(01-25-2020 06:33 PM)dc1 Wrote:  I don’t think it’s the record he just hasn’t shot well this whole season. Geno practices and puts in so much time on his own but during games I don’t see much intensity! He is almost asleep if he doesn’t have the ball or is on defense. I’ll guess he breaks the record next Saturday

This is the kind of comment that makes me wonder if there's something wrong with my ESPN+ feed.

If you can watch Eugene German and come away with the impression of not much intensity and falling asleep if he doesn't have the ball or is on defense, then you and I will absolutely never agree on anything.

Official website now says attendance 1,030. LiveStats did not work (again) for the last 1:24 of the game. Someone trip over the cord again?

(01-25-2020 06:45 PM)Big Red Wrote:  

(01-25-2020 06:33 PM)dc1 Wrote:  I don’t think it’s the record he just hasn’t shot well this whole season. Geno practices and puts in so much time on his own but during games I don’t see much intensity! He is almost asleep if he doesn’t have the ball or is on defense. I’ll guess he breaks the record next Saturday

This is the kind of comment that makes me wonder if there's something wrong with my ESPN+ feed.

If you can watch Eugene German and come away with the impression of not much intensity and falling asleep if he doesn't have the ball or is on defense, then you and I will absolutely never agree on anything.

Let's be honest , there is not much help for him on offense. I think his erratic play can be explained by that. He feels like like he has to do it all and in many cases he does

Three guys in double figures again. We look better when the scoring is spread around.

BigRed, when Geno is on offense with the ball he is into it. He is very bad and slow to react when he is on defense. You must not be able to hear Monty or see Monty getting after him constantly when he is on defense. I think at the midday Monty said “ we need Geno to step up defensively if we’re going to be good”.

At the game today and crowd felt like 1300 or so. Suprised to see only a little over 1000. Uniforms looked great in person IMO. Cochran is a grinder and has a nose and determination to get any loose ball. He was a difference maker in second half. Beene is a talented dude and is fun to watch. A few great passes on the interior. McCarty with workmanlike performance but dribbled into trouble several times. That nervous one dribble underneath the basket is a killer for. Our big men. Nice win.

(01-25-2020 07:14 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  

(01-25-2020 06:45 PM)Big Red Wrote:  

(01-25-2020 06:33 PM)dc1 Wrote:  I don’t think it’s the record he just hasn’t shot well this whole season. Geno practices and puts in so much time on his own but during games I don’t see much intensity! He is almost asleep if he doesn’t have the ball or is on defense. I’ll guess he breaks the record next Saturday

This is the kind of comment that makes me wonder if there's something wrong with my ESPN+ feed.

If you can watch Eugene German and come away with the impression of not much intensity and falling asleep if he doesn't have the ball or is on defense, then you and I will absolutely never agree on anything.

Let's be honest , there is not much help for him on offense. I think his erratic play can be explained by that. He feels like like he has to do it all and in many cases he does

And, for the entirety of his career, his teammates have typically been fine with that arrangement.

The Huskies are playing some amazing defense this year. Hankerson shut down Flowers today who is one of the better scorers in the MAC. Beane is a lock down defender and Cochran creates steals, turnovers, and hustle rebounds. Daow is strong defensively and our bigs can rebound. Chris Johnson showed up today too. Huskies shut down Justin Turner at Bowling Green. Keno Davis said that NIU is always a pain to play and is the best defensive team in the MAC.

Although this team can be inconsistent on offense, They are exciting and fun to watch.

(01-25-2020 07:37 PM)ChicagoHuskie Wrote:  At the game today and crowd felt like 1300 or so. Suprised to see only a little over 1000. Uniforms looked great in person IMO. Cochran is a grinder and has a nose and determination to get any loose ball. He was a difference maker in second half. Beene is a talented dude and is fun to watch. A few great passes on the interior. McCarty with workmanlike performance but dribbled into trouble several times. That nervous one dribble underneath the basket is a killer for. Our big men. Nice win.

