook tale, but it was the plan I wanted. </p>
<p id="lEjrOU">But just because it’s what you planned doesn’t mean it’s what’s going to happen. I never got quite tall enough (but being 5-foot-11 does not make you a short king, contrary to popular belief), and realized that I had to move on to something else. At the same time, as I grinded through AP Calculus to get a 5 on that exam (which wasn’t worth it even if I did), I realized I would much rather spend the rest of my life talking and thinking about sports than agonizing over how to find integrals for 20 minutes at a time, which is a long story told short for how I ended up as a journalism major at Northwestern.</p>
<p id="Ha8bkT">Having edited now hundreds of articles that have graced this site, I feel embarrassed imagining what EIC emeritus Noah Coffman must have thought when the overeager freshman he had just added to the staff submitted <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2019/10/15/20912886/big-ten-football-power-rankings-week-8-by-default-minnesota-reaches-the-top-five">a Big Ten Power Rankings piece</a> that was OVER 2,000 WORDS ALONG IT ITS ROUGH DRAFT!!! </p>
<p id="rO3wZN">Thankfully, it could only go up from there (setting the floor low like I’m <a href="https://www.onthebanks.com">Rutgers</a> football babayyyy). I don’t know specifically when it clicked for me, but I have an idea of when it started. Given that NBA X’s and O’s maestro Zach Lowe was my favorite writer back when I enrolled, I was thrilled the first time I had a chance to write a film breakdown for this site, even though I was spewing nonsense about football, a sport that I did not play growing up. Regardless, <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2019/10/23/20924230/film-room-how-should-northwestern-attack-dominant-iowa-defense-aj-epenesa-mick-mcall-hankins-golston">I devoured some Penn State-Iowa game film</a> and gave some advice on how the ‘Cats should attack the A.J. Epenesa-led Hawkeyes. </p>
<p id="p3UgCK">Seeing that I was demented enough to enjoy film breakdown pieces, the powers of the time gradually let me test new waters with basketball game film pieces, often centered on the 2019-20 Northwestern women’s basketball team that finished with a 26-4 record and the Big Ten regular season crown. </p>
<p id="bE4NdT">First, <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2020/1/21/21070038/film-room-blizzard-joe-mckeown-defense-northwestern-womens-basketball-veronica-burton-sydney-wood">I gushed about the complex Blizzard defense and how it operates</a>. Then, I literally <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2020/1/25/21079599/film-room-veronica-burton-northwestern-womens-basketball-michigan-state-joe-mckeown-nia-clouden">wrote an article for no other reason than to give myself an outlet to praise Veronica Burton with</a> (a foreshadowing of what was to come, in all honesty). But one player profile wasn’t enough, and soon I dove headfirst into breakdowns of <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2020/2/5/21117816/film-room-abi-scheid-northwestern-womens-basketball-joe-mckeown-three-point-leader-shooter-national">Abi Schied’s ridiculous three-point shooting</a> and <a href="https://www.insidenu.com/2020/2/21/21145948/film-room-the-underrated-defense-of-lindsey-pulliam-northwestern-womens-basketball-joe-mckeown">Lindsey Pulliam’s underrated defense</a>. </p>
<p id="mbrDIs">Not only had I found the types of pieces that I loved writing about, I was getting better with each byline published. Before, I tried to write like a hot take artist, heavy on broad sweeping proclamations and spicy critiques of athletes. It took me time to realize the best version of who I am as a writer is not any different from the way I played on the basketball court — an intense, detail-oriented worker who knows that he has to be on top of every minute fact for the system to work (only add in the occasional self-deprecating comment so that I can keep y’all on your toes). </p>
<p id="tvYxZ2">The key to my improvement as a “journalist” wasn’t by perfecting AP style or by reading 1,000 books. The key was realizing that I love sports, not writing itself, and constantly communicating that in everything I do. Whether it be talking and following other people with a similar obsession, building my entire online brand around said obsession or finding a way to geek out over every small detail that happens on the football field or on the basketball court, I tried to remind people just how much fun I was having by getting the chance to cover sports. </p>
<p id="ErHsht">People make a big deal out of “attending Northwestern” or “being in Medill.” Quite honestly, I don’t think any of the classes I’ve taken at this school have made me what I am today as a writer, podcaster or overall sports media member. The most important thing Northwestern has done for me was letting freshman me know that he could sign up to be on Inside NU’s staff at the in-person publication fair back in 2019, because writing for this site was 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more helpful than anything a professor her has tried to teach me (was going to add more zeroes, but much like Illinois men’s basketball, I did not reach my ultimate goal). </p>
<p id="xYoYDg">A solid six-month start with Inside NU led to me landing a gig covering my favorite basketball team — the Philadelphia 76ers — at <a href="https://www.libertyballers.com">Liberty Ballers</a> right before the pandemic first hit the States. After roughly 16 months of writing, talking and venting about them, I was hired as a basketball scout by Sports Info Solutions, where I quite literally get to live out my dream — getting paid to watch basketball all day and night. </p>
<p id="7RLVvp">That was only possible through this weird, wild, at times taxing but ultimately amazing website known as Inside NU. It’s been the starting point for this next chapter in my life, and for that, I am forever grateful.</p>
<p id="ObuEPO">There’s so many people to thank, so I hope won’t miss anyone here with this:</p>
<p id="4lrspC">Huge shoutout to Noah Coffman for being my first EIC, promoting me to managing editor in 2020 after seeing my passion for this job and still being the most prompt responder to text messages that I’ve ever seen. Also shoutout to Avery Zimmerman and Joe Weinberg for agreeing with Noah that I was worth taking a shot on back then. </p>
<p id="xjwkOo">Great thanks to Eli Karp and Lia Assimakopoulos (definitely spelled it right the first time, definitely didn’t have to get a text from Ben saying that I messed it up and needed to change it in post) for being fantastic EIC’s and helping me through all my work on this site over the past two years. Both amazing people and amazing bosses.</p>
