Alex Olah has Great Chance to Continue Development Thursday Night

Almost all of Northwestern's significant upset wins over the past three years have occurred as a result of great center play. Sadly, that great play has been a rare occurance as have huge Wildcat wins over top teams. If the 'Cats are to make a run in this year's Big Ten it is imparative that NU's Alex Olah become a consistent player on the inside. So far Olah has done a nice job, but he hasn't yet matched up with players who equal him in size. That'll change Thursday as Mississippi Valley State features two players who are 6-11 or above.

Those players, Julius Francis and Montreal Holley, might not be at the talent level of Cody Zeller or Mitch McGary, but they'll be a good test just to see how Olah, who to this point has been very aggressive, handles guys who are his equal in size and who might not allow him the same easy looks at the basket. Francis is by far the better of the two playing 24 minutes a game and posting norms of seven points and five rebounds. He's had some foul issues so it'll be interesting to see if NU does try to feed the post and get Olah going early. With the Delta Devils size I also think Cat Coach Bill Carmody might use Cheir Ajou a bit early than he did on Tuesday night. At 7-2 it'll be hard to keep Ajou on the bench against such a large opponent.

As a whole it'll be interesting to see NU's rotation. With Nikola Cerina likely back will that mean Kale Abrahamson will be behind him in minutes or did the young player from Iowa earn more court time? I'd say if Abrahamson continues to give the look of a natural scorer he needs to get time. I also think developing a second opinion behind Dave Sobolewski at point guard is still critical. I though Tre Demps might be the guy, but I didn't see much play at point from him the other might. Also, Jared Swopshire needs to hit an outside shot or two in order to open up driving lanes.

Prediction: Mississippi Valley State an score as 6-6 Davon Usher has posted some nice games early, but they do have a record as a real strong defensive team. Last year's Wildcats scored nearly at will on them and just Tuesday night Cincinnati torched MVSU for over 100 points. With the fire power NU showed in their opener I like the 'Cats to score big in this one, but I hope they keep playing defense as well. Northwestern, 88 MVSU, 52

Solid First Half Leads NU Past Texas So.

One of the fastest starts you'll ever see opened tonight's contest as Northwestern used 20 first half points by Drew Crawford to jump out to a 40-9 lead in what eventually became a dominating 30 point win over Texas Southern.

Crawford's fantastic effort in the first half is what most fans will talk about at the end of the day, but I was personally most impressed with the Wildcats defense. NU went all man to man and it looked vastly improved from last year and even better than their effort in last weeks exhibition. I saw far better communication on switches and hedges and the increased athletics skill of this young team was certainly on display as Texas Southern had trouble finding open shots.

Northwestern on the other hand didn't have trouble with finding open shots. The Wildcats made 11 threes tonight led by four from Crawford and three each from Reggie Hearn and Kale Abrahamson. Abrahamson was a surprise as some speculated he might be a potential redshirt, but his ability to put the ball in the basket and the absence of Sanjay Lumpkin(mono) and Nikola Cernina(personal reasons) put him on the court and he played great. Kale showed great range from three and very nice quickness as well as a nice touch at the free throw line which is a spot I have some conerns about with this group of Wildcats. In fact, as Kale hit shots I was thinking Sanjay and Nikola might want to look up the story of Wally Pip.

Overall, while Texas Southern wasn't great, I left this game with a positive feeling. Everyone who played for NU did something good. For some guys it was points, for other rebounds, and for others assists. Now, the key is to stay consistent and play another good game on Thursday night. That's a short turnaround, but these guys are worth watching so tell a friend to check out the game, because the limited crowd was about the only let down tonight.

Wildcats Open at Home vs Texas Southern

I'm going to first say that I'm pretty excited to see this season tipoff. I've got some doubts about this NU team truly being good enough to make the NCAA Tournament, but I like the depth of this squad and think they'll be entertaining to watch once the new players get comfortable. The season opener is against Texas Southern who comes to Evanston on the heels of an 18 point defeat at the hands of  Boise State.

Texas Southern features star Omar Strong who was preseason player of the year in the SWC and Raymond Penn was a star in Boise posting 25 points. 6-7 Fred Sturdivant was also honored with preseason accolades. Still, Texas Southern is a team with a new coach and was picked fourth in their league. That new coach is former Indianan boss Mike Davis. I often worry when opposing coaches are familiar with the Princeton Offense, but NU regularly scored well vs the Indiana teams Davis coached. I also think having only one day between two games won't help Texas Southern. I'd look for Northwestern to try to attack the basket on both backcuts and in the post with Texas Southern featuring only one player 6-9 or taller. I would love to see Alex Olah continue to show his aggressiveness that he demonstrated vs Chicago in the exhibition game. I also look to see how coach Bill Carmody uses a bench which features three players in Nikola Cerina, Tre Demps, and Alex Marcotulllio who I think will be major contributors and two young guys in Mike Turner and Sanjay Lumpkin who are major upgrades in the athleticism of Northwestern's team. Really, in the past those five players would have been about the level of talent that NU's starting lineup. Things have certainly improved in Evanston talent wise.