His averages in rebounds per game have been 4 to 5 for the past two season. Last season, he had a higher defensive rebound percentage than both James and McCarty and was right in line with Bradley. For comparison, last season he averaged 4.6 def rebounds per game. Dante Thorpe averaged 2.3. This year, he's averaging 4 drb/game. Last year, he had a higher drb/game than Levi Bradley ever had in his 4 years at NIU and this year, German is only .2 drb/gm shy of Bradley's best season.

But I guess those defensive rebounds are just luckily falling into his lap.

He also averages 1.2 steals per game which is basically what Thorpe did last year (1.1).

I get that Monty yells at him, but hell, Monty yells at everyone.

He’s not a good defender so just stop! It’s ok

(01-25-2020 07:55 PM)dc1 Wrote:  He’s not a good defender so just stop! It’s ok

I never said he was some sort of defensive stalwart. But painted a picture of him being lazy and uninterested in anything if he doesn't have the ball in his hand.

How about you "just stop!" It's ok.

BG hands Toledo a loss in Savage and makes a statement tonight. Looks like that seeding for 3 to 7 will be quite.jumbled up

Here are my rest of year mock lines for NIU to this point, I only have NIU as favorites in 3 more games, and 2 of those 3 are the next 2 games

Projected Conference Wins: 8.9
Projected Seed: #8
First Round MAC Tourney Game: A rematch of #8 NIU/#9 Ohio in DeKalb from last year's matchup

Ohio, NIU by 4
Miami-OH, NIU by 5
@ Toledo, Toledo by 10
Kent State, Kent by 2.5
@ Ball State, Ball State by 9
@ Miami-OH, Miami-OH by 2.5
Central Michigan, NIU by 3
@ Eastern Michigan, EMU by 2
@ Western Michigan, WMU by 1.5
Toledo, Toledo by 2
Ball State, Ball State by 1.5

Thanks for the analysis, MD. Gives us something to work with in these debates. For me, I just want to see NIU finish in the top 8, get a home MACT game and then see what happens.

Northern still needs (another) point guard, a couple aggressive bigs, a good shooter who can scramble on defense, some good ball handling, some attendance for home court advantage, some ...

(01-26-2020 09:03 AM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  Here are my rest of year mock lines for NIU to this point, I only have NIU as favorites in 3 more games, and 2 of those 3 are the next 2 games

Projected Conference Wins: 8.9
Projected Seed: #8
First Round MAC Tourney Game: A rematch of #8 NIU/#9 Ohio in DeKalb from last year's matchup

Ohio, NIU by 4
Miami-OH, NIU by 5
@ Toledo, Toledo by 10
Kent State, Kent by 2.5
@ Ball State, Ball State by 9
@ Miami-OH, Miami-OH by 2.5
Central Michigan, NIU by 3
@ Eastern Michigan, EMU by 2
@ Western Michigan, WMU by 1.5
Toledo, Toledo by 2
Ball State, Ball State by 1.5

MD—pretty cool stuff—-all those road underdog games by a bucket means we are a better team, just giving up home court advantage and that the conference tournament is going to be coin flip after coin flip. Not loving that you project us eighth...but there is probably not a possession or two difference between #3 and #9 or 10.

Being 3 or 4 eliminates one coin flip game that we or anyone else wants to be in. A ton of volatility in the conference this year (parity? Lack of a really good team?) so it’s there for the taking for a good handful of teams.

I am going to make a statement, but first let me give you some stats:

WMU game -WMU shot fg 33%, 3pt 32%
NIU shot 36% and 27% Our senior leader German 31% and 22% and James shot 18% and 0% and we still won.

KSU game - KSU shot 41% and 33%

BGSU game - BGSU shot 33% and 28%

On offense the Huskies are not shooting lights out but they are winning. The team is playing Monty's defense and holding MAC teams under their season average. Yeah we got slaughtered by Akron, but have won or been competitive in the rest of our MAC games. Hopefully our seniors will get back on track. And yes, it is nice that some of the younger guys are stepping up.