<p id="4IWoiq">Obviously, a huge thanks to my co-Editors in Chief in Mac Stone and Ben Chasen. I owe you both so much for being willing to work with me in running this site after I broke the news to you in the summer that I had just landed the great role with SIS and was going to need other people in charge of the site because I definitely could not do it alone. Mac, I wish the Bears a very don’t waste Justin Fields, and Ben I will leave you with a hearty “Go Dodgers,” as is tradition. </p>
<p id="vx4s08">And of course, I need to thank all of you currently reading this article and those who have continually followed the 235 pieces that have been published under my name for this site in the past two-and-a-half years, not including the countless tweets that I hope give you some laughs throughout the day. It’s still mind-boggling to me how I was able to go from an occasional high school blogger who got excited when his NBA breakdowns cracked 100 views to a semi-professional who saw his pieces crack several thousand and even tens of thousands of views in a single day for this website. Just know that every positive comment or affirmation you left down below a piece of mine always meant the world to me. </p>
<p id="ZQkI42">That’s all for now, and perhaps all that will be for me here at Inside NU. Just remember:</p>
<ol>
<li id="bMS18m">Veronica Burton is the greatest at anything ever. </li>
<li id="qVz4UH">I was the first person to be right about Adetomiwa Adebawore, no I will not accept any arguments. </li>
<li id="pCQ7Kj">The best version of Northwestern football is the one where the ‘Cats suck at scoring points but still win anyways (shoutout the 2015 team most especially).</li>
<li id="fQ4U0F">Everyone who contributes to the maintenance of this site is just a student finding time throughout the day, and it’s amazing that Inside NU continues to be good at what it does year after year. </li>
<li id="UvQoah">Go ‘Cats, baby. </li>
</ol>
<p id="al7v51">Signed,</p>
<p id="nJS56J"><s>The Doctor</s> Daniel Olinger</p>
<p id="yd0KQo"></p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/3/24/22989676/my-final-farewell-to-a-site-that-has-given-me-so-muchDaniel Olinger2022-03-21T14:42:45-05:002022-03-21T14:42:45-05:00Coaching questions, lacrosse expectations and NU memories: Daniel, Mac and Ben’s final mailbag
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<figcaption>Cayla Arnold-USA Today Sports</figcaption>
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<p>As they said in <em>Hamilton</em>, one last time.</p> <p id="92vj3g"><em>The time has finally arrived for Daniel Olinger, Mac Stone and Ben Chasen’s final mailbag as the co-Editors in Chief of Inside NU. For the last nine months, we’ve enjoyed answering your questions about all things Northwestern. Now, as we prepare to transition the site over to new leadership, we did so one more time.</em></p>
<p id="fFLgXP"><strong>“Does an NIT bid in 2022-23 keep Chris Collins around?” - AyanKB</strong></p>
<p id="PJNq9J"><strong>Daniel: </strong>Given that a slight improvement in overall record and a single Big Ten tournament win was enough to guarantee him at least one more shot in ‘23 and that an NIT bid requires at the very least more wins than losses through a season’s campaign, I’d wager that a trip to the lesser March tournament would be enough for Collins to stick in Evanston for an 11th year. It might be a frustrating reality to many, but given the regression the program has suffered following the 2017 NCAA Tournament appearance, taking a step forward in 2023 after losing one of the best — if not the best — players Collins has had in Nance should help slide him off the hot seat the slightest bit. </p>
<p id="VcpE3v"><strong>Ben:</strong> I’ll say probably not, but if the ‘Cats have a legitimate case to make for NCAA Tournament consideration and wind up as one of the first four out or something like that, then I would expect Collins to stick around for at least one more year. In a conversation I and a few other student reporters had with him about a month ago, Derrick Gragg highlighted finishing in the top-third of the conference and qualifying for NCAA Tournaments as his benchmark standards for evaluating coaches across all sports. If Collins can get the team to a place where the NU community really believes they should’ve made the tourney (which would require them to finish at or around the midpoint of the Big Ten), then I think Gragg will be satisfied enough with the growth to keep him. Otherwise, I just think Collins would be falling too regularly and woefully short of his AD’s expectations to stay on.</p>
<p id="g6Ao7J"><strong>“Alright, look into the crystal ball — In five years, where is NU football? Men’s basketball? Women’s basketball? Who is coaching each? And what does futuristic Ryan Field look like?” — RevDJEsq</strong></p>
<p id="i0szkd"><strong>Mac: </strong>This is a very good question and a difficult one to answer, too. In terms of coaching, it’s hard to see anyone besides Pat Fitzgerald at the helm of football five years from now unless the program really takes off and he leaves for a better opportunity. For men’s basketball, it’s difficult to picture Chris Collins leading the way unless the ‘Cats make some significant progress next year. No clue who they’d get to replace him, but the dream, no matter how unrealistic, would be someone like Drew Valentine from Loyola-Chicago. For women’s basketball, McKeown is scheduled to remain in Evanston through the 2024-25 season, so we can expect him to stick around for a while longer.</p>
<p id="Qle7KG">Onto the expectations. I think football is unfortunately trending down. The program has been trending down since the departure of Mike Hankwitz. I’d hope that NU football is still in a decent position to compete for a Big Ten West title in five years, but after last season, I really have no idea. Men’s basketball expectations are entirely dependent on whether or not Collins is here in five years. Collins is a solid recruiter, as we all know, so if he leaves we could see a dip in recruiting. When it comes to women’s basketball, I expect the recruiting to remain great, so hopefully the ‘Cats can get back in the hunt for a Big Ten title soon enough.</p>
<p id="zR4Gwb"><strong>Ben:</strong> Let’s start with football. Fitz is still there, NU has gone to another Big Ten title game and has also lost more games than it has won over the five-year stretch. Jim O’Neil is gone after the 2022 season, and, in his place, Tim McGarigle has been serviceable. The new Ryan Field is a 39,000-seat beauty, complete with a nice big scoreboard, a bunch of luxury suites and a loud student section in the south end zone. </p>
<p id="taigso">Basketball-wise, I really want to say that Chris Collins rights the ship in 2022, but ultimately do not think he will. Riding the Saint Peter’s wave, Shaheen Holloway, hired after the 2022-23 season, is leading the way for the ‘Cats. They make their first tournament under the new coach in 2026 and get another first round win before falling on a blown charge call in the Round of 32.</p>
