Northwestern University Athletics
North Florida In Review
11/21/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Beau Beech, the North Florida guard, drives from the right side and wraps an underhanded offering around Alex Olah that kisses glass then nestles softly into the net. That puts the Ospreys up six on this Thursday night at Welsh-Ryan and now, with just over three minutes remaining, the `Cats are confronting a most-challenging crucible. Still, Bryant McIntosh will later say, "I was never paniced. I have confidence in my teammates and in myself, and I think that's the biggest thing. If you're afraid that you're going to lose, they already have you beat. You just have to have confidence."
McIntosh himself certainly oozes that trait and here he proves this feeling not misplaced, fearlessly dropping a three from near the top of the circle to pull his team within three at 2:55. "I noticed the big man was kind of slow coming off the first ball screen on the wing," he will later say, recounting this play. "So I just stepped into it and knocked it down."
But back comes North Florida, who here get a Chris Davenport six-footer over Olah, yet still McIntosh is not deterred. He again has the ball near the top of the circle, right near that spot from which he just shot, but this time he wheels right and turns left and goes down the baseline for an open layup. "We ran the same play and my guy was cheating over the screen to make sure he didn't give up another three," he will later say, describing this moment. "So I just drove it baseline and there really wasn't help-side defense there, so I just had to finish it."
Now Davenport, faced off again against Olah, shot fakes, but the `Cat center holds firm and Davenport walks and the buzzer sounds for a media timeout at 2:02. On the sideline, in his team's huddle, Chris Collins draws up a play, and then here is Tre Demps driving down the left side and whipping a pass to McIntosh in the right corner, and there is McIntosh cooly offering a shot fake of his own, sliding left and then just burying the three that ties this one up at 65 with 1:47 remaining. "Coach Collins," he will later say of this success, "drew up an unbelievable play to get me a drift pass in the corner from Tre. The guy ran out, I just shot faked, stepped to the side and was able to hit a three."
"When we recruited Bryant, I knew he was a very good player," Collins himself will later say. "But there's just certain guys, when you're around them, they're just winners. They're just winners and they find a way. They just throw themselves into the game and they're consumed by winning."
••••••••
Certain themes cut through Chris Collins' comments as this young basketball season approached. There was the greater depth his `Cats now enjoyed. There was their blend of the old and new. Their was the flexibility that depth granted him. There was the need to knead that blend into a cohesive whole. There was the plethora of scorers they could now unleash. There was, most of all, an urgency to win now even as that cohesive whole was being formed.
This Thursday evening testified to the relevance of those themes, which all played out in a game the `Cats were never sure of winning. JerShon Cobb, one of their senior captains, struggled throughout the night with both his shot and foul trouble, ending with just five points in 18 minutes. But Sanjay Lumpkin compensated here, putting up 13 while also grabbing six rebounds and making a pair of steals.
The 7-foot Olah struggled as well, making just one of his half-dozen shots while finishing with a mere six points and three rebounds. But freshman Vic Law, despite his own shooting problems (one-of-five), compensated on the boards with eight rebounds of his own, and fellow freshman Gavin Skelly popped off the bench to replace Olah early in the second half to give his team a much-needed lift.
First he assisted on and set a screen for a Scottie Lindsey three. Then he back-tapped a Demps' miss to Lindsey, who missed a three, but here Skelly was fouled while going for the rebound, which gave the `Cats an out-of-bounds play that resulted in an easy Demps' layup off a McIntosh pass. Finally, on the next Osprey possession, he stole an in-bounds that led to a Law free throw, which put the `Cats up three with just under 15 remaining. "I thought his energy was huge for us," Collins later said of Skelly. "We were struggling. I didn't think the guys had good looks on their faces. He brought some energy."
Dave Sobolewski, in relief of McIntosh, then extended that lead to six with a three, but here is where the unformed nature of these `Cats was made most obvious. A season ago, while undermanned, they played defense with a withering intensity, and with that grit grabbed off wins few thought possible. But this current version does not play that way yet, cannot be expected to play that way yet so early in its times together.
So the Ospreys, who for the evening shot 51 percent overall and 43.8 percent on threes, were able to come back, were able to come back and take that six-point lead that Bryant McIntosh stared down and cooly erased.
••••••••
The start of this season had not been kind to Tre Demps. He missed all seven of his shots in the opener against Houston Baptist, struggled again against Brown, and so entered Thursday evening averaging just six points while shooting just 20 percent overall, just 12.5 percent on his threes.
"You just take it for what it is and embrace the process of finding that rhythm again and just go out there and do what you've done you're whole life. Naturally, you're going to get anxious. Naturally, you want to do better. So you've got to constantly keep preaching to yourself, `It's going to be all right. The shots will come. Just focus on playing hard, doing the little things to get yourself going, and eventually the shot will take care of itself.'"
That is just what he has done here, finally finding some rhythm in this game's second half, and now, with it tied at 65, he accepts a pass from Lumpkin and drives up the gut to put the `Cats up two at :51. But the Ospreys jab back, getting a tying floater from guard Dallas Moore at :34, and now the ball is again in Demps' hand and the clock is running and Collins is not stopping it with a timeout. "There was no need to call a time out or anything," he will later explain.
"All I would have drawn up was a play to get Tre the ball at the top of the floor with time and space for him to make a play. He already had it. He had the ball, he had a live dribble, they weren't able to sub. They might have put a better defensive team in. They might have been able to talk about, `We're gonna trap Tre Demps.' But on the fly both teams just have to make a play and I've seen Tre do it enough. He's the guy I want with the ball in his hands."
"With the ball in my hands," Demps himself will say, "I knew the shot I wanted to shoot. I usually pick two or three moves that I can use. I like going left. The defender did a great job of cutting me off and making me take a really bad shot, probably. A tough shot."
But that does not matter here as he buries that shot from just beyond the free throw line, and 2.5 seconds later the `Cats have their win. "He's fearless. He's fearless," Collins will then say of him. "Not that we all weren't, but Tre was the kid who hundreds and hundreds of times, I can imagine him counting the clock down in the backyard and taking the final shot. We shouldn't be surprised. That's what he does."
"My dad (Dell, a former NBA player and now the general manager of the Pelicans), I have to give him a lot of credit for that," Demps himself finally conclude. "We worked on that for years and years and years. After workouts we'd have, he'd always give me the ball and say, `Ten seconds on the clock.' I've probably been doing that since I was nine-years old."