GO HUSKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good points on defense, Pantone1935. I had over-looked some of that. Also noted NIU only plays Akron that one time, so some relief there.

Some more MAC stats. Some surprised me.

Teams scoring average and what Huskies held them to.
Buf 84.9/72
CMU 82.7/68
BG 78.5/66
KS 75.2/69
WMU 70.2/52
EMU 68.8/68
Akr 68.8/72

NIU is 1st in FG% and 4th in 3pt% (both a surprise).
NIU is 5th in defending FG% and 10th in defending 3pt%.

And I am sure thxjoenovak will point out that stats are for losers.

GO HUSKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(01-26-2020 09:03 AM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  Here are my rest of year mock lines for NIU to this point, I only have NIU as favorites in 3 more games, and 2 of those 3 are the next 2 games

Projected Conference Wins: 8.9
Projected Seed: #8
First Round MAC Tourney Game: A rematch of #8 NIU/#9 Ohio in DeKalb from last year's matchup

Ohio, NIU by 4
Miami-OH, NIU by 5
@ Toledo, Toledo by 10
Kent State, Kent by 2.5
@ Ball State, Ball State by 9
@ Miami-OH, Miami-OH by 2.5
Central Michigan, NIU by 3
@ Eastern Michigan, EMU by 2
@ Western Michigan, WMU by 1.5
Toledo, Toledo by 2
Ball State, Ball State by 1.5

No road wins? 2 of our first 3 wins came on the road against teams we shouldn't have beat, statistically!
Tuesday game will tell. Beat Ohio, go up 5-3 MAC, sky is the limit. That road loss to CMU being up by 4 points under 10 seconds still stings!
Every game is a toss-up. Who comes to play?

(01-26-2020 10:34 AM)Milwaukee Pilot Wrote:  

(01-26-2020 09:03 AM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  Here are my rest of year mock lines for NIU to this point, I only have NIU as favorites in 3 more games, and 2 of those 3 are the next 2 games

Projected Conference Wins: 8.9
Projected Seed: #8
First Round MAC Tourney Game: A rematch of #8 NIU/#9 Ohio in DeKalb from last year's matchup

Ohio, NIU by 4
Miami-OH, NIU by 5
@ Toledo, Toledo by 10
Kent State, Kent by 2.5
@ Ball State, Ball State by 9
@ Miami-OH, Miami-OH by 2.5
Central Michigan, NIU by 3
@ Eastern Michigan, EMU by 2
@ Western Michigan, WMU by 1.5
Toledo, Toledo by 2
Ball State, Ball State by 1.5

MD—pretty cool stuff—-all those road underdog games by a bucket means we are a better team, just giving up home court advantage and that the conference tournament is going to be coin flip after coin flip. Not loving that you project us eighth...but there is probably not a possession or two difference between #3 and #9 or 10.

Being 3 or 4 eliminates one coin flip game that we or anyone else wants to be in. A ton of volatility in the conference this year (parity? Lack of a really good team?) so it’s there for the taking for a good handful of teams.

Thanks pvk and Milwaukee. Yeah you are correct, the difference between 8 and 4 is pretty darn small. Luckily on the other end, I think NIU is developing some good padding that 8th seed could be a realistic basement. Here is how I have the total conference wins

1. Akron 13.5
2. Ball State 11.5
3. BGSU 11.4
4. Kent State 10.9
5. Toledo 10.4
6. CMU 9.5
7. Buffalo 9.4
8. NIU 8.9
9. Ohio 6.4
10. WMU 6.0
11. Miami 5.9
12. EMU 4.0

The only drawback to the 8 seed with the obvious having to play an extra game, is likely meeting Akron for the 1st game in Cleveland. Hopefully NIU can win a few of those late season toss up games and get that 4. I was a little surprised I came up with Toledo by 10 over NIU, I can't imagine that actual line will be that high, probably more like 7 or 8