Chris Collins' Northwestern team knocks off #20 Mich St. in East Lansing!
For the first time since the 2012-2013 season, 8-1 Arizona State starts 2-0 in PAC-12, with a 68-64 win over Stanford tonight. Six wins in a row of Hurley's team.
Chris Collins' Northwestern team knocks off #20 Mich St. in East Lansing!
Don't look now, but Bobby Hurley's Arizona State club is 10-1 after toppling Creighton (preseason top 10 team that has struggled a bit) last night.
ASU is one head-scratching loss to Texas Southern away from being undefeated and probably ranked. It is still early, but this team looks like it could challenge UCLA and Arizona for the top of the Pac 12. ASU already has 2 Pac 12 wins over Colorado and Stanford.
Barring something unexpected against San Diego or San Francisco, Arizona State will be 12-1 when they face Arizona at home on New Year's Eve... that crowd could really be rocking!
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Worth reminding folks that one thoughtful article from last summer suggested that Creighton and UNC were unlikely to be as good as many were predicting:
https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/...-the-leap-2022
Chris Collins is working to get off the hot seat at Northwestern - and is doing a good job so far. Following up on beating Illinois at home earlier this week, they took down Indiana in Bloomington - 84-83 - behind Boo Buie's 26 points.
First time since 1967-68 that Northwestern has beaten Indiana, Illinois and Michigan State in the same season. NW is now 12-3, 3-1 in the BIG.
Saw that Howard lost today to UMES (8-8), whom Duke played earlier this year. The Howard Fighting Blakeneys are standing at 8-10 on the season, after finishing 16-13 last year.
Still a ways to go in the PAC-12 season, but Bobby Hurley is moving off the hot seat at ASU.
They swept the Oregon teams on the road this weekend, improving their league record to 6-1, for the first time since 1980-81. Their 15-3 record is the best 18 game start under Bobby at ASU.
Thursday night, they blew out Oregon (who easily beat Arizona yesterday, 87-68), 90-71, leading by as much as 29 in the second half. Yesterday, down by 34-18 in the first half, ASU came back to beat Oregon State 74-69.
UCLA comes to Tempe Thursday in a huge game.
Somehow, ASU is "only" #51 in kenpom. I guess his algo views the win/loss as not totally representative of the quality of the team based on efficiency. Thus, their "luck" rating is 10th in the country. Still, wins are what matters and wholeheartedly agree that his hot start is helping the cause/solidifying his future. Hopefully, they don't drop the ball like they did with their big matchup vs Arizona.
Two bad losses. In the third game of the season, they inexplicably lost at Texas Southern 67-66 in OT. Then they later got blown out by San Francisco 97-60, when their leading scorer, Des Cambridge, was out. Right now they are in the tournament in most brackets, but a lot of season still to go.
Chris Collins and Northwestern had been 12-3/3-1 a week ago, looking really strong. But, they lost back to back games at home to a really good Rutgers team and at fellow bubble Big Ten team Michigan. Anyway, it seems their chance to bounce back will have to wait a bit as their game against Iowa tonight has been postponed due to an outbreak of Covid on the Northwestern team. They would only have 6 players available for the game. No word on when/if it will be made up.
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Game with Michigan was at Ann Arbor. Frustrating...Rutgers game was very winnable. NW was up 4 with a minute to go and made several mistakes down down the stretch. They need to win at least 3 out of the next 4 to give them a shot at the tourney - home against Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan and at Nebraska, because after that their schedule is brutal.
Lunardi has both Pitt and ASU fairly comfortably in as 9 seeds, with Northwestern in the First Four Out. Barring a collapse, think Pitt and ASU willl make the tournament, taking both Jeff and Bobby off their hot seats. As noted previously, ASU has a huge home game Thursday against UCLA, followed by USC Saturday. With PAC-12 being as weak as it is (only UCLA, Arizona and ASU are tourney teams), they need to avoid the many opportunities for bad losses and finish at 14-6 in conference - very doable, as they are 6-1 now.
Unfortunately, skeptical about NW - hope I'm wrong. They had excellent Ws @MSU and @Indiana. They'll need another couple of impressive Ws like that to get in, while generally holding serve at home.
Northwestern getting closer to the dance: After losses last week @Iowa and to Michigan, Chris Collins' Northwestern team dropped to 6-5 in the BIG and, with a very diffcult last 9 conference games, their chances of making the Tournament seem to be slipping away. But on Sunday, they won @Wisconsin and followed it up tonight with another road win @Ohio State.
They are now 8-5 in the BIG, with 6 Quad 1 wins, which also includes road wins @MSU and @Indiana. If they can find two more wins in their last 7 conference games, getting them to 10 conference wins, that should be enough to get them in - which would be only the second time ever for Northwestern in the dance. The first was 2016 under Chris.
I was coming here to post about that game, but you beat me to it.
This is probably Collins's best coaching job at Northwestern. His team doesn't really have much of an inside game, but it has three experienced and reasonably talented perimeter players. At the beginning of the year, I thought the Wildcats would be terrible, but they have outperformed almost everyone's expectations.
It's kind of similar to what Capel has done at Pittsburgh this year. They both may have saved their jobs, at least for next year.
I agree with you totally. Watching Northwestern - and I have watched a lot lately - they are very well coached. Chris has done a great job this year. And, yes, it appears Jeff and Chris are both safe for another year.
Now, Bobby at ASU, they need a huge finish to their season to get back in the tournament conversation - and watching them, they appear to have little discipline for large stretches of games. Last night, they outscored Stanford 14-2 in the last four minutes to come from 8 down to win 69-65, in a game that would have eliminated them if they had lost.
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HUUUUGGGEEE WIN for Chris Collins and his Northwestern Wildcats as they beat #1 Purdue 64-58. Over the past week, Cats have beaten Wisconsin and OSU on the road and now #1. This is such a moment for Chris, as his team will now make the dance and his job, very shaky coming into this year, is now solid.
Last edited by Hartford Dukie; 02-12-2023 at 04:26 PM.