<p id="fgAcRk">Joe McKeown hangs up his whistle in 2025 after finally getting to host the NCAA Tournament at Welsh-Ryan Arena and making a Sweet 16 run on the back of strong senior seasons from Mel Daley, Jillian Brown and Caileigh Walsh. Kate Popovec takes over and keeps the program in tourney-contending position. </p>
<p id="OzX2a1"><strong>Daniel: </strong>Fitz and McKeown are still coaching both of their respective teams in 2027, though I would also believe it if the women’s basketball program was handed off to someone like assistant coach Kate Popovec some time in the next five years. As for men’s basketball, your guess is as good as mine. I’ll try and manifest something here and say that it’s current Saint Peter’s head coach/definite super-genius Shaheen Holloway.</p>
<p id="50FTf2">I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — Pat Ryan’s massive donations to the football program lead to a roving space dome hovering over Lake Michigan for Northwestern to either win or lose games by a score of 17-13 in. </p>
<p id="UVt5Gz"><strong>“Where would you guys place your expectations for the basketball program? 1 NCAA tournament appearance every 4 years with an NIT mixed in on the off years? Every 6 years? I know the historical numbers see that as a stretch but the infrastructure is there.” — @TortelloJohn on Twitter</strong></p>
<p id="xrftfc"><strong>Ben: </strong>Haven’t thought about this before, but those numbers sound about right. Think about it like this: the football team has made two of the last four Big Ten Title games, the women’s basketball team probably should have just had what would be, in essence, its third-straight tourney year, and almost every other Northwestern program has at least had what would be the equivalent of a NCAA Tournament appearance in the last few years. The argument always made to explain Northwestern’s men’s basketball struggles is that they play in the Big Ten, where there’s a high-level of competition and where their roster is typically the less talented one on the floor in any given matchup. </p>
<p id="yyERlb">News flash: all these other programs play in the Big Ten too, and it’s a pretty competitive conference in all those sports, as well! I think that there’s no real reason NU shouldn’t be able to at least be competitive for the Big Dance the majority of years and definitely no reason they shouldn’t be able to make it once in every Northwestern student’s time at the school. </p>
<p id="AYn75h"><strong>Daniel: </strong>As the pessimist of the bunch, I’d say I’m skeptical that Northwestern’s men’s basketball program ever reaches those consistent “heights”. I ascribe Spencer Hall’s rule of reality that “people don’t improve, people don’t get better”, except flip some words and make it college football and basketball teams. Northwestern has always struggled at this sport for good reason, and the statistically most likely outcome would be more of the same suffering in the future. </p>
<p id="lvR3lQ"><strong>“Given Fitzgerald’s iconic Northwestern reputation and his strong seasons in 2018 and 2020 that established NU in the Big Ten, I wonder if Fitzgerald’s job is secure for life? How many losing seasons until the fan base puts him on the hot seat for real?” — @joshmiller01 on Twitter</strong></p>
<p id="6fTcCa"><strong>Daniel:</strong> I remember being asked this following the first dreadful 3-9 campaign that took place in 2019 and responding, “Pat Fitzgerald could steal Morty Schapiro’s car, set it on fire and drive it straight into Lake Michigan while unloading heavy fire in every direction and still be guaranteed a head coaching position at this school until 2030.” </p>
<p id="WpCR2k">Yes, every fan should complain that Northwestern has had two absolute duds of seasons in three years. You don’t have to accept it just because he’s the school’s best football coach ever ... but he’s also without question the school’s best football coach ever. This is the same school that would have thrown a parade to have gone 3-9 back in the early 1980s. It’s a scientific miracle that NU transformed into a slightly above average Big Ten football program over the past two decades, a feat rivaled only by the resurrection Bill Snyder performed for the other purple Wildcat team. </p>
<p id="Q7yhQk">I’m not 100 percent sure that if I was the Athletic Director he’d have lifetime job security, but I’d very much understand if that’s where Derrick Gragg is right now. It’s hard to move on from the guy who’s done it better than anyone else. </p>
<p id="h1nxrj"><strong>Ben:</strong> Daniel’s got it pretty spot on. I think two things can be true about Pat Fitzgerald: he is pretty committed to his way of doing things, which can oftentimes cause problems if the results aren’t great, but he is also absolutely the best fit to lead this program on account of his institutional knowledge, ability to develop talent and the identity he has built for the Wildcats. I don’t think he could lose every game for several years on end and stick around, but short of that, I think he’s likely going to be at NU for as long as he wants to be. </p>
<p id="As7oJe"><strong>“How far do you think lax will make it this year?” — @sarah_meadow on Twitter</strong></p>
<p id="hIppsk"><strong>Mac: </strong>Far, I hope. I don’t know if they can compete with a team like North Carolina, especially with Izzy Scane out. That being said, if they continue to play how they’ve played over these past couple of games, I don’t see why another Final Four run isn’t within reach for the ‘Cats.</p>
<p id="nLtvQ7"><strong>Ben: </strong>Call it facile analysis, but NU has found a way to beat a number of opponents this season, some of them elite programs. The ‘Cats have had some difficulty keeping up with the very best teams in the country, though, and their blowout loss to UNC revealed (at least to me) some issues with offensive consistency without Izzy Scane that will probably worry me come tourney time. I think their ceiling is another Final Four appearance and their floor is another Sweet 16. In any event, very excited to continue watching Lauren Gilbert do insane things.</p>
<p id="YknzeH"><strong>“For Ben Chasen: Which former Northwestern Affiliated coach would you take, Jesse Marsch or Mike Kafka?” — @MattAlbert14 on Twitter</strong></p>
<p id="uBLznB"><strong>Ben: </strong>Assuming you’re talking about head coaching at NU, I’d go with Marsch. I love Mike Kafka. He’s an NU legend and helped make Patrick Mahomes the quarterback he is today, which is pretty much as much as a football person can do to earn my respect short of being Mahomes himself. But Marsch has established himself as one of the best up-and-coming club-runners there are, and I think that level of coaching and name recognition could do wonders for the NU program (with absolutely no disrespect intended toward Russell Payne, who has done a stellar job thus far in Evanston), whereas Kafka would be just one of many great college coaches.</p>
