Northwestern University Athletics
Houston Baptist Primer
11/13/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
And so another season begins Friday night when the `Cats host Houston Baptist at Welsh-Ryan. They, like their playpen, look very different from when we last viewed them. So here a primer on what to look for...
• Forward Vic Law and point guard Bryant McIntosh, two members of their acclaimed freshman class, are expected to start along with veterans JerShon Cobb, Sanjay Lumpkin and Alex Olah. Expect neither to be fazed by the prospect of appearing in his first collegiate game. "Nah. Nah," said Law when asked about that. "The exhibition game (they played last Friday) was all about nerves, getting to play on this court for the first time. I've been waiting to do it for about a year-and-a-half and I finally got to do it. So I think all the nerves are out. Now it's time for me to step up and play."
"I don't think I'll be nervous," echoed McIntosh. "You just kind of throw yourself in the game and don't worry about it."
• Law is expected to be one of those proverbial stat stuffers, a versatile performer whose final line will include double-digit points, near that many rebounds, a handful of assists, and a smattering of blocks and steals. McIntosh, who led his high school team to consecutive state championships as a junior and a senior, is expected to grow on the job. "He came in ahead of the curve," Chris Collins explained. "He was really well coached as a high school player. His IQ is really good, his feel for the game. Now it's just about adjusting to the size, the speed, the tempo.
"He's done a great job. There's gonna be nights when he looks great, like the other night (in the exhibition when he scored 15 and handed out 11 assists while going six-of-six from the field), and there's gonna be nights he looks like a 19-year old kid. That's part of the process of being a 19 year-old freshman point guard, especially at the level we're at. We've got to stick with him. He's got to learn. He's got to continue to improve. But he's coming into the season with a lot of confidence and you can see the older guys, they trust him with the ball in his hands and we function well when he's running our team. That's a good trait to have when you're a point guard."
• The `Cats won that exhibition against McKendree University by 50 and, said Collins, after viewing the tape "I was pleased. Anytime you play for the first time with the lights being on and people, and it was kind of the first time we put it together as a whole team, you're interested to see how it's going to work. The thing I was most pleased with was how unselfish we were. We had 31 assists on 41 baskets. Guys were making the extra pass. They're trusting each other and because of that I though our efficiency was really good.
"Certainly the competition's going to go way up and there were a lot of things I thought we could improve upon. But overall it was very positive. I thought a lot of guys did good things, a lot of guys saw the ball go in the basket. It's good to feel that way going into the regular season."
• Still. A regular-season game is different from an exhibition and far, far different from even the most-arduous practice. "You try to replicate game conditions in practice," explained Collins. "But at the end of the day, you can only get better playing in games. We're ready to start playing games. We're going to have times where we look really good. We're probably going to have times when we don't look like we know what we're doing out there. That's part of having a lot of young guys.
"But what I like is, with all the young guys, we do have a corps of veterans that have been great with leadership and helping these guys in practice when they're struggling, when things aren't going so well for them on or off the floor. That's where the veterans come in. That to me is why they're so important."
• Speaking of the veterans. Cobb returns with renewed health. Lumpkin returns with 20 pounds of added muscle and more confidence in his jump shot. Dave Sobolewski returns with refurbished confidence. Tre Demps returns to reprise (as of now) his role as the Big Ten's best Sixth Man ("I really enjoy it. I'm used to it. It's something that I've learned to embrace," he said). Nathan Taphorn returns with a reconstructed body. And then there is Alex Olah, who returns with a capable backup (6-foot-10 grad student Jeremiah Kreisberg, who as an undergrad played at Yale) and lofty ambitions. "All Big Ten. The best center in the Big Ten. That was my goal last year. That's been my goal since I got here," he avowed.
• Expect, at least at the start and perhaps even longer, a flexible rotation. "I really think we're going to be the kind of team where, on given nights, different guys play well," explained Collins. "Last year it was great to have Drew (Crawford) and he carried us. But if he struggled we would have a hard time winning because we were that reliant on him to defend and score and rebound. With his year's team, I feel like we have a lot of capable guys who are able to score the ball, who can make plays. To me that's a positive.
"So I think it's going to be game-to-game. I've always been a guy, whoever's playing well is going to be out there. So even though we've settled on the team we're starting going into the year, I think we're still a work in progress in terms of developing that rotation and how it's going to shake out."
• One of this team's goals, both short term and long term, is to be better at Welsh-Ryan, which this season has a new floor, new rims and new video boards. "Last year we were eight-and-nine at home. That just doesn't get it done," Collins explained a month ago. "We have to be a better home team. It's like a new arena, which our guys love. So it's really a fresh approach, kind of a whole new building, and the guys are really excited about that and kind of starting fresh with a new attitude about playing at home.
"I really thought that we played well enough in the league last year to be a post-season team of some sort. You win six league games and one in the tournament, you should be playing in some post-season. We didn't because we didn't play well in November and December. So to put ourselves in a position to be a post-season team, we have to win in the early season. That's going to be a big focus for us."
• Which brings us, finally, to the immediate goal. "I've said it all along, I feel like we have to get off to a good start to our season," Collins explained this week. "We've worked really hard. Our guys are anxious to play. We need to learn how to win. This is a brand new team. We've never played together. We have some veterans. We have young guys. We have to figure out what it takes to win at this level.
"It starts on Friday night."
••••••
Be the first to know what's going on with the 'Cats -- Follow @NU_Sports on Twitter and Instagram, become a fan of Northwestern Athletics on Facebook and sign up to receive promotional text alerts for the latest news, schedule updates and video and to interact with NU. For more information on following specific Northwestern teams online, visit our Social Media page!
