Getting to know Northwestern

13-14 Basketball185

The Chris Collins led Wildcats of Northwestern will be the Wolfpack’s opponent in tonight’s matchup in the ACC/B10 Challenge (ESPNU 7:30pm). Northwestern is currently 4-4 after a playing in the Las Vegas Invitational. They have played actual competition in their losses to Stanford, Missouri, and UCLA, with their worst loss coming against Illinois State. Where they are unknown is their wins, Eastern Illinois, Illinois Chicago, IUPUI, and Gardner Webb. They are a guard oriented three point shooting team that mainly plays man defense, though we all know it’ll be a heavy dose of zone against the Pack. One of their best players, Drew Crawford, has been sidelined due to back spasms that forced him to miss all of their last game, UCLA, and limited to a handful of minutes in the previous game, Missouri.

Henry Bushnell (InsideNU.com)
Northwestern Basketball Practice Notes: 12/3

– Crawford practiced yesterday, and is sure he will play on Wednesday. Collins was a little more reticent given the nature of the injury (back spasms), saying that they were “cautiously optimistic” about Crawford’s availability.

Crawford did say that one added benefit will be the charter flight that the team will take to Raleigh. He also noted that he will use an electronic muscle stimulation machine on the plane in an attempt to subdue the negative effects that the flight can have on his injury – it flared up on the plane to Vegas.
Collins also talked about how big of a blow it was when Crawford left the Missouri game due to injury. “That lets the air out of the building a little bit,” he said. “He [Crawford] is our leader. He’s kind of the big brother on the team. I think the guys saw him go down and it knocked them back a little bit. You’re always more confident when your big brother is at your side.”

Crawford himself downplayed the impact a bit. “I think my teammates are capable of playing great without me,” he insisted. “But that being said, I want to be on the court, to help my team, to show them that I’m leading by example.”

If Crawford can play these are the likely starters:

#23 JerShon Cobb : 6-5 Jr. Guard (43.3% 3FG)
#1 Drew Crawford : 6-5 R-Sr. Guard/Forward (44% 3FG)
#3 Dave Sobolewski : 6-1 Jr. Guard (25% 3FG)
#14 Tre Demps : 6-2 So. Guard (37% 3FG)
#22 Alex Olah : 7-0 So. Center

The Wildcats don’t like to push tempo, 64.6 (ranked 319 in the country), but they are fairly efficient. Now being a guard heavy team that loves shooting the 3 (34.3% of their points come from 3pointers) while averaging 37% from behind the arc they aren’t bad inside the arc either (51%) and okay at the line (71%). On defense they mostly use a man defense and are pretty bad at taking the ball away so we’ve got that going for us.

Coming off the bench will likely be:

#34 Sanjay Lumpkin : 6-6 So. Guard/Forward (55.6% 3FG – 5/9)
#32 Nathon Taphorn : 6-7 Fr. Forward (30.8% 3FG)
#13 Kale Abrahamson : 6-7 So. Forward (45% 3FG)

When Taphorn comes in the game the only place he’ll shoot from is behind the arc. Of the 10/30 FG’s this season he’s 8/26 3FG. It’s pretty clear, this team is going to slow it down, run a half-court offense, and take as many 3 point shots as they can.

More from KenPom:

NC State
Adj. Offensive Efficiency = 110.1 (58 – National Rank)
Adj. Defensive Efficiency = 102.6 (153)
Adj. Tempo = 68.2 (200)

Four Factors:
Effective FG% (Offense) = 52.7 (76) …. (Defense) = 46.4 (89)
Turnover % (Offense) = 15.0 (35) …. (Defense) = 19.9 (94)
Off. Reb % (Offense) = 38.3 (38) …. (Defense) = 30.7 (139)
FTA/FGA (Offense) = 34.0 (283) …. (Defense) = 44.4 (225)

Northwestern
Adj. Offensive Efficiency = 106.3 (118)
Adj. Defensive Efficiency = 102.1 (140)
Adj. Tempo = 64.6 (319)

Four Factors:
Effective FG% (Offense) = 53.2 (67) …. (Defense) = 48.6 (150)
Turnover % (Offense) = 18.0 (163) …. (Defense) = 16.5 (270)
Off. Reb % (Offense) = 26.3 (301) …. (Defense) = 28.6 (73)
FTA/FGA (Offense) = 44.8 (123) …. (Defense) = 48.6 (269)

Pomeroy likes us to win 72-66 giving us a 73% chance.

