Fairfield In Review

11/19/2015 3:55:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Nick Brilowski

NUsports.com Special Contributor Skip Myslenski looks back on the Northwestern men's basketball team's 79-72 victory over Fairfield at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Wednesday night.

Already in this young season the college basketball landscape was pockmarked by upsets. Western Illinois had toppled Wisconsin in Madison, and Northern Florida had toppled Illinois, and now, Wednesday evening at Welsh-Ryan, Fairfield was threatening to do just that to the 'Cats. The Stags were down only three late and in possession of momentum, but here point Bryant McIntosh grabbed hold of center stage and took a star turn.

First, at 2:09, he penetrated the lane and dropped in a signature tear-drop. Then, at 1:13, he picked a long pass of Stag guard Jerome Segura. Finally, at :52, he drove hard down the right chute, spun in an improbably layup while getting fouled, and finished off a conventional three-point play to put the 'Cats up eight. "I saw a little opening," he would later say, describing this last play. "We were wasting clock. The way they've been calling the game late, I was just trying to create contact and get to the foul line. I got all the way to the rim and was able to put enough English on it to finish."

"McIntosh was sensational. I thought he was a big-time player for us tonight," said his coach, Chris Collins. "He made every play for us. Obviously the 20 points. But also the five assists, the five rebounds, the four steals, and only one turnover. Even the shots he missed, he drew so much attention that's when we got the tip in. I just thought he was sensational."

"He just made a lot of plays down the stretch," forward Sanjay Lumpkin soon concluded. "He carried us at the end of the game. That's just what he does. He makes good plays, find the right guys. That's B-Mac."

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Already in this young season the college basketball landscape was pockmarked by upsets. Belmont had toppled Marquette in Milwaukee, and Monmouth had toppled UCLA in Los Angeles, but early on Wednesday evening at Welsh-Ryan, the 'Cats looked primed to comfortably handle Fairfield. Their freshman forward, Aaron Falzon, drained three consecutive threes from the right wing, and when Scottie Lindsey dropped one of his one from the same spot, they were up nine with less than seven minutes gone.

The 'Cats were also harassing the Stags into errors, eventually getting 23 of their 79 points off of turnovers, yet here a confluence of factors guaranteed that there would be no rout this night. Tre Demps, even while totaling 14 points, would never get off, ending just 4-of-16 overall and 0-of-7 on his threes. ("We've got to get Tre going and I know he will get going. I'm not worried about it. I know what he can do," Collins would say of him.) The Stags, though undersized, outrebounded the 'Cats by eight and limited Alex Olah to only six shots. Then there were the 'Cats propensity to shoot from distance and their frigidity from beyond the arc.

A full-half of their 30 first-halt shots came from there in fact and, after making three-of-their-first-four, they hit only two of their final 11. "I thought we were settling a little bit," Collins later said. "Sometimes when you hit shots early, it can be a little bit of fool's gold. You get jump shot happy. With the way the game was being called, with the new rules, you have to drive. They (the refs) are going to reward hard drivers. You're seeing it. We can say it's frustrating. But there's a big-- they want to clean up the game. We've got to do a better job of using the new rules. Especially a guy like Bryant because he's an automatic free throw shooter. We talked about it at halftime. Going inside. Driving the ball. Putting pressure on their defense."

The 'Cats did do a better job of that in the second half, taking only 11 of their 31 shots from distance, yet they never warmed up, ending this evening just seven-of-26 on their threes (26.9 percent). Still, with their defense, they thwarted the Stags, stymied the Stags, kept the Stags in their rear view mirror and eventually built a 16-point lead. But here one last factor came to bear, and it was that official push to clean up the game that Collins would later talk about.

That push would cost the 'Cats, who picked up their seventh team foul of the second half with just four minutes gone, and now the Stags started parading to the line, once scoring 10 straight points from there. "We had some silly over-the-back fouls, and now all of a sudden 16 goes to 10, to eight, and they start smelling that they're in the game," Collins would say. "We have to do a better job of playing without our hands, playing with our bodies, keeping the ball in front of us. That being said, there was an enormous amount of game pressure when a team that's a so-called underdog all of a sudden has got a lot of momentum. They've got nothing to lose, it's a three-point game, things are tight.

"We made some big plays."

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Already in this young season the college basketball landscape was pockmarked by upsets. Chattanooga had toppled Georgia in Athens, and William & Mary had toppled North Carolina State in Raleigh, but after McIntosh's heroics Wednesday night at Welsh-Ryan, there would be no upset here. The 'Cats would win by seven. "We're excited to get this win," Chris Collins then said.

"People might think it's not that hard. It's very hard to win at this level no matter who you play. You're seeing this year more than ever that parity is out of this world. Every team is good. We've got to get a lot better, no question about it. But I'm not going to apologize for winning the game."