Prediction: With as young as this team is at some point during the non-conference there will be a total clunker at some point during the non conference in which NU either losses to someone they shouldn't or gets badly beat by a strong BCS conference team. That'll be a good learning experience but it won't come Tuesday night. Northwestern, 77 Texas Southern, 53

Wildcats Defense Will Be Key

After Northwestern's exhibition win over Chicago, I felt that one area where we would need to look closely to determine Northwestern's long term success would be defense. We didn't see any zone vs Chicago and I think that's good. Northwestern needs to master man to man to have long term success. At times I thought that man to man was good, but there were also some issues. The major issue seemed to be in communication. Northwestern had better athletes and when simply matching up with Chicago they played good in man to man. However, Chicago also got a lot of open shots. To me that seemed to indicate that at times NU wasn't t communicating when they switched on defense.

With the number of new players on the NU roster I'm not shocked that communication was an issue, but it is an issue which needs to be resolved. The future opponents Northwestern has will take advantage if they get a bunch of open shots or lanes to the basket. When players on NU's defense want to switch on screens they need to let their teammates know that is happening. This is something which will be especially true when facing the strong backcourt opponents in the Big Ten.

Of course, NU will use the 1-3-1 zone at some point. I think one major question with that defense is who aside from Alex Marcotullio should play at the point of that defense. The suspension of JerShon Cobb really hurts NU in the 1-3-1 but I'm hopeful that freshman Sanjay Lumpkin might have similar enough athletic ability to make things happen. Without a doubt throwing that defense at unsuspecting opponents is part of NU's success in recent years and it will be used this year.

Northwester hosts Texas Southern on Tuesday and that game will be carried live on the Big Ten Network. I'll have more on that match up the next couple days.

Some Quick Thoughts Post Chicago

For what tonight was I thought we saw a lot of good things from Northwestern. Remember, Coach Carmody probably wasn't playing anything like his normal rotation and that has to make an impact on the way things work. Plus, with nine new players on the roster (most of who played) you can't expect a perfect day the first time out in a real game. Still, NU won but left with lots to work on.

To me three big areas exist to work on. The first is that Chicago still managed to grab a lot of offensive rebounds despite NU's increase in height. Now, in someways it can be tougher to block out a quick 6-6 guy if you're 7 feet tall 270 plus pounds, but we can all agree we want NU doing better on the glass than they did tonight.

The second area of concern was free throw shooting. NU lost some early Big Ten games last year (most notably Illinois and Michigan) because they didn't shoot we'll at the charity strip. This team needs to improve in that area, especially because it looks like with their increased size that they'll get there somewhat regularly.

The final area where I'd like to see NU be more consistent is three point shooting. Tre Demps was on fire tonight but beyond that NU tossed a lot of bricks out there. I'm sure we'll see better nights from guys like Crawford and Sobolewski because we've seen them do it before, but the Wildcats need consistent three point games from those guys and guys like Jared Swopshire to compete in the Big Ten. I did like that Alex Olah hit a three and that Nikola Cerina seems to have a nice jump shot as well.

Aside from Demps, who to me was the most impressive player, and Crawford who was solid in limited time, I was most pleased with Olah. He wasn't facing great competition but he put the ball in the basket a variety of ways and looks more like a B1G center than many of NU's past centers did from day one. I also like that Cerina seems to have an outside game which he can use to help open up the inside.

I suspect we'll probably see less of guys like Ajou, Abrahamson, and James Montgomery III when we get into regular season games, but it was good to see those guys get time and I think they all learned a bit tonight.

What did everyone else think?

What do we expect vs Chicago?

Northwestern will play an exhibition game vs the University of Chicago tomorrow night. At one time this was a conference game but now UC is a division three team. The teams have met in regular seasons games since Chicago left the B1G but this contest is simply an exhibition in which I expect NU to use all of the 15 players on the roster. The end result could be a close game or even a Chicago win, but I'm not worried about the final score of this game. I'm much more concerned with seeing what combination Coach Bill Carmody puts on the court first and what players get some run off the bench. I'm also interested in seeing what the newcomers look like and seeing how comfortable they looking running the NU version of the Princeton Offense. I suspect transfers Nikola Cernia and Jared Swopshire will pick up what Coach Carmody wants them to do, but freshman center Alex Olah is a critical player for NU's tournament chances and how well he plays and how many points he produces could make a huge difference for the Wildcats.