Just so you know, State is currently on a 5 game losing streak in the ACC/B10 Challenge with a 5-8 Overall Record and a 4-2 Home Record during the Challenge. Northwestern is on a 1 game losing streak with a 6-8 Overall Record and 2-5 Away Record in the Challenge.

Here’s a couple of previews for the game:

Joe Giglio (N&O)
Wolfpack zoning in on perimeter improvement

Ryan Tice (TheWolfpacker.com)
Pack expects to see threes and zone defense

About 1.21 Jigawatts

Class of '98, Mechanical Engineer, State fan since arriving on campus and it's been a painful ride ever since. I live by the Law of NC State Fandom, "For every Elation there is an equal and opposite Frustration."

13-14 Basketball

185 Responses to Getting to know Northwestern

  1. wilmwolf80 12/05/2013 at 12:57 PM #

    I don’t think think the games so far have been an accurate measure of the fan atmosphere inside the PNC. At the EKU game, even the student section was only 1/3 full. When we get to bigger games, the home court advantage and viciousness of the fans will show itself. And Deano Gaudio has told the same story about our fans both games that he has announced of ours this year, so that may be why you’ve heard it twice.

  2. bill.onthebeach 12/05/2013 at 12:57 PM #

    I woke up with a bad dream early this morning….

    Couldn’t get that frontline of Meeks, Johnson and MacAdon’t out of my head….

    PJ who ???

  3. VaWolf82 12/05/2013 at 1:22 PM #

    No way we finish behind all those teams.

    I don’t have nearly that much confidence after losing to Central.

  4. bill.onthebeach 12/05/2013 at 2:09 PM #

    On a better note… Sanity has prevailed down in Tallahassee.

  5. TheCOWDOG 12/05/2013 at 2:10 PM #

    They appear to be a well coached team.

    Love the way they found the elbow flasher in the UCLA Cockeyed 1-3-1. That set was designed to bust sagging D for another good scorer in Keith Wilkes, in the days prior to the arc.

    If State’s shooters begin to relax and square up on the deeper ball, they’ll be much better down the line. They rushed some very good looks in the first half.

  6. Wulfpack 12/05/2013 at 2:13 PM #

    It is amazing what short memories/lack of perspective some fans have. As it stands today, I have ZERO clue how well this team will do in conference. It is all about the growth that will, or will not, take place.

    Glad for Jameis and the Noles, and that there was apparently no substance to the accuser’s story. They are going to win it all and he will be your Heisman winner.

  7. TheCOWDOG 12/05/2013 at 2:57 PM #

    ^ The only substance to the story…Well…Was in her knickers.

    🙂

  8. bill.onthebeach 12/05/2013 at 3:08 PM #

    ^On more than one occasion… it seems..

    If ya’ll saw the presser… the DA (who is an FSU undergrad and FSU-Law School grad ) reminded me of some old guy in a courtroom in Sampson county.

    When he reminded the reporters not to publish the accusers name….

    “We got plenty of work down here… don’t make us come after you.”

    and closed with…

    “We wanna thank ya’ll for being here today.”

    He should handled that case for that Martin kid last year.

    So much for FLA sterotypes.

  9. bill-1956 12/05/2013 at 4:01 PM #

    I was at the game so I’m late to the comments.

    Just like on SFN – During the game the topic came up of ‘what to nickname BeeJay?”.

    I relayed SFN’s “King Hippo”. But after some lively discussion – the folks in my section (129) came to a consensus of – “Yum Yum”.

    It’s an endearment; sounds good in conversation; rolls off the tongue; and has many, many applicable connotations.

    BTW – In person (from afar in Section 129) – he looks like he’s lost some weight. Really!

  10. wilmwolf80 12/05/2013 at 4:16 PM #

    ^I agree. Seeing him in person the other day, I could tell that he had lost weight. Jersey is a little looser than it was in the opening few games. That, or they got him a bigger jersey. But really, there is no reason he won’t continue to shed pounds with the regimen they have him on. If he stays away from the Budweiser (the source of my freshman 15, um 30), he’ll continue to transform.

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