2012 NIT: Washington and Northwestern Preview

Here’s the thing about Northwestern; their defense sucks. They are the 306th best defensive team in the country, which means that they’re about as bad as it gets (344 total schools). However, the Wildcats know a thing or two about scoring, because they have the 32nd best offense in college basketball.

It all starts with John Shurna, who was worth five wins in the regular season, and his sidekick Drew Crawford was worth four. Both of them had similar TS% (58.4% for Shurna, 58.3% for Crawford), and Shurna had an insanely high 27.4 PER. He was one of the best players in the Big Ten, which is saying something given the competitiveness of that conference.

Nobody on the ‘Cats plays good defense, but Shurna and Crawford are the only people who can stop a nosebleed. Reggie Hearn is an extremely efficient player, but he turns the ball over a fifth of the time and plays horrible defense. Dave Sobolweski is even worse, because he allows 1.12 points per play and has a 12.9 PER. Northwestern has two great players, one of them is among the best in the nation, but everybody else is below-average and can’t do anything except play efficient basketball.

The thing is, Northwestern’s offense is good enough to make it a game with the Washington Huskies, who are playing terrible basketball lately. They dropped their first Pac-12 Tourney game to Oregon State, and then they nearly lost to freaking Texas-Arlington. Yeah, that’s even worse than the ‘Cuse-Asheville game. Why? Because it’s Texas-Arlington! Yeah, that’s why Washington didn’t make it to the tournament. It’s also why Lorenzo Romar was named Coach of the Year.

Anyway, enough Husky bashing, because we have to focus on the good. This team can actually play defense and has three legit defensive players. Aziz N’Diaye is a rugged big who can pack you, Terrence Ross holds opponents to just .964 points per play (terrific and overlooked part of Ross’s game), and Tony Wroten steals practically everything. I still don’t get why Jorge Gutierrez won Pac-12 Defensive POY over Andre Roberson, and that’s partly because Wroten is the superior defensive guard.

The problem is that, despite Wroten being a quality passer and great at driving, he is inefficient with a sub-50 TS% and turns the ball over 19% of the time. He uses over 30% of the team’s possessions, and some of those shots should go to the team’s most efficient player; C.J. Wilcox. He’s an overlooked part of this team and has been as valuable as Wroten this season. He has the same amount of offensive win shares (2.2) as Ross and double the OWS than Wroten (1.1). He has a TS% over 57% and averages a team-high 1.21 PPP. Yeah, he’s better than you think.

That’s not to say that he’s better than Wroten, which simply isn’t true. However, Wroten needs to get Wilcox more involved. That being said, Terrence Ross is the best player on the team. He’s the only player who can go toe-to-toe with Shurna and does a little bit of everything as a player. He effectively combines good defense with offensive efficiency. He’s one of two reasons why Washington is going to win this game, with the other reason being the fact that the Huskies can actually defend. Shurna and Crawford won’t be able to do it all, and the Huskies will win a close 79-77 game that comes down to a buzzer beater from Ross. Just kidding. I wanted to sound melo-dramatic and a total kiss-up to Ross (another joke). I should stop now. But hey, aren’t you glad I wasn’t biased and picked the Huskies? Real predicted score: 79-75.

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