Previewing NW Bball

B1G basketball > SEC football.

B-1-G!  B-1-G!

I remember seeing that Hearn will most likely miss this game as well, which should help us out since it looks unlikely Thjr will play tonight.

Purdue looked decent last night. Illinois is going to struggle if their secondary shooters don't stop shooting so many 3s (which amounted to almost half of their shots), but Purdue looked solid enough to give good teams trouble at Mackey. They may be figuring out their roles after losing Hummel and a few other guys. Our end of season game there could be a huge trap game, sandwiched between home games against MSU and IU.

As for the game tonight, I'll be shocked if it's close. NU is just too beat up to stay with us, even with THJ out. This game will be a good test of the defensive discipline of the freshman. If Stauskas and GRIII are getting killed by backcuts, it may be reason to worry.

What Purdue did to Illinois last night is confirmation that you can't take any game lightly.  And like you said, Northwestern has played us annoyingly close the last couple years, it doesn't matter if the game's at Crisler or their little high school arena. 

I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the Wildcats, though.  I didn't know they won at Baylor.  That's an impressive road win.

Our next door neighbor, who is also a Michigan alum, came up with tickets - $10 each in the floor section right behind the basket. I got 8 of them, so I invited my whole family, all Michigan fans and alums. BUT - and here's the rub - the tickets were procured through our elementary school, who made a deal with NW. We are all requested to wear purple, and cheer for NW because we'll likely be on TV in those seats. I assume this is because the students aren't back yet from winter break. So....my daughter will wear her one Northwestern t-shirt. The rest of us will forego our maize and blue for seats to the game. And we will try not to cheer too obnoxiously for Michigan.

The loss of Hearn tonight could be devastating to Northwestern, as he is one of the three players that literally account for 51% of all their points to date (that included Crawford, who is of course out for the season now), with Hearn himself being responsible for 20% of their total points. I have to think that Michigan wins by a comfortable margin over the somewhat infirmed Wildcats based on that, but as others have mentioned, we've had some brushes, including a win by all of two points last year. Going back further, wins by margins of nine and twelve as well, so in the recent past, these have definitely been competitive games.

Past performance will have no bearing on tonight's game. We are fortunate our freshman can ease their way into road games with @Bradley and @Northwestern because the next one is @Ohio and we're going to need everyone healthy and ready for that game.

Also, Iowa at home scares me... but not Northwestern this year, especially tonight.