<p id="NYkCZN"><strong>“Tell us about some of the other stuff — if anything — you’ve been involved in on campus. Student groups, clubs, a barbershop quartet of InsideNU writers, starting lineup on the Quiz Bowl team — whatever it is.” — MNWildcat</strong></p>
<p id="xEdKi2"><strong>Daniel: </strong>I’m probably going to have worse answers for this than Mac and Ben given that a lot of my college time has been spent working first for Liberty Ballers and now for Sports Info Solutions, but I think this encompasses most of my tertiary activities through nearly three years of college: as a freshman, I had a work study job as an intramural referee, starting in my sophomore year, I joined the club basketball team here and this academic year, I joined the Northwestern Sports Analytics Group (should also mention that I’m an idiot who decided doing economics as a double major on a whim was a good idea, so my time is pretty limited).</p>
<p id="igt3XH">So for any who have ever wondered, “Does Daniel Olinger have a life outside of basketball?”, I’m glad that I can finally answer your question — no. </p>
<p id="S1UjwU"><strong>Mac: </strong>Yeah, I don’t really do much either. I’ve done a couple of jobs for work study, such as working cameras for BTN+ and helping students edit essays, but that’s about it. After my time with Inside NU comes to a close, I’ll have a bit more time to focus on other things. For example, I’ll be a Family Ambassador next year! Pretty excited about that.</p>
<p id="GGXRaf"><strong>Ben:</strong> For the last year or so, Inside NU readers have gotten to know me as Ben Chasen the journalism major, but there’s actually a whole other Ben Chasen, the political science major, and he, too, is involved in some activities you’d expect given his course of study. I’ve helped lead a number of student activist and political groups (which I’m gonna keep private to maintain the neutrality of the site, but if you follow me on Twitter, you probably could guess where I’m at on the political spectrum) in the last few years. I’m also a tour guide for the undergraduate admissions office, a member of the Board of Directors over at Northwestern Hillel and a Bob’s Pizza trivia semi-regular. Like Mac said, the upside to the end of my time co-running this site is that I’ll have a few more opportunities to get involved in some of the great student organizations that make NU what it is and expand my engagement with those I’m already a part of before I graduate next June. </p>
<p id="lMkBdh"><strong>“What is your best NU sports memory from your time as a student? Worst?” — J Wood</strong></p>
<p id="vjGuRx"><strong>Mac: </strong>It’s pretty difficult to pick just one, but if I had to pick a “best” moment, it would probably be women’s basketball winning a share of the Big Ten regular season title my freshman year. The win over Illinois came just a few days before COVID-19 shut everything down, but seeing Pulliam and Co. cut down the nets at Welsh-Ryan Arena was very fun.</p>
<p id="nWY5Qt">In terms of the worst, if I could erase the entirety of the 2019 and 2021 football seasons from my memory, I genuinely think I’d be a better person. Those seasons were just awful. If you want me to choose just one specific memory, take the 2021 game against Nebraska, lock it in a dark room and throw away the key. That’s something I never want to think about again. At least I didn’t have to travel and cover it in-person though, right, Ben?</p>
<p id="jDwp38"><strong>Ben: </strong>Yeah, I’ll get there in a second. A later question asks about my favorite game that I covered, so I’m gonna leave any contests I’ve worked for the site out of this and agree with Mac about the women’s basketball team’s conference-clinching win over Illinois in 2020. Court storming is fun, court storming to celebrate a title is unmatched. </p>
<p id="ZveD6t">As far as worst games go, sheesh, unfortunately a few come to mind. I’d say probably the football game I covered at Nebraska earlier this year, as Mac mentioned. Just a bloodbath from start to finish. What’s important to understand is that, as much as we like to kid on social media and in some pieces on the site, I think I speak for Mac and Daniel when I say that it brings us absolutely no pleasure to cover the failures of any Northwestern programs. At all times, I want NU student-athletes, ultimately peers of mine, to succeed. And no moment has stood out as more embarrassing for any NU team since I’ve gotten here than that night in Lincoln. Great people, electric atmosphere, just a horrible game.</p>
<p id="oNjknj"><strong>Daniel: </strong>Usually I would just play the hits here and agree with Ben and Mac that the clinching of 2019-20 Big Ten Championship by the women’s basketball team was my most cherished memory. However, I unfortunately could not attend said home game against Illinois and could not participate in the court storming firsthand (thank you 2020 me who decided it was a not dumb idea to work two jobs on top of doing Inside NU stuff and school stuff). </p>
<p id="Irzk2k">Instead, I’m going with the entire Citrus Bowl experience to end 2020 and begin 2021. Being down there in Orlando just felt like a three-day celebration of every great thing that team accomplished, and the game was more of the same, with Northwestern progressively stomping an Auburn team said to have more talent than it, but had not played with the same unity and cohesive direction of the ‘Cats. I was truly lucky to be there for the capstone accomplishment of one of the better football teams to ever grace Ryan Field. </p>
<p id="J2s0H4">As for the worst, it’s the game I attended as a fan freshman year against Iowa. Watching a team whose season was already lost get shut out 20-0 in the rain as Hawkeye fans jeered at us and Aidan Smith blasted slant patterns into the dirt was enough to make a man consider his standing in life. </p>
<p id="GrwMTt">(But also go ‘Cats)</p>
<p id="Xo3dH7"><strong>“Favorite sporting event you’ve covered at NU?” - @Bradley_Locker on Twitter</strong></p>
<p id="wACdWi"><strong>Mac: </strong>Despite the poor result, covering the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament a couple of weeks ago was really fun. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and seeing the ‘Cats come back and win against Nebraska was great. However, my sleeper pick for my favorite event I’ve ever covered was the football game against Illinois in 2020. Not only did I see Northwestern take the HAT at home, but it was in a nearly empty Ryan Field. That was definitely an experience I will never forget.</p>
