Northwestern University Athletics
Upon Further Review...
1/31/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2012
They had led through all of the second half, led by eight, led by 10, even led by as much as a dozen, but now, as the clock dipped below two minutes, the `Cat Women were up only four on Indiana. The Hoosiers, on defense now, settled into a zone, but it was a zone of some aggression, a zone intent on forcing action and precipitating a quick shot. "We were trying to make them go faster than they wanted to go," their coach, Felisha Legette-Jack, would later say. "But they have good players, and they kept their focus and their poise."
They certainly kept it here as they patiently worked through their offense, and not until the shot clock was at six did guard Tailor Jones drive for a layup. It missed, but the Hoosiers also missed on their ensuing possession and here Morgan Jones corralled the rebound and again the `Cat Women played as the situation demanded. They worked the ball and worked the ball and worked the ball some more, and when Dannielle Diamant was fouled after getting an entry pass from Kendall Hackney, there were only seven seconds remaining on the shot clock.
Here Diamant made one-of-two and the Hoosiers got an eight-foot jumper from Jasmine McGhee to pull within three, and then here was Diamant driving and Hoosier Sasha Chaplin jumping in front of her to draw a charge, and their bodies collided and they went to the floor and the whistle blew and up went the right arm of referee Kevin Dillard. "I was like, `Oh, no,'" Hackney would say when asked her thought at that moment.
"I don't really think about that a lot, I guess, when calls are made," said Diamant herself. "So I really wasn't paying attention to that. I was hoping for the best."
"It was an aggressive move on her part, and it looked like the Indiana player moved underneath her as she was driving," said their coach, Joe McKeown. "But I didn't have a great angle."
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It had been a cruel January for the `Cat Women, who had lost five of seven in that month before hosting the Hoosiers on Sunday at Welsh-Ryan Arena. They had been bedeviled by injuries, bedeviled by their inconsistency, bedeviled by turnovers and an offense susceptible to bad funks, and here they were in desperate need of a win as they took on their conference's last-place team.
They had defeated them three weeks earlier down in Bloomington, but here, very early in their rematch, there came one more thing to bedevil them. It was that thing called the quick whistle, which hit Diamant with her first foul at 19:34 and her second just minutes later, at 16:58. Still, despite the danger, she would stay in the game, stay in for another three-and-a-half minutes, but then she went to the bench at 13:25 and there she would remain until half's end.
She is an integral part of the `Cat Women, their leading rebounder and the inside option of their inside-out offense, and so here, so early, they stared into a void they would somehow have to fill. Hackney was the first to do that, dropping a pair of threes that put them up eight at 11:09, and off the bench came contributions from Tailor Jones, who would finish this half with four points and six rebounds and an assist and a steal. Her younger sister and starter, the freshman Morgan Jones, would chip in eight more points, and helping here too was the Blizzard, that enigmatic 1-3-1 zone that McKeown loves to employ.
It is an amalgam, this thing is, drawing on principles espoused by former Fresno State coach Boyd Grant, whose teams led the nation in defense in the late `70s and early `80s; and the principles espoused by John Chaney, whose 2-3 matchup zone catalyzed Temple to such success in the '80's and `90s; and the principles employed in The Amoeba, the defense used by Nevada-Las Vegas when Jerry Tarkanian (Diamant's grandfather, coincidentally enough) led the Rebs to the national title in 1990. "You kind of pick and choose, mix and match a little bit," is how McKeown puts it. "There's days when we're good at it and there's day when it looks like Swiss cheese."
On this day, against the Hoosiers, his `Cat Women were good at it, and behind it they went to their locker room at halftime with a two-point lead.
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Their first points of the second half came from point Karly Roser, who drove, got fouled and made a pair, and then it was time for the unleashed Diamant, who put home a layup off a pretty pass from Allison Mocchi. On their next possession it was again Diamant, who converted a pair of free throws after getting hacked down low, and then here came Morgan Jones, who dropped the three from the right wing that put the `Cat Women up 11. "We've tried to make that a focal point all year and I thought we did a good job with that tonight," McKeown would say when asked about this quick start. "It looked like we had a lot of energy to start the second half and made some plays."
They made them, not unimportantly, out of their offense, and this too had been a point of emphasis as they prepared for the Hoosiers. "Sharing the ball. We talked about it before the game," said Diamant. "Sharing the ball and having fun and just playing like we know we're capable of."
"We've been struggling with turnovers and struggling with taking quick shots without making the defense have to guard us," said McKeown, explaining why. "So we worked really hard this week on trying to play inside-out. If you have something in transition, OK. If not, run your offense. That's something we've been focusing on, something we had to get better at. We were struggling with it in January."
They would not struggle with it on this last Sunday of January, finishing with a remarkable 19 assists on their 20 field goals, and they would continue to get sterling contributions from Diamant (22 points, 11 rebounds), Hackney (16 points, 11 rebounds) and Morgan Jones (17 points, five rebounds and two steals). But still, still they could not inter the Hoosiers, who were down just three when the whistle blew with 18.9 seconds remaining.
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Kevin Dillard, the official who blew that whistle, quickly put his hands on his hips, calling a blocking foul on the Hoosiers' Chaplin. "I was afraid for a split second," remembered Hackney. "Then I was like, `Yes.' I was really glad they called a block. That, obviously, can go either way. So, good call, good call. We'll leave it at that."
"I think the referee saw it better than we did," Hoosier coach Legette-Jack said when asked about that call. "My hope is that he got it right. My hope is he got it right."
"I hope I can make my free throws," Diamant said when asked what she thought at that moment.
"Like I said, I thought it was an aggressive move on her part, and she's the kid you want on the foul line at the end of games," said McKeown. "She's proven that all year."
She now proved that again, dropping a pair to put her team up five, and then the final stake was driven into the Hoosiers by Hackney, who blocked a three-point attempt by Kristiana Stauere, corralled the ball as she was flying out of bounds and threw it blindly over her head to the hustling Diamant. Again she would get fouled and again she would make a pair, and four seconds later the `Cat Women had the seven-point win that finally put some joy into their very tough month.
"Very good," a smiling Diamant would later say when asked how that felt. "Much better than the last few games, that's for sure."