Another guy who I think is critical for NU and who I can't wait to see on Wednesday is redshirt freshman guard Tre Demps. Dave Sobolewski had a great freshman year for Northwestern, but I feel like playing 36 minutes a game kind of led to him showing signs of fatigue down the stretch. Demps might be the guy who gives NU a solid backup point guard for the first time in my memory. That means Sobo can get a break for 10 minutes a game and be much energized down the stretch of games and in the stretch of the long Big Ten season. Demps was regarded as something of a guy who could score going at the hoop and hit an open shot if needed when he was recruited out of Reagan High School in Texas. If he brings those skills that'll be a nice compliment for what NU has in Sobo as well as his backcourt mates Reggie Hearn and Drew Crawford.

Finally, I hope NU plays man to man defense in this game. Yes, the 1-3-1 will be used by the 'Cats during the season but being able to play solid man to man defense might help NU vs some of their Big Ten opposition who has now seen the 1-3-1 for several years. I also wouldn't be shocked to see NU redeploy their match up zone which was a stable of Carmody's early years in Evanston but which hasn't been used as regularly in recent seasons.

 

…And We’re Back

We are back and ready to start the 2012-13 men’s basketball season for the Northwestern Wildcats. This is a season that many fans once again enter with great expectations, but it will feature a somewhat different looking Northwestern team. Gone is NU’s all-time leading scorer in John Shurna and missing due to suspension is dynamic (but often injured) guard JerShon Cobb. Instead, the Wildcats will need consistency from the maddeningly inconsistent Drew Crawford and some help inside from several fresh faces.



What do I expect this season? Well, I must admit that I feel similar to what I’ve felt the last couple years which is the feeling that NU will be right in the thick of the race for an NCAA Tournament bid, but will in the end fall a little short. What’s different though is that in the last few years NU’s failure to make the tournament was based on failures on defense or rebounding, this year I’m worried about offense. I think the ‘Cats will take a major step forward on the glass this season. Adding 7-foot 275-pound freshmen Alex Olah who is reported to be “the real deal” by NU insiders should help tremendously with the lack of rebounding NU struggled with in the past. In addition, Olah is reported to be a competent scorer around the basket who knows how to make sure the ball ends up in the hoop. Even better, he said that when watching the ‘Cats play last season he was most frustrated by the lack of offensive aggressiveness shown by his predecessors at center Luka Mirkovic and Davide Curletti. Olah will be joined in the starting front court by one of the more exciting additions NU has had via transfer. Jared Swopshire is a 6-8 forward who joins NU for a year as a grad student after playing three years for Louisville. Swop hit two threes in the Final Four against Michigan State last March. I’m not sure if any of NU’s other transfers (such as the big Mike Thompson) played in the Final Four at their previous schools, but I’m certain none were as significant contributors to a team which was just a step away from the National Title as Swopshire was. His addition should be a huge boost for NU not just in terms of talent, but in terms of providing NU a leader who knows what it takes to reach that next step which NU keeps missing. Backups in the front court are another transfer in 6-9 245-pound Nikola Cerina who sat out last year after transferring from TCU and 6-8 Mike Turner who redshirted last year, but is expected to provide NU with a unique athletic dimension the team has not previously featured. I’m probably most excited to see Cerina amongst the newcomers as he’s reported to be the team’s most explosive player. I’m really curious what that explosiveness looks like. NU also has three true freshmen front court players. 6-7 forward Kale Abrahamson, 6-10 Aaron “The Jewish Dwight Howard” Liberman, and 7-2 Chier Ajou. How much those three will play is unclear and I wouldn’t be shocked to see at least one redshirt, but without a doubt NU has more depth than ever before up front.



NU’s backcourt has some less depth thanks to JerShon Cobb’s academic issues, but the ‘Cats do return 6-5 swing man Drew Crawford who was third in the Big Ten in scoring last season along with fellow starters Dave Soblewski and Reggie Hearn. Hearn shot 44% from three point range in Big Ten games last year before hitting the wall totally in the NIT at Washington and looking like he couldn’t have thrown the ball into Lake Michigan from Lakeside Field. Sobolewski was one of the best distributors in the Big Ten last year as a freshman, but needs to become a more regular producer of points this season. The good news is that he showed flashes of offensive punch and if Olah, Swopshire, and Cerina make teams worry about NU’s production in the post it seems logical that Dave will be the player who most benefits. A close second to that might be Alex Marcotullio who probably contributed more last year as the dynamic defender at the top of NU’s 1-3-1 zone, but who has the ability to be a light’s out three point shooter. Alex Marco3llio4 as he goes by on twitter will need to drill some big threes this year and along with Crawford show the leadership Coach Bill Carmody needs from his seniors. Somewhere in the guard rotation should be redshirt freshmen Tre Demps and true freshmen Sanjay Lumpkin. I’m hoping both will provide not only added depth but a little more athletic skill which will get NU more points going towards the hoop and give Marcotullio some rest and help in playing aggressive defense.



The team plays an exhibition against former Big Ten Conference foe the University of Chicago this Wednesday and then opens officially next Tuesday against former Big Ten Conference coach Mike Davis and Texas Southern.