<p id="sPgTfp"><strong>Ben: </strong>Going to cheat a little and pick two favorite moments The very first sporting event I ever got to work for Inside NU was Northwestern football’s momentous upset of Wisconsin in 2020. After that win, it felt like everything was possible for that NU team (which I believe was one of the best ever in program history, credit to the focus and determination of that roster and coaching staff during an incredibly hard time to succeed), and it was such a formational moment for me as a relatively new member of the Inside NU staff. </p>
<p id="IdQ1Qu">Then there was NU field hockey’s national championship win in November of 2021. I had covered the team all year long and was making the trip with NU Sports photographer Ryan Kuttler, who was my freshman year roommate and is one of my closest friends in Evanston, and Lia Assimakopoulos, a real mentor of mine in this role and a former field hockey player herself, so that alone was great. But the real joy was seeing Tracey Fuchs’ team of fantastic Northwestern student-athletes’ dreams come true on one of the biggest stages in the sport and watching them celebrate with their friends, family and program alumni afterwards. </p>
<p id="V6ttu9"><strong>Daniel:</strong> The Citrus Bowl I wrote about in the first question is definitely up there, though I’d also like to throw in some praise for the Purdue game from that 2020 football season. That win in West Lafayette occurred right before the season-defining victory over Wisconsin, and just further established how special that team was truly becoming. I’ll never forget sitting that press box over a) Adetomiwa Adebawore chasing down running back Xander Horvath on a screen play despite trailing him by 10 yards to start, b) Greg Newsome putting the clamps on David Bell and letting everyone on Purdue’s sideline know about it and c) getting yelled at over the loud speaker to “GET OFF THE FIELD!” as me and Eli Karp stood there in pouring rain trying to record a postgame reaction video for the site. What a time. </p>
<p id="MhV2na"><strong>“Why?” — Our friends at Crimson Quarry</strong></p>
<p id="Bgjqas"><strong>Daniel: </strong>I am deflecting this question and instead asking one of my own — why is it always “We are Penn State”, and not “Why are Penn State?”</p>
<p id="YJ2BkT"><strong>“How many dollars of cryptocurrency does Fitz own?” — @forgetprotocol on Twitter</strong></p>
<p id="FPfBa0"><strong>Ben: </strong>LOL. Fitz, degrader of the evil cell phone and champion of good clean American fun, probably doesn’t invest any of his assets in crypto. But if he did, I’d bet on him being an Ethereum guy. No real reason why, just feels right.</p>
<p id="Ab7oj4"><strong>Daniel: </strong>I believe that if he was pushed on this it would all be a big misdirect. He’d deny ever having any crypto — only because he’s been screenshotting and stealing NFT’s for the past year to no end, and now “owns” more poorly drawn apes than anyone on planet earth. And yes, this all ends with one of the NFT’s being listed as one of the options to be the starting quarterback week one in 2024. </p>
<p id="BH4STI"><strong>“Soooo who’s next in line” — @Lassimak</strong></p>
<p id="o6uiTt"><strong>Dan, Mac and Ben: </strong>First off, let us express our thanks to everyone who has read and engaged with the site this past year. It’s been a blast running the show, and it wouldn’t be possible without our incredible staff and, of course, you all. We’ll each get to say farewell in our own pieces later this week, but we wanted to hammer that home collectively first. </p>
<p id="iuvGFk">So now the big news: we’re incredibly excited to announce that Sarah Effress will be the next Editor in Chief of Inside NU. Sarah’s an incredibly capable writer and leader, and she’ll be supported by our new Director of Operations Didi Jin, our new Director of Staff Engagement Michael Barthelemy, and our newest managing editors, Gavin Dorsey, Iggy Dowling and Bradley Locker. Together, we’re confident that they’re going to continue to provide the great content you’ve come to expect from our site and continue to shape Inside NU’s growth as a publication and an organization. Ben will be staying on as Senior Advisor to ensure a smooth transition and support the new executive and editorial staff with anything they may need.</p>
<p id="VUjOZi">Thanks for reading, we’re out. </p>
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https://www.insidenu.com/2022/3/21/22986162/coaching-questions-lacrosse-expectations-and-nu-memories-daniel-mac-and-bens-final-mailbagDaniel OlingerMac StoneBen Chasen2022-03-16T11:32:08-05:002022-03-16T11:32:08-05:00BREAKING: Veronica Burton named a third-team AP All-American
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<figcaption>Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK</figcaption>
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<p>A well-deserved honor for one of the greatest athletes to ever come through Evanston.</p> <p id="EosRSi">For the first time in program history, a Northwestern Wildcat has found herself on an AP All-American team, and who better to do it than the point guard who has distinguished herself as maybe the single greatest player in program history (depending on how you feel about Nia Coffey and Anucha Browne Sanders). </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The first Wildcat in program history to land on one of the three AP All-America teams. <br><br>Veronica Burton. .<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoCats?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GoCats</a> <a href="https://t.co/egvnoVf9A4">pic.twitter.com/egvnoVf9A4</a></p>— Northwestern Women’s Basketball (@nuwbball) <a href="https://twitter.com/nuwbball/status/1504126822753132549?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2022</a>
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<p id="qLni0S">Every word that can be said about Burton has been said on this site. This season, she won her third consecutive Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year award, finished tops in the nation with an absurd 4.0 steals per game, sixth in the nation in assists at 6.4 per game, averaged a career high 17.8 points per game and led an incredibly young team to a solid conference showing and wins over teams that garnered a No. 2 and a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. </p>
<p id="rKrqCn">Really all that was missing was another shot in March Madness for the Backcourt Burglar, but alas, not everything can be a perfect storybook ending. </p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/3/16/22981169/breaking-veronica-burton-named-a-third-team-ap-all-americanDaniel Olinger2022-03-12T12:34:55-06:002022-03-12T12:34:55-06:00Q&A with NBA Draft Expert Ben Pfiefer on Northwestern’s Pete Nance
