Illinois vs. Northwestern

[Da Coach]

#23 ranked Illinois is playing at 7-9 Northwestern tonight, and both teams are struggling with their offense. The halftime score was 22-15 in favor of Northwestern. And in the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half things have been even worse for the Illini. They have been outscored 3-2 and Northwestern leads 25-17 with 14:11 left to play in an ugly game.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/playbyplay?gameId=400509980

Leading scorer Rayvonte Rice is 0-7 from the field, and as a team, the Illini are 8-42 (19%), and 0-12 from three.

[tornado]

Looks like the Illini's stay in the Top 25 will be short...they lose to Northwestern 49-43.
..and using the logic we have seen here recently - Northwestern didn't just play close to the Illini they beat them .....so I guess this proves that NORTHWESTERN is about to break out and vastly change their fortunes
and start kicking butt in the Big Ten because of how well they played against one of the ranked & contending teams.

Illini fans are cringing - they think they now see their true offense & lack of ability to matchup - having played a lot of softies (including us) up to this point..
Their combined shooting in the past two games (a blowout loss to Wisconsin and this one) is 43-140 - 30.7%, and 9-38 - 23.7% from the arc.

In an equally ugly and low scoring game, NIU beats Bowling Green 45-36.

What's odd is that quite a few games are now showing scores in the 30's, 40's and low 50's... (UIC scored only 53, Utah 46, USC 53) - in fact of the 160 or so DI games Saturday & Sunday ~40% of them had a team score 60 or fewer.
Looks like the NCAA's new-ref-rules to assure more offense have slipped back to what they were.

[wily coyote]

Looks like the Illini's stay in the Top 25 will be short...they lose to Northwestern 49-43.
..and using the logic we have seen here recently - Northwestern didn't just play close to the Illini they beat them .....so I guess this proves that NORTHWESTERN is about to break out and vastly change their fortunes
and start kicking butt in the Big Ten because of how well they played against one of the ranked & contending teams.

Illini fans are cringing - they think they now see their true offense & lack of ability to matchup - having played a lot of softies (including us) up to this point..
Their combined shooting in the past two games (a blowout loss to Wisconsin and this one) is 43-140 - 30.7%, and 9-38 - 23.7% from the arc.

In an equally ugly and low scoring game, NIU beats Bowling Green 45-36.

What's odd is that quite a few games are now showing scores in the 30's, 40's and low 50's... (UIC scored only 53, Utah 46, USC 53) - in fact of the 160 or so DI games Saturday & Sunday ~40% of them had a team score 60 or fewer.
Looks like the NCAA's new-ref-rules to assure more offense have slipped back to what they were.

Don't think it's what you call new ref rules but is just bad basketball teams.Either way it would not be fun to watch.

[bradleyfan124]

Throwing up wild off balance shots. I thought I was watching bradley there for a minute.

[tornado]

Strange happenings in the Big Ten-
Northwestern now goes to Indiana and holds the Hoosiers to under 50 as well - and knocks them off...

I have to admit that despite the announcers droning on about Tom Crean's (they incorrectly called him Tom Izzo a few times) coaching genius & expertise...
Crean kinda made some really strange moves in this game.

First, Northwestern was without their point guard and had no real ballhandler - yet Crean really didn't pressure them.
In fact he played several walk-ons (Jonny Marlin, Jeff Howard) at key times when he needed a stop!

then he's got his 7-foot center Noah Vonleh shooting 3's late in the game when he needed a basket...

Indiana had just 30 points with 8 minutes to go and scored only 47 in the game...
but they looked out of control, wild, confused, and a little big like street ball with their terrible shot selection.


Even though Northwestern was gassed and needed some help with players out & injured -
Nate Taphorn never got off the bench and Chris Collins went the whole way with just 7 players!
Hate to say it but just maybe he's not going to get PT there

[Braves2006]

Love the 'Cats. Another great win!

[MacabreMob]

Maybe Northwestern is heading in the right direction.... maybe find themselves THE state school, THE premier state school of Illinois, the "Duke" of Illinois.

[LongTimeFan]

You have to root for the underdog. Nothwestern has been down, in basketball, for so long that it is nice to see their success. Their turnaround may give hope for Bradley basketball.

[MacabreMob]

You have to root for the underdog. Nothwestern has been down, in basketball, for so long that it is nice to see their success. Their turnaround may give hope for Bradley basketball.

They have been down so long... but... when were they EVER up?

[tornado]

Illini play very poorly once again, and even though Ohio State had an equally bad game, Illinois came out on the losing end 62-55
and dropping Illinois to 2-5, only one game out of last place in the Big Ten.

Rayvonte Rice was 0-8 and scoreless, and Illini got almost nothing again off their bench.

so even tho basketball is sliding and football is terrible at Illinois - their AD gets a big raise to $550,000

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140123/SPORTS/140129553/11130/SPORTS?rssfeed=true

One other score of interest -
Dana Altman & Oregon were 12-0 & ranked - in the non-conference part of their schedule but...
now they are just 1-5 and at the bottom of the Pac-12!