Northwestern University Athletics
The Morning After...Moving On To The Second Round
3/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 17, 2011
NUsports.com Special Contributor Skip Myslenski looks back on a memorable postseason win for Northwestern on Wednesday night against Milwaukee in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament.
Just over eight minutes have passed on this Wednesday night and here the 'Cats find themselves trailing Milwaukee by a point in their opening-round game of the NIT. But now, huddled on the sidelines, their coach Bill Carmody instructs them to abandon the combination defense they had been using and switch to a 1-3-1 zone. "(Assistant) Coach Henderson, Mitch thought it would be very effective watching tape," Carmody will later say. "I didn't want to start in it. I'd rather not play it if I didn't have to. But he had said all along we should go to it because, even though they have good shooters, he thought we could get our hands on a lot of their passes."
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Guard Alex Marcotullio is the head of that zone, the guy up front who confronts the opponent first, and his job is very simple. It is, he will say, "Just to be a pest and keep them from making direct passes from side to side. I'm kind of like the energy guy at the top of the key trying to get my hands on passes and stuff like that."
Does he look for any one thing?
"That's the fun of playing up top. You have the freedom to do what you want as long as you keep your principles and stay between the two guys up top."
And what did he do with that freedom in this case?
"I was just trying to be as energetic as I could and get my hands on passes and give my team a chance to win. We were struggling a little bit with their man-to-man stuff, so we switched at the right time and it carried us throughout the game."
Does he agree with his coach, who doesn't like to use it since it is a draining defense to play?
"It is a pretty tiring defense, so it's good when it's used sparingly. But tonight we needed it. We needed to go to it and stay with it for that length of time. So we just have to play through it as players and bear down."
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Now, confronted by the zone, Milwaukee was suddenly addled, and 'Cat swingman Drew Crawford swiped one of their passes that ultimately resulted in a pair of free throws by John Shurna. The Panthers missed a jumper on their next possession, which was followed by Marcotullio's own two free throws, and now here was Davide Curletti picking off one of their passes. "The 1-3-1 seemed to help us a lot. It changed the complexion of the game, I thought," Carmody would later say, and he was understating the case.
For now, after two turnovers and an errant jumper, here is what Milwaukee managed over the next six minutes: another turnover on a Marcotullio steal; a missed jumper; a traveling violation; a missed three; a second missed three; a third missed three; a fourth missed three; and a fifth missed three. Never, during this stretch that spanned nearly a full eight minutes, did they score a point, and when it ended they had suffered a 0-for-8 shooting drought, had committed four turnovers and had gone from three up to 15 down.
Did they seemed confused to Marcotullio?
"It's so difficult to scout and a lot of teams haven't seen it (the 1-3-1), especially in their league," he said. "Maybe they've seen a little of it, but no one plays it the way we do. We're long and athletic and play it really well, so it's a different look for a lot of other teams."
Were they talking to themselves?
"It seemed they were a little nervous, that we frustrated them a little bit, especially in the first half. We got our hands on a lot of passes, and got a lot of deflections and steals that got us easy baskets."
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"It's hard to simulate that defense in practice," Milwaukee coach Rob Jeter would himself later say. "I thought the second half, we made some good adjustments. But the turnovers and the timely shots. I think we had three shots at the end to cut it to four, which would have made it even more interesting. But we couldn't get that one shot to go in. They did, though. They got that shot to go in."
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The 'Cats led by a dozen at halftime, but Milwaukee had indeed adjusted and never could they close the coffin's lid. Still, as this one moved toward its conclusion, their lead never dipped below nine, never dipped below nine until Milwaukee hopped aboard a zephyr and dropped one, two, three, four threes in a row to close within six at 5:13. "Then," Carmody would say, "Mike (Thompson) actually said, 'Get the hell out of this 1-3-1 zone.'"
"I didn't use swear words," Thompson would demur.
Still, right here, the 'Cats not only switched back to their combination defense. They also got a three from Thompson, which pushed their lead back up to nine, and then another from Shurna, which made that lead 12. Were they, as the team's howitzers, looking for those shots their team so sorely needed?
"Down the stretch, Juice has been big for us all year. He stepped up once again and made some big plays for us," said Shurna, who is as unassuming as a pair of brown shoes.
"I don't look at it from an individual standpoint," said Thompson. "As a team, we kept our composure, kept moving the ball around. That was just a time when me and Johnny were the ones open and it was (center) Luka (Mirkovic) that found both of us."
Well, then, was Mirkovic looking for the howitzers?
"I noticed," said he, "that both of them were shooting the lights out during the game. They were definitely hot. So it was a good time to pass the ball there."
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Now, back in their combination defense, the 'Cats were vulnerable to Anthony Hill, Milwaukee's powerful forward. But here the Panthers ignored him, choosing instead to keep raining threes. "They still played like they were seeing the 1-3-1 and weren't throwing it in to him," Carmody would say. Then finally, with just under three remaining, they found him low for a baby jumper that brought his team back to within 10. Sixty-four seconds later, and with the 'Cats now suffering a drought of their own, they finally made a three to close to seven, but now here they were, on the same possession, missing one, two, three three-point attempts that could have cut the margin to four.
Those were the shots Jeter had referred to and they were followed by a pair of Thompson free throws and the 'Cats celebrating their first post-season win in 17 years.
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Traditionally, after a home win, the 'Cats do a victory lap and slap hands with their fans and take the time to thank them for coming. They did that again on Wednesday night, but here Thompson dawdled, mingled, posed for pictures with one boy with pimples, with another wearing braces, with a third whose upper lip was decorated with the very definition of peach fuzz. He seemed, to this eye, as if he just did not want to leave this place he has graced for so long.
"Yes," he later said. "This could be my last time playing here at Welsh-Ryan, so I definitely wanted to go around a little slower."
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