Hoopraker’s first day in Indy was bookended by some petty theft from a taxi driver and a shank of cow saved from St. Elmo’s fire and delivered, perfectly scarred and oozing, to our table adjoining Bruce Weber and his victorious Fighting Illini.
The Hoopraker charter touched down in Indy by mid-morning. After the requisite glad-handing and assumption of our media badges from conference staffers, we soon found ourselves the back seat captives of a local taxi driver-hustler whose U-turns, feigned stupidity, and double-speak won him more than a few taunts from the New Yorkers in his company.
Midwestern trickery finds no purchase in the midst of grizzled Gothamites. Consider him reformed. Our four day Big Ten odyssey had begun.
Northwestern’s Masterful Twenty Minutes
The Carmody Experience at Northwestern wrote two more chapters at Conseco today, the first buoying those who continue to hold out hope for a Wildcat breakthrough under his leadership, the second yet another example of the negative pathologies that have plagued his eight years in Evanston.
After a crisply, at times sublimely executed first half and a 13-point bulge at intermission, this from a team manhandled by the Gophers in the season’s previous meeting by 19- and 20-points respectively, Carmody seemed to have arrived at some key adjustments for the third meeting.
Met by an overconfident, unfocused performance by the Gophers in the initial twenty minutes, Carmody’s Princeton sets looked particularly sharp and potent, yielding its usual bevy of wide open looks and backdoors. And unlike many a previous instance when the Wildcats have failed to convert such opportunities, Coble and Thompson led a solid first half shooting performance.
What’s more, the Northwestern defense that had surrendered 82 and 92 points to the Gophers in the earlier two games, was effective. The injury to grape-crusher Spencer Tollackson, a crafty and bulky pivot the Wildcats have had no defensive answer for, certainly didn’t hurt either.
Fits Of Brilliance
When Carmody’s teams play halves or segments of games like the first twenty minutes in Indy, the fires of hope go from dead to slow kindle. Watching the Wildcats string perfect passes through the thicket of defenders for uncontested layups, seeing how many clear shots the crisp ball reversals and cuts yield, one becomes convinced that Carmody and his Pete Carril inheritance are a perfect marriage for Northwestern.
Seeing how the system can confound teams with considerable talent advantages and put the brakes on quicker teams, it is a system that should forgive some of the unique recruiting challenges that exist there and allow the program to compete in an rigorous power conference. Tubby’s Gophers certainly were put into a reactive muddle by it initially.
The Execution Problem
But then there’s a persistent rub to this argument and it arrived in the first eight minutes of the second half. The Wildcat sets started to get a little less efficient, a few errant passes, a couple blown layups, some lapses in defensive pressure on the ball and the advantage evaporates. Admirably, the Wildcats responded to the Gopher run with some timely threes from Moore and pushed back to a five-point lead.
Soon after, though, the erosion resumed in the form of three straight turnovers. Though credit must be paid to the increase in defensive intensity from the Gophers, the turnovers were largely attributable to poor execution from Northwestern. Add an airball and missed front-end by usually reliable Coble and a final possession dribble-drive into a Gopher trap by Sterling Williams and the game was sealed.
A Loss Is A Loss
While the loss looks more reasonable as this three-point final margin did, the reflection on Carmody is no less severe. The breakdowns in mental toughness, bad decision-making and execution that have plagued his teams over the past eight seasons occur and recur and doom the team to continued losses.
Until Carmody can correct these lapses in execution whether by recruiting or coaching there is little to suggest his results are going to be considerably better. A tight game like the one Thursday may keep the Wildcat faithful engaged for a longer duration, but the end result and its causation is the same.
Signs Of Promise
As an aside, it was good to see Jeremy Nash and Ivan Peljusic getting increased minutes for Carmody yesterday. These are two players whose aggression, energy, and confidence have been in short supply the last eight years in Evanston. Though injuries have slowed Nash somewhat this season, one would’ve liked to have seen Carmody use this troubled season to give him, Peljusic, and Capocci longer stretches of gametime than he has to date. These are the kind of ballplayers who seem to possess the kind of attitudinal bounce and toughness that might help Carmody turn a corner.
Tubby’s Honeymoon Is Over
The cult of personality shine that Tubby has brought to the Twin Minny should not be discounted and given the positive vibes about his 2008 class, there is considerable reason for optimism. That said, though victorious, Tubby’s Gophers were a largely uninspired bunch today. They were not ready to play from the opening tip, a fact that wouldn’t have been so forgiving with a stronger opponent.
As it stands today Gophers under Tubby have yet to achieve a single overachieving win. They’ve certainly improved from the bottomed-out debacle of the previous season, but unlike Beilein’s Michigan and Lickliter’s Iowa they have yet to achieve a signature, breakthrough win.
Perhaps that win will arrive today against the Hoosiers. Perhaps not. But the Gopher fan base and interested observers are eager to see when the Tubby effect will make that next great stride from honeymoon vibes to real deal.