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<img alt="NCAA Basketball: Northwestern at Minnesota" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WvFPAgeHhMJhm8cHFhx3Eihbiag=/0x717:2457x2355/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70613746/usa_today_17724143.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Harrison Barden-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>Could No. 22 hear his name called in June?</p> <p id="IrHxyo"><em>It might not have been the Northwestern men’s basketball season that many hoped for a few months ago, but one shining light through it all was the breakout of senior forward Pete Nance, who played so well in 2022 that he earned an All-Big Ten honorable mention and now has a legitimate shot at hearing his name called during the upcoming NBA Draft should he choose to forgo his final year of college eligibility. To prepare you for this very rare potential Northwestern-NBA crossover, I talked to NBA Draft expert Ben Pfeifer, who has written about the draft for years, formerly hosted the excellent Prep2Pro Podcast and continues to tweet out insightful thoughts about basketball at large to this day. You can follow Ben on Twitter at </em><a href="https://twitter.com/bjpf_"><em>@bjpf_</em></a><em>. </em></p>
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<p id="aNwm7h"><strong>Inside NU: </strong>First, let’s just let the readers know who you are and your experience with scouting draft prospects over the years.</p>
<p id="lnYpBB"><strong>Pfiefer: </strong>I’m not really one to plug these days, but once upon a time I created basketball content for multiple outlets and did a bit of scouting/consulting in the private sphere as well. These days, I’m posting clips occasionally and do have a <a href="https://benpfeifer.substack.com/p/b962ba9e-1353-4db4-b116-c24506dd6962?s=r">cleverly named Substack</a> where I’ll occasionally make content when I get the itch.</p>
<p id="y5Sm3F"><strong>INU: </strong>While he obviously was a decently rated high school prospect and has a well-known last name, it didn’t seem like anyone had Nance on their radar before this season. Was he a guy that you thought would be a “real” prospect going into this season, and what was the game/performance of his that really did it for you in terms of wanting to scout him more in depth?</p>
<p id="HHc3zv"><strong>Pfiefer: </strong>I hadn’t actually heard of Nance before this season, but a few of my pals (you included) tweeted and talked about him and he popped in a few stat queries, so I decided to check him out for the piece on connective bigs I did. I think it was the at Michigan game I watched that impressed me most. The passing, shot-making and all round skill at the size made me realize there was something there.</p>
<p id="utpV9h"><strong>INU: </strong>My general read on Nance has been that he’s “jack of all trades, master on none” type of prospect. A good defender at his position, though not a cornerstone. A talented passing big, but not one that can fully operate a great offense. A capable athlete and finisher at the rim, but not a special one. Really only his catch and shoot threes as a 4/5 have breached “special” territory this year. Would you agree with that assessment, and how do you value those types of players at the next level?</p>
<p id="lBXLpI"><strong>Pfeifer: </strong>I think that’s a fair assessment mostly, but I do think Nance’s passing popped as a bit above-average for me, as his passing to cutters from the high post area into tight windows felt quite impressive to me. But generally, jack of all trades, master or none prospects tend to worry me. The NBA level is far more taxing, and the amount of skill required goes up tremendously, so a player who is average at everything likely will shift down to below average at everything. I do think there are some players who can excel with a combination of size and skill, though, and can find their way onto a roster.</p>
<p id="PA0UIZ"><strong>INU: </strong>Just how valuable are players who can operate a DHO (dribble hand-off) as the screener/handler like Nance can in the NBA? How does he open up a team’s offense even in a limited role off the bench as he’d be likely to find himself in?</p>
<p id="86JkNs"><strong>Pfeifer: </strong>Most people probably think of the ideal bench player as a microwave scorer type, one to get a high volume of buckets in a short amount of time. But a connective big that orchestrates the flow of an offense and creates good shots can be just as valuable. Great NBA offenses routinely create great looks via DHOs, off ball screens and cuts and there’s no reason that can’t extend to bench units aside from teams lacking the personnel to do so. Scoring will be Nance’s weak point, so he’ll need other players to carry that load around him. I think a player like Nance could really open the possibilities for a bench unit, his passing, dribbling and screening creating good shots for players that otherwise may not be able to get them.</p>
<p id="MVDiCv"><strong>INU: </strong>You’re going to hate me for this one, but I have to ask it — water gun to your head, who is Pete Nance’s NBA player comp and why?</p>
<p id="ztf5lC"><strong>Pfeifer: </strong>I think the idea of Nance can be similar to a player like Wendell Carter Jr., a big who plays on the perimeter by way of handoffs, short jumper and the occasional three. I don’t think he’ll reach the level of WCJ, but the mold could be similar.</p>
<p id="0VcsMd"><strong>INU: </strong>How do you as an evaluator take Nance’s context into consideration? Obviously Northwestern is not the best team in the world, nor have they been ripe with NBA talent as of late, so there’s a case to be made that Nance is in the far from optimal place for him.</p>
<p id="qGyar9"><strong>Pfeifer: </strong>Those subpar contexts can deflate the numbers of a player like Nance, whose assist numbers may not reflect their actual passing aptitude. I do think the Northwestern context does ask Nance to do quite a bit of NBA-style action, largely in his passing and DHO operating. However, much of his scoring comes in the low post, which likely won’t be a large part of his NBA role.</p>
<p id="c6Pfym"><strong>INU: </strong>Where do you have Pete Nance ranked on your current big board (a range of possible positions works too) and what NBA teams do you think he would fit best with as a good second round pick?</p>
<p id="ENZqko"><strong>Pfeifer:</strong> I don’t have a firm board at the moment, but he’ll likely fall in the 45-60ish range for me. Teams that run motion heavy offenses or have similar players like Utah or Chicago likely would benefit most from a player like Nance.</p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/3/12/22949289/q-a-with-nba-draft-expert-ben-pfiefer-on-northwesterns-pete-nanceDaniel Olinger2022-03-11T13:06:57-06:002022-03-11T13:06:57-06:00Northwestern made progress in 2022, but it wasn’t nearly enough
