Northwestern basketball -- July thoughts

So, everyone who's talked to me for five minutes knows I'm obsessed with Northwestern basketball -- mostly men's, but I like the women's team too. July is kind of an exciting month, because in a couple of weeks we'll hit the point of being 50% through the offseason. And September-November of the offseason will be extremely tolerable because we'll have NU football to watch. March though early June wasn't so bad because we had the NBA to watch. But right now, there is a very terrible sports void to fill with useless daydreaming about the upcoming season and re-watching old game highlights at northwesternhighlights.com

So, the men's team. The odds are we'll have a season similar to the last three -- very strong by NU historical standards, but still missing the big goal of an NCAA Tournament bid. Seemingly every article about NU basketball contains the sad piece of trivia that NU is the only BCS team to have never received a tourney bid, even though the first tournament was hosted in our own gym. Like the football bowl win drought, NU basketball will never see its reputation change until we break the tourney barrier.

I'm starting to worry though, that making the tournament is becoming a distraction for Carmody's teams. The worst thing would be for Carmody and the players to start thinking in terms of "Well, if we beat Indiana and Iowa twice, and Minnesota, Penn State, Michigan, Illinois, and Nebraska once, then we'll go 9-9 in the Big Ten and make the Tournament." That's the way fans and journalists think -- the team can't think like that.

I have no idea if they do, but I was just watching old 2008-2009 highlights from NU's upsets over Michigan St. and Ohio St. The defining trait you see from those teams that you didn't see from last year's 'Cats team (that had no upsets) is a fierce underdog mentality. The team looked like guys with an edge, with an us-against-the world attitude. I think last year's team lacked that -- they looked like guys trying not to lose, rather than like guys trying to beat the odds to win.

(Obviously this is all sports cliche. But basically ALL discussion of sports is make up of strings of cliches, and people still seem to think there's some truth to these cliched storylines. So I'ma go with it.)

This team need to play with an edge.

They also need to play defense.

This is obvious. The team's terrible defense the last couple of years has been discussed far and wide in the NU sports world, and the culprit is unclear. Theories include Carmody's coaching, the demanding nature of the offense and a short bench combining to result in tired players who just don't have enough in the tank to play good defense, NU's inferior athleticism in comparison to opponents, the 'Cats' defensive schemes, and lack of effort/toughness.

I'm inclined to think it's a combination of several of these, namely player tiredness, the frequently changing defensive schemes, and lack of focus/toughness. I think the team is certainly athletic enough to effectively guard other Big Ten teams -- hell, they were better at it several years ago when the team was filled with guys like Tim Doyle. That doesn't seem to be the issue.

I think the team has to settle on two defensive schemes and spend an incredible amount of time in their pre-season practices running the hell out of those defenses. And Carmody also has to start playing 9 guys every game rather than the 6 or 7 he used much of the time last year. I think Fruendt, at least, should play 10 minutes a game this year backing up Drew, and the freshmen guards so play at least that many even if they don't start. And Shurna shouldn't have to play 38 minutes a game.

So I hope that happens. I'm also interested to see if Cobb will start at the point next year. It would depend on how consistent his three-point shot and his ball-handling become, but I think that setup would have a lot of potential to create points early in the shot clock with a major driving threat. That could potentially make our offense even more ridiculous, and even take a bit of pressure off the three-point shot with the ball in Cobb's hands more (though, as I mentioned, he still has to make them more than 30% of the time.)

Either way, I'm so excited. I'm hoping for Shurna to have a standout season and work his way up in the NBA draft, and I'm hoping for wins, wins, wins -- we'll worry about certain post-season tournaments once the W's come in.

And the women's team. Amy Jaeschke is gone (and sadly was dropped from the roster after being drafted by the Chicago sky). And Beth Marshall is gone too. The women's team is going to have to reinvent themselves this year, but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing -- the turnovers, especially, became a huge liability for this team by the end of the year. But they've got some promising freshmen (including a McDonald's All-American guard) and several starters returning (including rebounding machine and all-around tough player Brittany Orban and a solid contributor in Kendall Hackney.) My guess is that Kentucky transfer Anna Cole, who sat out last season, will be taking over Amy Jaescke's minutes at center. Girl's listed at 6-7. Dang.

I'm excited people. Go 'Cats and God Bless America.