Northwestern Preview

As a beautiful Sunday evening rolls to an end here in St. Paul, I've decided to give everyone a preview of our Northwestern game coming up on Tuesday. We play at Northwestern on Tuesday at 7:30pm Central time, directly after the women's game.

Northwestern is a perennial power in the UMAC (small Christian based institutions throughout Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin). Last season they won the NCCAA Division 1 National Championship. I'm not exactly sure what the NCCAA is but for a team to play a bunch of extra games is certainly beneficial, as well as being one of the few teams throughout the country that actually ends their season with a win. We had a really close game and controversial game with them at our place last season, you can check out the summary HERE.

The Eagles lost three of their top scorers from last season which included Hamline killer Reid Berens. He was a big bruising forward that could shoot 3's, we always had a tough time matching up with him. I will be happy to enter their gym and not see him in uniform. They also lost Stephen Hanson and Eric Garst, their second and fourth leading scorers from last year. Even though they lost these players, I still expect Northwestern to play hard and compete for all 40 minutes.

Returning for them will be Sr. Brian Lechler, their third leading scorer from last season. He is a very solid guard and a pretty good shooter. A trio of sophomores will also be significant contributors after stellar freshmen campaigns. Their three sophs are Robbie Anderstrom (got a tough introduction to college hoops last season when Carl Hipp had 25 and 12 on him in his collegiate debut), Tom Gisler, and Wade Chitwood. Anderstrom is a solid 6'7" center with solid skills inside and out. Gisler is a very good shooter and played better as the season progressed last year. Chitwood is very capable of shooting the lights out like his namesake Jimmy from Hickory High. Their probable fifth starter will be Gabe Jefferson, a junior from Omaha. Jefferson will probably play the 4 for them and has shot close to 40% from 3 for his career.

Hopefully, what you'll see from us is a faster tempo with a lot of transition baskets. We really need to push the ball up the wings and try to get the ball to our bigs in secondary break look. Our guys need to be patient if nothing is there. We will get good early looks in our offense but we need to look to score on our second and third catches instead of trying to score right away.

Here is the link for the Northwestern Athletics Website. I am not sure if they will have a live broadcast or live stats for the game but from the looks of the website, I have to believe they will.