Saturday, January 26, 2013

Northwestern fails to make shots

The simple fact of this game is that Nebraska shot the ball better than Northwestern. Not much better, but better enough to get a win in an ugly game. The other fact is this game shows that despite all the positive progress Northwestern has made they're still not a good enough team to really think they'll do anything other than go home after their last game in the Big Ten Tournament.

The problem is Northwestern doesn't have enough good shooters and they don't have any reliable shooters. Dave Sobolewski had a nice game but nobody else for NU did much and even Sobolewski missed a lot of shots and once again was brutal from the free throw line. Northwestern as a teamwas brutal from everywhere. They couldn't make threes, twos, or free throws. This game was a total letdown and a game that at first seemed to be a game that would be close, but which NU would have a chance in eventually became a blowout win for Nebraska. Part of it was the fact NU couldn't hit shots. Another part was the fact that NU stopped getting rebounds and Nebraska had a shooting day which was above their average.

NU played okay on defense for the first half, but things just didn't go right in the second half. Not only did they not shoot well, but even when they seemed to make a nice play on defense things didn't go NU's way. The 'Cats tipped a lot of passes in the 1-3-1 that somehow ended up in Nebraska's hands. And they then usually ended up in the basket.

It was interesting that Kale Abrahamson and Nikola Cerina only played in garbage time for NU. I also think that Mike Turner continues to really struggle.

Finally, look at Nebraska's investment in basketball and look at NU's. This game will resume the Bill Carmody job watch, but honestly considering that NU gives him no institutional support I tend to think that if Morty and Dr. Jim want to fire him they ought to fire themselves too. 

No comments: