Northwestern Starts Busy Stretch With Easy “W”

This game was pretty much what we expected. Texas Southern struggled on offense and NU used a balanced attack which put four players into double figures to cruise to an 81-51 win. I think NU fans had to be impressed with the athletic skill shown by NU tonight as Drew Crawford had two dunks (one off an ally-op pass from John Shurna), Shurna put down a dunk, and Reggie Hearn slammed one home as well. Those dunks came off of fast breaks which NU created due to getting some steals using their athletic skill. Overall, it was a good day for the ‘Cats and while I won’t say this erases the Baylor loss, at least that’s not the last thing that happened for NU.

One of the guys who certainly needed to rebound from the Baylor game was Luka Mirkovic. Luka’s play tonight still won’t get him listed amongst college basketball’s elite centers, but he was far more solid than he was versus Baylor. Was Baylor much better than Texas Southern? For sure. But getting good play from Luka is so key for NU that I’m thankful whenever he plays well. Tonight, I was thankful to see Luka demonstrate skill as a passer with five assists, though, I wish he’d have scored a bit more.

NU’s leading scorer was John Shurna who certainly stepped up his game in the second half as did JerShon Cobb. Shurna’s 20 points and 5-of-7 made threes were a nice bounce back from the Baylor disaster. Cobb finished with 10 points and looked really rusty early on in the first game back from a concussion. In the second half, though, he seemed to relax and let the game come to him a bit more. As a result, he ended up hitting some open shots and looking more comfortable on the floor. He’s a big player for NU especially while Alex Marcotullio battles a foot injury. At some point I’d like to see Marcotullio and Cobb both healthy at the same time for NU, but it seems as though that hasn’t happened at all in the last year and a half.

I think when people talk about this game and look at the stats they’ll wonder how NU could hit 13 threes in this game and not even make five versus Baylor. Obviously part of the answer is who the ‘Cats were playing, but it’s still good to see NU once again show the three point touch. I really liked seeing Dave Sobolewski hit the high-point of his young career with five made three pointers. Sobolewski was 5-of-8 shooting for the night with all the attempts from three point range.

NU’s other double figure scorer was Drew Crawford with 17 points. Perhaps even more impressive than his points, Drew had 5 assists and 0 turnovers and recorded two steals.

NU only gets one day off now before playing a decent Central Connecticut State team. I’m excited to see NU play that game because it should provide an increased competition level from tonight and will give us a little more insight into what this NU team really has. Of course, we might have to wait until the tough road tests in late December against Creighton and Ohio State to really know.

Northwestern is Back in Action Versus Texas Southern

I fully intended to post more thoughts between the end of the Baylor game and now, but I just never found the time. I was, as we all were, upset with the way the ‘Cats played versus Baylor, but I haven’t given up hope for the NCAA Tournament just yet. Still, I do think NU needs to improve from where they are now if they want to make the Big Dance. Especially as the rest of Big Ten looks strong with the possible exception of Penn State and Iowa.

1-6 Texas Southern shouldn’t present much of a challenge to NU and that’s probably a good thing after the loss to Baylor. The Tigers are a team that lost 62-46 to Denver in their last game so they clearly are not an offensive powerhouse. In fact, they’re pretty much the antithesis of that. They rank second to last in the NCAA in points per-game as a team with only 50.9 on average. Omar Strong is their leading scorer with 13 points per which does mean he averages more points per-game than anyone on the roster of the Stony Brook team NU almost lost to earlier this season, but I’m not worried about the Wildcats in this contest.

NU will be without guard Tre Demps who elected to have his season ending surgery and redshirt this year. He’ll most likely join fellow freshman Mike Turner as a guy who will watch all this season and then have the opportunity to step into a larger role next season. I think this is the right move as Demps was never 100% and guards Reggie Hearn and Dave Sobolewski have handled things just fine as NU’s starting backcourt. The concussion injury to JerShon Cobb has been an issue for NU, but he should return to action in the future much closer to 100% than Demps would ever have been this year. Hopefully, we’ll see Cobb on the court if not tomorrow at least at some point over this weekend stretch of three games in four days.

It really is important for NU to get off on the right foot in this game and get their confidence back. The effort against Baylor was so poor that even those who have been so beaten down by watching Northwestern basketball over the years had to leave Welsh-Ryan feeling like they’d been somehow wronged by the cosmos. Personally, I think my mistake was I confused my understanding of the concept of change. I’ve waited for years to be able to see NU get a big upset win and then say, “That’s it! That’s the win that’ll change what Northwestern basketball is.” It’s a nice dream and I’d convinced myself the Baylor game would see that dream given form. The problem is that in fact change isn’t an event it is actually a process. What we all need to believe as NU fans is that the process of change for Northwestern basketball is ongoing. It’s hard to believe when watching a game like NU played versus Baylor that such an event could in anyway be part of that process, but in fact it can be. In the end that process has to take Northwestern to the NCAA Tournament sometime in the future (preferably before my death). Will that happen this season? Honestly, I have no idea and beating on Texas Southern isn’t in anyway going to answer that question. Nonetheless, winning big ought to feel pretty good. I predict: Northwestern, 88 Texas Southern, 47