TicketCity Bowl Preview

I have received many requests to preview our bowl game, so I will waste no more time and comply. First a little background info. The TicketCity bowl is in its inaugural season and will be played at noon eastern time in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. It will be shown on ESPN U and will feature the Texas Tech Red Raiders and, of course, our Northwestern Wildcats. Now that the basics our taken care of, let's take a point-by-point look at our opponent, the Red Raiders.

• Coach: Tommy Tuberville is the first-year coach of Texas Tech. He got the position following Texas Tech's firing of Mike Leach after a strange controversy over the alleged mistreatment of a player. Anyways, Tuberville has been a very successful coach throughout his career, during which he previously also coached Ole Miss and Auburn, holding a 117-65 record, with a 6-3 record in bowl games. Despite going 7-5, this season was most likely a disappointment for Tuberville,but I expect him to shine in the future as he continues to transition the pass-heavy Red Raiders into a more balanced team, the type of style he has used in the past.
• Pass Offense: Texas Tech under Mike Leach was a pass-heavy team, to say the least. In 2007, TT averaged an insane 470.3 pass yrds/game, subsequently averaging 413.2 and 386.8 in '08 and '09 respectively. Tommy Tuberville, despite running a less pass-heavy offense than Leach, still has a team averaging an impressive 314.8 yrds/game, 8th best in the country. The quarterback of this passing attack is the senior quarterback Taylor Potts,  who has thrown 31 TDs this season (6th in the country) while completing 66.0% of his passes (18th) and has thrown 8 or 9 interceptions depending on where you look (how there can be a discrepancy on interception stats, I have no idea). Particularly scary about the Texas Tech pass offense is their ability to spread the ball to a number of receivers. 8 TT players have 25+ receptions this season. Compare this to the 'Cats who only have 3 players in this category. The primary threat, however, is Lyle Leong, a senior who has pulled in a frightening 17 TDs (2nd in the country), with 64 recoveries and 808 yrds. The second greatest threat is Detron Lewis, a senior with 79 catches, 803 yards, and 6 TDs. One other interesting point is that no one listed as a tight end shows up on Texas Tech's reception stat sheet. In fact, it seems they don't even have any on the roster. Expect Texas Tech to have 4-5 WRs on the field for just about every play.                                                           The question is, how does this look for the 'Cats? The answer: not great. NU's pass defense has been pretty lousy, letting up 230.5 yards/game (85th), and they haven't seen any teams who run an offense even remotely like the Red Raiders. I don't think the corners will have much success keeping up with TT's receivers, so our safeties will have to step it up big time. Also, the 'Cats will most likely have to play a lot in the nickel to guarantee they can cover every receiver, so expect Hunter Bates to see lots of playing time.
• Rush Offense: TT has not traditionally been a running team, and while they can by no means be seen as a smashmouth running team this year, the backs are seeing a few more carries. The Red Raiders average 137.8 yards per game on the ground (81st), with the plurality of these yards coming from senior Baron Batch. Batch has picked up 805 yards and 5 TDs on 172 carries. Most of the rest of the running burden has fallen on sophomore Eric Stephens, who has 542 yards and 5 TDs on 113 carries. Don't expect Potts to be a threat in the running game. He has -15 yards on 31 carries.                                                                                             All of this bodes fairly well for the 'Cats, especially Potts's apparent inability to run. QB runs, or the threat of QB runs, have been the death of the 'Cats this year (see Purdue and Illinois). And while the 'Cats cannot completely ignore the Red Raider running backs, it seems they can thankfully put the majority of their focus into defending the passing game.

Northwestern vs. St. John's Recap

Well, the 'Cats finally lost. NU was defended well by an athletic St. John's team using a man-to-man defense, and the 'Cats' zone could not keep the Red Storm out of the post. Northwestern particularly struggled in the second half, being outscored 48-29. Luka looked completely overmatched, despite 12 rebounds, scoring only 2 points. St. John's shot 60.8% from the field and 50.0% from the arc, while Northwestern was at only 41.0 and 37.0. St. John's is clearly a very good, highly athletic team who has simply underachieved up to this point; however, the 'Cats will no doubt face tougher tests in the Big 10 and absolutely must improve.

NU vs St. John's Game Thread

I will be using the comment space of this post to write about the game in real time, and anyone else can feel free to write comments or observations. Go 'Cats!

NU Basketball Thus Far

Northwestern is 7-0, and with our next game being played tonight, it seems as good a time as ever to break my long hiatus from blogging. So let's take a look at the 'Cat's season thus far.

NU has only played 7 games up to this point, well below the national average, so it is a bit hard to make definitive claims, but it still appears Northwestern is a very good team, particularly on the offensive front. So far, the 'Cats have put up 80.0 points per game, good for 24th nationally (out of 346 teams) and first in the Big Ten. They have also shot .507 from the field, good for 5th in the country, and they are third in the country in adjusted field goal percentage (a measure that weights the value of 3-point shots) with a .595, behind only Kansas and Georgetown. It can be argued that these outstanding statistics are due only to the defensive weakness of Northwestern's opponents, but the Wildcats put up 91 against Georgia Tech, whose defense has otherwise been fairly solid. And even if these numbers are bolstered by weak competition, they are still rather remarkable. So the 'Cats are clearly having a good offensive year, but what factors have led them to be just as good as they are?