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<figcaption>Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>A brutal end to a season of missed opportunity. </p> <p id="Fby3Ls">Just over two years ago to the day, I sat inside then Bankers Life Fieldhouse and watched as Northwestern fell to Minnesota on the first day of the Big Ten Tournament 74-57. Even as the ‘Cats held a 31-29 lead at halftime, it never felt as though they had a shot to win that game. The Gophers had defeated them by a whopping 26-point margin just over two weeks prior, and promptly outscored Northwestern by a 30-12 margin in the first 10 minutes of that second half on the road to victory. </p>
<p id="hqPEWO">Iowa at least had the decency on Thursday afternoon to not tease ‘Cats’ fans with any sense of victory, dominating from the open tip on the way to the most prolific offensive performance in the tournament’s history, winning 112-76 over Northwestern. That same inevitable expectation of loss that I felt two years ago hung with me yesterday in Indianapolis, even if it struck with far less subtlety this time around. </p>
<p id="tQMlJs">That dismal end to the season doesn’t take away what Northwestern did accomplish in beating Nebraska the day prior. As Chris Collins repeated after the win, that was not a game the team from two years ago would have won. It proved that steps had been taken. However, the Hawkeyes’ beatdown of the the purple and white proved that NU is still at the bottom of that staircase it’s trying to climb. </p>
<p id="AltccO">“I told the guys that we got a lot better in a lot of areas, but we’re still not at the level we need to be to reach our goal,” said Collins postgame. “But a lot of times that last step is the hardest step, because in order to do that, you have to find a way to consistently win in this league.”</p>
<p id="NNfSre">It’s the same thing Collins needed his program to do five years ago in 2017, when the ‘Cats made the Round of 32 in March Madness and won two games in the conference tournament. They were right below the level of the elite in the B1G, and expected to take that final step into being a conference contender in 2018, only to see everything come crashing down. </p>
<p id="76jB7l">The 2021-22 Northwestern team itself wasn’t able to take a step into the level of the heralded ‘17 squad like it desired to, and now the ‘23 team is burdened with that arduous task without the help of the best men’s basketball player to come through Evanston in the past decade in Pete Nance. It’s not a promising outlook. </p>
<p id="Ov52Cc">That’s the sad reality this program currently sits in. Everything the past few years, all of those losses followed by the now infamous references to the team’s youth were supposed to result in a team this year that would win more conference games than they lost. A veteran team hardened by its painful experiences into a gritty winner. Instead it was the same sad close-game defeats, just with a few more bright spots here and there, making the 31-game campaign as a whole feel like a missed opportunity. </p>
<p id="V7NsnD">“There were definitely a handful of games out there for us that if they had gone the other way, you know, we’d be talking about potentially playing next week,” said Collins, reflecting on his team’s 15-16 final record. </p>
<p id="afK9Fd">A person separated from the situation might not understand why yesterday’s defeat hurt so much. Northwestern knew its season was over unless four more wins were earned, and at the very least a start-to-finish blowout allows time for the reality of the loss to set in. But just look at the team’s leader and keynote player in Nance to grasp how the 36-point rout hit him, as the senior forward quickly left the postgame presser with tears in his eyes while saying just how proud he is to be a Wildcat. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">"I'm just proud to be a Northwestern Wildcat, for sure." <br><br>Pete Nance (<a href="https://twitter.com/peteln22?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@peteln22</a>) hasn't made a decision about his future, but he got a little emotional talking about his <a href="https://twitter.com/NUMensBball?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NUMensBball</a> career. <a href="https://t.co/EzoNcp9Uwb">pic.twitter.com/EzoNcp9Uwb</a></p>— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) <a href="https://twitter.com/BigTenNetwork/status/1502036017796243464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2022</a>
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<p id="OBKqlG">That’s not a sense of anger or frustration from Nance, it’s justifiable sadness. Sadness that his collegiate career is (likely) over, and sadness that all those losses he suffered throughout his first three years weren’t enough to build his team into one worthy of a tournament bid. </p>
<p id="r1QXce">If a Northwestern team with Nance was still miles away from having a chance at competing with a team like Iowa when it mattered most, what chance do the future squads truly have? Any of the returning players rising to his level seems highly unlikely, and the Big Ten isn’t getting any easier any time soon. </p>
<p id="PsCxHW">Last weekend I looked back a photo I took prior to that loss to Minnesota back in March of 2020. Since then I’ve gotten in a lot better shape, learned the value of a timely haircut and actually started trying to wear nice clothes. I’ve gotten better. </p>
<p id="Tk4LnA">But ultimately, I’m still the same person with the same flaws and shortcomings I had back then, just not to as stark a degree as before. That’s how I feel about this Northwestern team. They got better, they got to work and improved some of their most glaring flaws, but were still the same flawed team at the end of the day — some promising talent, a knack for unlucky and untimely breaks in close games and a clear barrier separating them from the above tier in the conference. </p>
<p id="h1x522">Only time will tell if the Collins and Northwestern can make it back to that third week in March come 2023, but this season’s end did little to make anyone believe that might be the case. </p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/3/11/22971600/northwestern-made-progress-in-2022-but-it-wasnt-nearly-enoughDaniel Olinger2022-03-10T09:06:32-06:002022-03-10T09:06:32-06:00Down 14 at half with the season on the line, Northwestern finally got its moment
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<img alt="NCAA Basketball: Big Ten Conference Tournament Nebraska vs Northwestern" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KEOSb4fIxMr1ILi7Y1vhGLNhsgI=/0x0:2738x1825/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70603829/usa_today_17862184.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>The team whose close game screw-ups have always made them the butt of jokes finally came through at the right time. </p> <p id="oxmgC4">Unless Northwestern miraculously wins four more games in the next four days, last night’s result ultimately doesn’t matter. There was a clearly stated goal for this team entering the 2021-22 season — change the narrative, build on all the losses of season’s past and make the NCAA Tournament. </p>
