Northwestern University Athletics
The Morning After...Unchartered Waters
2/14/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 14, 2011
NUsports.com special contributor Skip Myslenski examines the highs and lows of women's basketball in February.
This is 11 days ago and some 20 hours after a win over Illinois and Joe McKeown, the coach of the Cat Women basketball team, is lazing in his office. He has, in his career, made 17 NCAA Tournament appearances and so is on a first-name basis with the rigors of February, which is when invites to that ball are so often earned. They are not handed out casually, those cherished invites, and come only after sweat is spilled and guts are strewn and grand effort is evinced and a hill pitched to an acute angle is climbed and conquered.
He knows this full well and, intellectually, maybe his players do too. But, as part of a program that had been down so long, they have never truly experienced those rigors until this season, which they entered with their eyes fixed firmly on the tourney. This is what McKeown, an open and amiable and gregarious man, is now discussing. "There is," he is saying, "a comfort zone that's easy to fall back into and there's an unknown that you kind of want to peek in and say, 'Can I go there? Am I good enough? Do I want that challenge?' Or there's this great turtle shell here, it's a comfort zone, it's protected, I'll just fall back in there and someone will agree with me that that's OK. That's what I'm trying to fight. . .
"This is the first time in their lives that they're in February and don't have 12, 13 losses. . . So this is uncharted waters for them and keeping them excited about what could happen in February and March, that's an unknown for them. For me, this is what you play for, to be in those game. To play Connecticut, to play Duke, to play Stanford. You have to let them go through it. I don't have a magic wand or an insight to allow them (to know how that feels). I guess I want to accelerate the process, but it's like rounding the bases. You got to touch them all. You can't run to home plate from second base."
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This is late Sunday afternoon and just minutes after his Cat Women have fallen to Iowa and Joe McKeown, his face a blank mask, is seated on a small stage and struggling to finds the right words for this defeat. His team had performed brilliantly in the first half against the Hawkeyes and, with 18:41 remaining in the game, had led by a healthy 13. But then, with the force and the suddenness of a tsunami, this affair turned and the 'Cat defense disappeared and eventually they would fall by 11.
"It's hard to say without watching film and I can't speak for everyone on our team," Beth Marshall, one of their captains, has already said when asked why their defense was so porous in the second half. "But I think we got comfortable with our lead and kind of expected they would keep missing shots even if we weren't contesting. It's hard to say why we did those things. So."
Did he sense that his players had gotten comfortable, McKeown is now asked.
"I didn't. I know I didn't. This is an explosive team. I've been coaching 30 years, and I know we had to foul a lot in the last two minutes, but I'm not sure I've coached a team that gave up that many points (63) in the second half. I don't remember that. So I was never comfortable knowing how quick they can score," he says, not really answering the question, and now he pauses to consider it again.
"Maybe they were. I don't know. I don't know. Obviously," he then says, and once more he pauses.
"Really, just really disappointed with our effort in the second half on defense," he finally says, and then he simply drops his head.
••••••
It would be difficult to exaggerate the differences between Sunday's two halves. In the first, the 'Cats extended their defense and jumped screens and moved on the ball and contested every shot that was taken. In the second, they did none of that and their defense was as passive as a Peacenik. In the first, the Hawkeyes made just five of their first 23 shots (21.7 percent) and ended those 20 minutes nine-of-31 (29 percent). In the second, the Hawkeyes made nine of their first 10 shots and ended these 20 minutes 19-of-27 (70.4 percent). In the first, 'Cat center Amy Jaeschke was a dominant force and finished those 20 minutes with 14 points while going 6-of-10 from the field. In the second, she was smothered by double and triple teams and finished these 20 minutes with five points while going two-of-nine from the field. In the first, the Hawkeyes managed just 23 points. In the second, they exploded for 63.
"You don't need Freud or Einstein to break it down," McKeown would say with accuracy. "Gave 'em wide open shots. I'm embarrassed by our defense in the second half. That's the only word I can come up with."
"The way we played in the second half is unacceptable. I think everyone on our team knows that," said Marshall. "We went away from everything that was working for us in the first half. It's very frustrating because we saw our potential in the first half and then didn't come out for the last 20 minutes like we should have."
Now, recalling McKeown's 11-day old soliloquy, we wonder about the newness of this February to the 'Cats, wonder too if this one of those learning experiences that must be endured while rounding the bases and developing into a tourney team.
"It needs to be something we learn from, to say the least, because we are at a crucial point in the season," says Marshall. "We're in a great position as a team. But every game is very, very important. We want to go to the NCAA Tournament and we have to play every game with that in mind."
"It's a sense of urgency," Jaeschke, seated next to her, finally says. "I think definitely it's something our seniors feel knowing this is our last go around in college and we have to let our teammates know this is it for us and have them really like die for us on the court. . . When it comes down to February, we have to be desperate to get those wins and play all 40 minutes."
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