Northwestern University Athletics
Northern Kentucky In Review
12/28/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
This was late Saturday afternoon and just minutes after the `Cats had finished off their 21-point win over Northern Kentucky. That victory had closed out the preseason portion of their schedule and now, in front of them, loomed only the daunting grind that is Big Ten play. "The younger guys ask us how the league is, but there's only so much you can prepare them for," junior Tre Demps would say here.
"This league is a monster. Every night is a grind. Every night is a battle. The biggest thing is everybody comes super prepared. Coaches are amazing at game planning, getting the shots they want, getting the players the ball where they like the ball. Defensive schemes are on a whole other level. That's the biggest thing, and you have to go through that to really know what it's like."
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The `Cats completed their preseason with nine victories and that, certainly, is not insignificant. But victories were not the only goal through those six weeks for this was a young team, a team with a pair of freshmen in its starting lineup and another pair in its rotation. They needed to marinate in their new environment and to absorb the realities of the college game, which are far different from those they experienced in high school. They needed to be blended in with the returning veterans and, together, this amalgam of `Cats needed to establish the identity that would define them through the middle of winter.
"We're young," Chris Collins said Saturday when asked its identity now. He chuckled here, chuckled at the obviousness of that answer, and then he added, "Look. Our guys are getting better. We're playing hard. I think that has to be our identity. With so much youth on the floor, we're going to make mistakes. It is what is it. That's part of growing up and getting better and going through some of the growing pains.
"So our identity's got to be a team that plays hard and competes every night. If we do that, I feel confident we'll put ourselves in position to win some games. Really, that's all you can ask. We're going to have nights, I've said it (before), where we look really young and like we haven't played much basketball before. But then there's going to be stretches where we look pretty good. I feel our guys are getting better. That's really encouraging to me."
But in the middle of their preseason, while speaking of his youth, Collins had said, "Some of these guys, they don't quite fully believe me when I tell them how tough it is to play at this level." So here, with the Big Ten looming, he is asked if they have now all bought in to that reality.
"I think they're getting it. I think they're getting it," he said. "I don't think they'll fully get it until we get into league play. For a lot of them it's going to be new. But we're in a better place in terms of that than we were a couple weeks ago. I'm encouraged by those signs."
Encouraging too was the way they responded Saturday against Northern, which from the start put heavy pressure on the `Cat guards. They initially floundered against that defense and, with nine minutes gone, they were down three and shooting just 27.3 percent from the field (three-of-11). "We were retreating while they were attacking us," Demps later explained. "After a couple huddles, we realized we have to attack. If they're going to pressure us, we have good enough players that we can just attack. That's what we started doing."
They started attacking the rim, and that delivered layups and free throws, and that quickly turned this game in their favor. They would shoot 64.7 percent (11-of-17) through the last 11 minutes of the first half. They would get 22 of their 36 first-half points in the paint and six more of them from the line. They would end that half with their lead at a dozen and never in the second half would it fall below nine.
Demps would end with 23 and freshman point Bryant McIntosh with 15. Another freshman, Scottie Lindsey, would chip in 12 and provide spark off the bench, and the `Cats would make all 18 of their free throw attempts. Nick Segura, their walk-on, would drop the last two of those and then, 65 seconds later, their preseason was over. "For us to get the nine wins, it's a really good start to the season," Collins would soon say. "Now we'll get what we earn in the league."
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Often, over the last six weeks, Chris Collins has mentioned how much is so new to freshmen McIntosh and Lindsey, to freshmen Vic Law, Gavin Skelly and to Johnnie Vassar. Now, with their Tuesday Big Ten opener at Rutgers looming, more newness awaits them, and the angle of their learning curve grows even steeper and more treacherous. Yet McIntosh, for one, is undaunted. "I'm excited to compete," he will say.
"This is a great conference. It's one of the things I chose. I grew up in the Midwest (Indiana) watching Big Ten basketball. It's just a great conference with so many great teams. I'm just excited to compete against them and some great coaches who'll have great game plans for me and for all the guys on our team. That's just something I'm excited for, the competition of it. That's the fun part of basketball. Playing against great competition and seeing where you stand."
That, of course, is an admirable stance, and well reflects his inner workings. But it also reflects the cool insouciance of youth, and contrasts sharply with the observations of a pair of hard-eyed realists. The first of them is UIC coach Howard Moore, a former Wisconsin assistant, who last Monday said this after his team fell to the `Cats. "They're playing a lot of freshmen, a lot of young guys," he said. "Obviously, going into a lot of these Big Ten venues, it's going to be up-and-down. Sometimes you'll get a good Vic Law, sometimes you'll get a bad Vic Law. Sometimes you'll get a good McIntosh, sometimes he'll struggle. The history of freshmen in that league has been hit or miss."
The other of them is his own coach, who Saturday said this when asked if there is any way to prepare his freshmen for what awaits them. "I think they're going to have to experience it," Chris Collins said. "The level of intensity is going to go up. The level of scouting is going to go up. You have teams that know each other so well and the preparation's so good and the coaching's so good in our conference that you really have to be sharp, you have to be disciplined, you have to play hard every possession of every game.
"For young players that's a hard thing. We're still developing that. Our older guys can help them as we go into Tuesday. But part of it is getting out there and seeing it for themselves and understanding what it takes to be successful in our league."
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