Northwestern University Athletics
Michigan State Primer
1/9/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Notes and quotes as the `Cats prepare for their Sunday morning stare-down at Michigan State.
THE SPARTANS, of course, are regularly regarded as the benchmark for toughness in the Big Ten (if not the nation) and so that word stare-down is used intentionally. "They've always been a tough team," attests the senior JerShon Cobb. "You have a coach like (Tom) Izzo, I feel you have no choice but to be tough. So I guess it's kind of a measuring block for us because we pride ourselves on being tough also. We don't have the history behind us. But we're on the path to being a tough, hard-nosed team also. We're finding it. We're still in the process of finding out who we are as a team. But that's the great thing about a season. You have time as you're getting better to find out who you are as a team."
And just what does he tell the team's many freshmen about visiting Michigan State?
"It's going to be tough. It's not going to be a pushover," he says with a knowing chuckle. "The fans are going to be on you from the beginning when we're out they're warming up. It's going to be us and the group of people who come on the trip with us against everybody else. That's the mindset we have to have."
TOUGH is also an apt word to describe the situation of Cobb, whose last rodeo as a `Cat has been mottled by a lingering injury that has limited him all season and even kept him out of five games. "It's been tough not knowing how my body's going to feel for each game. It's just hard," even he says. "It's probably one of the worst feelings to have for a college athlete, knowing the things you can do and telling your body to do them and you're not able to do them. It's tough."
THE CULPRIT is the right foot he injured late last year. "They (the doctors) look at it and, basically, it's just time that'll heal it," Cobb says.
But time, in the belly of a season, is a luxury he does not have, and so his efforts in both practices and games are carefully managed by his coach Chris Collins. "The more pounding he gets in practice is going to effect how he feel in games," he explains. "So what we try to do is get him as much work as he can to stay sharp and know our game plan, then keep him as fresh as possible for the game."
Similar attention is then given to his use in games themselves, a reality that was reflected in the `Cats first two Big Ten affairs. Against Rutgers, a grind-it-out win, he played 11 minutes in the first half and 12 in the second for a total of 23. "He was playing well. We needed him out there," explains Collins. But against Wisconsin, a blowout loss, he played only eight minutes in the first half and five in the second for a total of 13. "That game," Collins goes on, "kind of got out of hand and we need him in the long run. He knows that."
COBB was an integral part of the `Cats last season, which was highlighted by some notable upsets (over No. 23 Illinois at home, over No. 14 Wisconsin in Madison, over Iowa in the Big Ten tourney). Those successes, in turn, followed a familiar script; they played good defense and then, late, turned to Cobb or Tre Demps or the graduated Drew Crawford to bring them home. But, finally, that script has been edited by Cobbs' current situation. "When we play really good teams this year, it's going to have to be a similar blueprint," explains Collins. "We've been a good defensive team. We're getting better on that end. I think we're improving offensively, but we still have a ways to go in getting some guys going. JerShon being out has hurt in that regard.
"We knew we were losing Drew's scoring. But we thought we'd get that mid-double figure production from JerShon and he just hasn't been able to do that physically. (He's averaging just five ppg.) So we've had to try and find it in other ways...We have to, by committee, find a way to get into the mid-to-high-60s and then let our defense keep us in the game. You look at all these Big Ten games. Very few of them are shootouts. Obviously Wisconsin has the fire power to do that. But you're going to see grind it out games in the Big Ten. That's what we were able to do at Rutgers."
ONE MEMBER of that committee is freshman forward Vic Law, who has struggled through their opening conference games. At Rutgers he was ill, sat out the second half and scored not a point, and then he went one-for-seven and three points against the Badgers. "It's been a learning experience for me. The season's been up-and-down," he will say.
And what has he learned?
"What it takes to be good every single day. How many shots you get before and after practice, stuff like that. The freshman ups-and-downs during the season, consistency, things like that. But I'm really optimistic with how I'm learning and the different things that have happened, and the different things I've been able to learn so far."
Has anything surprised him at the college level?
"The only thing that's been really different for me is the physicality and the preparation that goes into each game. With the Big Ten being the best conference in the country, and the toughest conference you can play in, each (game) your body goes through almost a battle, a war, with the other team. That wasn't something I was used to in high school, something I'm getting used to now with each and every step. I feel like every team in the Big Ten is physical. I don't think there's a soft team in the Big Ten."
"He's learned the physicality at this level is a big jump from what he was used to in high school," Collins will later say. "The strength and conditioning component at our level has become huge. Look at Sanjay (Lumpkin) and (Nathan) Taphorn. They were freshmen last year and their bodies are markedly different this year. That's what's going to happen with our young kids. Obviously, I'd like to fast forward to when they can be strong. But you just watch little things. Trying to carve out space. Getting knocked a little bit on a cut when you catch it on the wing. Stronger guys getting into your body and getting you off balance. That little bit can be what throws you off."
SUNDAY, in the hothouse that is Michigan State's Breslin Center, that is just the treatment he and all the `Cats will again confront. So, finally, he is asked how hard it is to get out of bed the morning after. "Ha, ha," Vic Law says. "It's pretty hard. You go to the training room and you almost live there, it seems like."
