(11-19-2023 10:57 PM)7 Wrote:  They had less than 1,000 people at their home opener.

I mean I know we can’t really say anything about attendance, but…

That’s insane actually. DePaul has a history, brand new arena in downtown Chicago and plays in a major conference.

Huskie87, you sound like Montgomery! He would say defense and rebounds wins and making 3’s is not as important but if you defend and rebound you always have a chance to win. I believe making several more 3’s than your opponent makes it very difficult no matter what else happens to beat you. The top team, teams in the MAC over the last 5 years may not have made the most 3’s a game but they made 7 or more a game which is good. I believe in Monty’s third season they were 21-13 I’m hoping and I think Burno can match that in his third year. This years Huskies are very bad at defending other than blocking shots so they will need to generally make several more 3’s than their opponents to win. They also are getting to shoot many more free throws than their opponents

(11-20-2023 08:21 AM)CollegeMan33 Wrote:  Huskie87, you sound like Montgomery! He would say defense and rebounds wins and making 3’s is not as important but if you defend and rebound you always have a chance to win. I believe making several more 3’s than your opponent makes it very difficult no matter what else happens to beat you. The top team, teams in the MAC over the last 5 years may not have made the most 3’s a game but they made 7 or more a game which is good. I believe in Monty’s third season they were 21-13 I’m hoping and I think Burno can match that in his third year. This years Huskies are very bad at defending other than blocking shots so they will need to generally make several more 3’s than their opponents to win. They also are getting to shoot many more free throws than their opponents

Shooting more FTs than your opponents is highly connected to a team's W-L record. When you lead in games, your opponent fouls a lot near the end of games, artificially inflating the attempts.

The real trick is converting the attempts into makes. And while our overall FT% isn't all that great (66.7%), there are a few culprits bringing it down.

1. Phil Gebrewhit - 67.7% - 23 of 34 - Shot 76.8% at DePaul so I expect a regression upwards.
2. Xavier Amos - 50% - 5 of 10 - Only shot 4 FTs last year so I have no idea what his actual rate should be but he should have plenty of opportunities this year so an improvement is necessary
3. Zion Russell - 56.3% - 9 of 16 - Considering he comes off the bench, he finds his way to the line a lot. He's already almost matched the amount of FTs he shot his entire first two years at NIU so again, not much to go on (he was 10 of 12 his first year and 4 of 7 last year). I doubt he's a sub 60% shooter so that needs to come up.
4. Harvin Ibarguen - 40% - 4 of 10 - He's not going to be a great FT shooter as he was 17 of 26 last year (65.4%) but a regression towards that number would be ideal.
5. Nasir Muhammad/Luka Gogic - combined 1 of 4 (25%) - this number will hopefully be pretty insignificant by the end of the year as I don't see either of them logging enough minutes to matter.

So, I expect all of those numbers to trend upwards based on past performances and natural attention by the coaching staff.

Otherwise, we have the positives:

1. Diggy Coit (obviously) - 92.9% - 26 of 28 - He will probably stay right at this rate all season.
2. Zarique Nutter - 76.9% - 10 of 13 - He might be overachieving right now as he only shot 62% last year (75 of 121) but its possible he focused on this in the offseason. And it's not like 77% is such a preposterously unsustainable rate to maintain.
3. Yanic Konan Niederhäuser - 72.7% - 8 of 11 - last year was insignificant but shot 4 of 5 so its possible YKN is a decent to good FT shooter.
4. Will Lovings-Watts - 71.4% - 5 of 7 - considering his sporadic playing time, I'm surprised he's shot that many FTs. Hopefully this is the low end of his rate and he can maintain a percentage in the 70s.
5. Oluwasegun Durosinmi - 80% - 4 of 5 - He either shot below his ability last year (26 of 42 - 61.9%) or he's made improvements. He doesn't dribble and shoots the ball straight up (and he's already 6'10"...) so it's not an ideal stroke but one that is finding nothing but net in the early goings.

And then there's:

Ethan Butler - Has 0 recorded FT attempts in 2 years of college ball (6 games).
Keshawn Williams - A career 81.7% FT shooter over 3 seasons (63 games) shooting 170 of 208. Had his best year at Tulsa (24 of 26 - 92.3%) but at NIU seems to have settled in right at about an 80% shooter (146 of 182 - 80.2%).

Overall, I expect the percentage to rise naturally but I also expect to see the attempts start to favor certain players over others as the season progresses. Hopefully, a rate around 75% can be maintained because they're kind of all over the place this year:

vs Marquette - 11 of 16 (68.8%)
vs Appalachian State - 24 of 29 (82.8%)
vs Illinos Tech - 13 of 29 (44.8%)
vs Georgia State - 14 of 24 (58.3%)
vs Little Rock - 33 of 44 (75%)

(11-20-2023 08:21 AM)CollegeMan33 Wrote:  Huskie87, you sound like Montgomery! He would say defense and rebounds wins and making 3’s is not as important but if you defend and rebound you always have a chance to win. I believe making several more 3’s than your opponent makes it very difficult no matter what else happens to beat you. The top team, teams in the MAC over the last 5 years may not have made the most 3’s a game but they made 7 or more a game which is good. I believe in Monty’s third season they were 21-13 I’m hoping and I think Burno can match that in his third year. This years Huskies are very bad at defending other than blocking shots so they will need to generally make several more 3’s than their opponents to win. They also are getting to shoot many more free throws than their opponents

Very bad at defending is a bit of a generalization in my opinion. If you throw out the IL Tech game and look at the last 3 games, NIU has shot better from the field & from beyond the arc than its opponent, holding all 3 teams under 30% from deep. We've gotten beat on the offensive glass 18-6, 18-8, 11-4 in those games. More missed shots more opportunities for offensive boards yes, but if we can close that gap I think there starts to be even more separation in these score lines. We've also turned the ball over more than the opponent in all three games (16-4 in the Little Rock game).

As far as the actual defensive scheme, I thought they were over-helping in the paint on drives in the Marquette game, 2 or 3 guys helping on the driver who would in turn kick out to an open shooter. 1st game and most talented team we've played, and it's improved in the games since. Liked Burno's quote from last game that he loves teaching through winning, I'm sure they'll clean some things up this week in practice.

Get more excited about this team with each game, love the schedule, should get these guys more than ready for MAC play. Nutter, Coit, Gabrewhit are so exciting to watch and looking forward to bigger performances from the rest of the rotation as the season progresses.

https://x.com/GoHuskiesMBB/status/172635...70238?s=20