• John Shurna: Shurna has been All-American quality good so far this season. It is difficult to explain just how much he has contributed to the team. He has dropped 23.7 points per game, 9th best in the country, despite having fewer shot attempts per game than anyone else in the top 35 in scoring. This is due in large part to an unreal shooting percentage. Shurna has knocked down an almost unbelievable 64.3% of his shots. The only other perimeter players with  even remotely comparable shooting percentages are Kyle Cassity of St. Louis and Ayron Hardy of Jacksonville with .627 and .622 shooting percentages respectively. He also holds an insane .622 3-pointer percentage, 4th best in the country, while averaging more attempts per game than anyone else in the top 20. Add his 3.1 assists per game, 4.7 rebounds per game, 1.4 steals per game, and 1 block per game, and it begins to become clear just how valuable this guy is. 
• Michael "Juice" Thompson: The other half of "John and Juice" and the 'Cats' only senior starter, Juice is an extremely important part of the team. By far the best ball handler on the team, Juice has started driving to the basket more this year, making him an increasingly dangerous part of the offense. While his perimeter shooting is down a bit this year (.396 behind the arc), he still can be extremely dangerous if left open, and his overall shooting percentage is at a career high of .494. His 16.3 ppg and 4.6 apg are also at career highs. 
• Drew Crawford: Crawford has been somewhat off and on this season, and seems to still be trying to figure out his role, but when he is good, he is very good. He sometimes seems to take too many outside shots and is averaging only .313 behind the arc, so he should probably back off many of these. He has otherwise been very solid with a .457 FG% and 13.9 ppg. 
• Luka Mirkovic: I really don't know whether to say Luka has been good or bad this year. He frequently looks very sloppy, but his production has to be evaluated as being at least decent. He is averaging only 6.9 ppg, but he is shooting .500 and turning the ball over rarely, with a very good 2.43 assists per turnover. His 7.0 rebounds per game are also well over his career average. While the center position will not be Northwestern's strong suit, and Luka may not be the Wildcats' greatest asset, he has not been a liability. 
• Ball Movement/Control: The 'Cats this year have played smart, safe basketball, picking up loads of assists while protecting the ball. Northwestern's 17.6 assists per game is 12th best in the country, while their 10.6 turnovers per game is 8th best in the country. This leaves their assist to turnover ratio at 1.66, 3rd best in the nation. 

Clearly there is a lot to like about the 'Cats so far, but there are surely some areas in need of improvement as well, let's take a look at those:

• Rebounds: Northwestern's 31 rebounds per game leaves them at 320th in the nation and dead last in the Big 10. This clearly is a bad stat, and no matter how I spin it, it is not good. However, I can come to the 'Cats' defense a bit. Northwestern is actually outrebounding their opponents, who are average 30.9 rebounds per game. To put it simply, there are not many  rebounds to get in 'Cats games due to a lack of missed shots. Because the 'Cats don't miss many shots, they average only 8 offensive rebounds per game. 
• Opponent Field Goal Percentage: Opponents have shot .436 against Northwestern, leaving the NU defense 210th in this category. Fortunately, coverage behind the arc has been somewhat better, as opponents have shot .323 for threes, leaving NU 125th in this category. 
• Steals: Northwestern has 8 steals per game, which is by no means a bad number, but Northwestern runs primarily a 1-3-1 defense. This is a defense predicated around forcing turnovers, so you know the 'Cats want this number to improve. 
• Free Throws: The 'Cats are shooting .694 from the line, which, again, is not a terrible number, but you would expect better from such a good shooting team. 

So Northwestern is far from perfect, but I will absolutely take what we have seen from them thus far. Now that we have seen what the 'Cats have looked like thus far, let's break down tonight's game.

Northwestern tonight will be playing the Terriers of St. Francis, a private, 2,300-person school from New York. The Terriers have an RPI of 172, compared to Northwestern's of 51. They are a 6-3 team averaging 65.3 ppg, while allowing 61.7 ppg. Their shooting has been well below Northwestern standards at .420 from the floor and .341 from behind the arc, but they have slightly outrebounded the 'Cats with 31.2 per game. The Terriers have a lousy .74 assist to turnover ratio but have a pretty decent 8.2 steals per game. By all accounts, this should be an easy Wildcat victory, and I would expect Northwestern to win by 20.

One final note: I have gotten way behind on blogging. There are a lot of things I want to cover that I just haven't gotten around to and likely may not. If there is anything any of y'all want me to discuss, let me know in the comments, and I'll try to get to it. I'm curious what you all want to read about.

Northwestern Bowl Selection

As you no doubt have noticed, I haven't posted in a while. Moral of the story: Finals are time-consuming. I will pick up posting again soon, but for now I just want to report Northwestern's bowl is now official. We will be playing Texas Tech on New Year's Day in the TicketCity Bowl in Dallas. Not the best bowl ever, but hopefully it will give us an opportunity to end our bowl drought.