<p id="v3RJJZ">They instead lost 13 conference games and inspired ‘Cats’ fans to tweet passive aggressive threats at Jon Rothstein for getting their hopes up (<a href="https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/1501736842177228802?s=20&t=JMrH7alKa_rKFdbmcSQFUg">you better not chicken out on that bet Jon</a>, I demand a drink at Lux by the end of April at the latest).</p>
<p id="WMDnBa">And yes, no one is building Chris Collins a monument for outlasting a 10-22 Nebraska team whose performance prior to the season’s end could best be described as performance art. </p>
<p id="useWy2">But just ask Pete Nance, who entered what could have been his final collegiate game last night having suffered through a 44-72 career record in Evanston, whether last night’s 71-69 victory over the Cornhuskers meant something to him and this program. </p>
<p id="TcQYed">“You come into this year and you want to change things, and I think that this proves that we’re not the same team that we’ve been the past two or three years,” said Nance following his first <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/big-ten-basketball-tournament">Big Ten Tournament</a> win. “I don’t know if that group would have been able to dig this game out, and instead we really came together and showed how much we love each other.”</p>
<p id="PHoMnC">The first half was filled with sloppy play from everyone wearing a Wildcat uniform, including Nance, who was picked off twice on his usually steady high-post passes and only converted on two field goals. </p>
<p id="uxJyLu">Old Northwestern might have gone away from the senior star and been unable to crack the code that put them in a 14-point hole at halftime. Instead, the ‘Cats trusted their best player, running one of their pet actions (a “Chicago” DHO into a post entry with the floor spread) and trusted Nance to make the right decision. </p>
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<p id="ddps3W">He’s in full control there, patiently waiting with each dribble and tempting Lat Mayen to help down just enough that he can rifle a one-handed skip to Chase Audige, leaving the defense no chance of recovering to get a good contest on the shot. That first one-handed dime must have unlocked something in Nance, as just minutes later he reeled off another one, this time hitting Ty Berry through the narrowest of windows after he backdoored in the corner out of NU’s base horns set. </p>
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<p id="48x0zP">Add it all up, and the player who shined most brightly all season for Northwestern showed out with a 14-8-8 stat line with the year on the line.</p>
<p id="c9wMHx">The other “star” for this team who has oscillated between being a beacon of positivity and a catastrophic supernova is Boo Buie, who was trending much toward the latter through 20 minutes in Indianapolis. </p>
<p id="5xvoKJ">“I wasn’t making shots, I was turning the ball over... I got frustrated with myself and just let my emotions out,” said Buie on his first half performance. Collins added that Buie had a loud confrontation with his brother and assistant coach Talor Battle at the break, which Collins and Buie credited for his improved performance in the second. </p>
<p id="Ilx0Ue">“My teammates were really there for me, picking me up and kept saying positive things to me,” Buie said. “If I was on another team, I would have been dead in the water, but my teammates kept a lot of positivity in my head, and it allowed me to come out in the second half and play a lot better.”</p>
<p id="4a5n23">Maligned often by fans and media for his decision making, particularly when it comes to shot selection in crucial situations, Buie’s never-ending confidence was a boon for the ‘Cats throughout the comeback, capped off with this off-movement three too put them up by four with just under two minutes to go. </p>
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<p id="vN1GE6">That’s a brilliant design, flowing immediately out of the box set for the sideline out of bounds to Buie setting a flex screen for Audige to draw the defense’s attention. Nebraska has to respect that given that Nance had burned them with passes on similar cuts like the one to Berry shown above. Buie immediately peels off to receive a reverse flare from Ryan Young and has the opening, which he would then capitalize on with an ice cold three. </p>
<p id="D2DPuA">It’s brilliant execution, and an off-move three against a defense with its season on the line is never an easy shot. It requires nerves of steel and an indefatigable sense that even a shot as tough as that one can be a death knell for the opponent. Buie turned off that Young screen knowing he was going to shoot and knowing it was going to fall, and his confidence and growth paid off in that moment. </p>
<p id="xiaUFT">Of course, that was not the guard’s most impactful play of the night, as the charge he took on Nebraska’s Alonzo Verge Jr. with Northwestern up only one and the game clock having ticked under 10 seconds (probably should have been called a foul on Ju Roper be damned) all but saved the game for the ‘Cats. </p>
<p id="m1Fw1r">Buie’s defense has never been his strong suit, and Collins went so far as to quip that “that might have been the first charge he’s ever taken in his life.” But given the chance to just fade into the background, Buie stepped to the plate and above the charge circle to lead his team to the win. Three years in Evanston, and he has grown like the team around him, even if the season-long results didn’t end up as everything that people wanted them to be. </p>
<p id="3xTxHw">It doesn’t fix the past damning errors, and it can only serve as a silver lining on this otherwise dismal campaign from the basketball program for so long, but on special night in Indianapolis, Northwestern proved that it had taken a step forward, winning its first Big Ten Tournament game since the legendary 2017 squad did five years ago to the day. </p>
<p id="cPpIXM">“For your legacy, you want to be able to have some postseason success, and the last three years, we’ve come up short for those seniors,” Collins postgame. “It really meant a lot to me to see those guys come here, get a win and have a chance to play tomorrow.”</p>
<p id="txuPdD">There’s a higher than 50% chance that Northwestern’s season will end just hours after the publication of this article as the ‘Cats take on the same Iowa team that beat them by 21 points just 10 days ago. But no matter what happens in that game, Nance, Buie and everyone in the purple and white made a statement in battling back on Wednesday night.</p>
https://www.insidenu.com/2022/3/10/22970074/down-14-at-half-with-the-season-on-the-line-northwestern-finally-got-its-momentDaniel Olinger