Northwestern beats State at the Breslin

Submitted by Yinka Double Dare on
One of the more unlikely results of the conference season as Northwestern deals State their first conference loss, in East Lansing no less. Let's hope Northwestern got the good out of their system tonight and sucks when they play us this Saturday.

DoctorWorm

January 21st, 2009 at 9:57 PM ^

Kobel had the hand of God behind him today. Northwestern is mediocre, Michigan should handle them easily at Crisler. He was heaving up shots from half court without even looking and getting nothing but net, basically. Just one of those days. Won't happen again in his lifetime.

ShockFX

January 21st, 2009 at 10:11 PM ^

"He was heaving up shots from half court without even looking and getting nothing but net, basically. " I swear, if you take away the 'getting nothing but net' part, that perfectly describes our offense against PSU last night.

littlebrownjug

January 22nd, 2009 at 8:10 AM ^

I've followed Bill Carmody and Mitch Henderson since they were at Princeton, and it is awesome to see a team with inferior talent beat a mightier foe. It really is quite simple what they do, as they all run back after they put up a shot. While this is not good for their offensive rebounding statistics, it effectively prohibits their more athletic opponent to run (this is where the tempo is slowed down; not on offense as so many think). Given that so many teams cannot run a patient half court offense, it leads them to take silly shots. On the offensive end this style of play is tremendous (you need a really solid big man, who can shoot the three, pass and move without the ball), because there are numerous options at every step of the play. What usually gets opponents is the fact that teams like Princeton and Northwestern run consistently for 40 seconds (it is impossible to replicate the speed of this offense in practice. In many ways, it reminds me of someone trying to prepare to play a team like Florida in football. They have so many uber-athletic wr that one cannot really appreciate them until they reach the field.). I remember SI's story about the spread of the Princeton offense a few years ago, and any of you basketball historians will know about Phil Jackson's triangle offense (this was rooted in Pete Carril's Princeton offense of the 1960s). I have to admit that I really like watching Tom Izzo's teams play (esp. man-to-man defense and rebounding), but, as a lifelong Princeton fan, I have to say that any team who runs this offense will secure my allegiance. In a way, that is why it is possible for me to watch Michigan again, because Coach B's offensive philosophy is similar. Long live Kit Mueller!