Northwestern University Athletics
Wisconsin Primer
2/6/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
NUsports.com Special Contributor Skip Myslenski offers up some notes and quotes as the Northwestern men's basketball team heads to Madison to face Wisconsin on Saturday.
• THE 'CATS dropped their eighth straight Tuesday night at Nebraska, which was led by forwards Terran Petteway and Walter Pitchford. The former is a 22-year old redshirt junior who, as a freshman at Texas Tech, averaged 3.3 points and 2.1 rebounds per-game. The latter is also a 22-year old redshirt junior who, as a freshman at Florida, totaled just six points and four rebounds and 22 minutes while appearing in only 13 games. Rounding out their starting lineup were junior guards Benny Parker and Shavon Shields, who will both soon turn 21, and 24-year old senior Leslee Smith.
"I saw men against young guys," Chris Collins said of that game, where his 'Cats again depended hugely on freshmen Bryant McIntosh and Vic Law and Scottie Lindsey. "I say it all the time. Look at what Terran Petteway was doing as a freshman. Now he's a man and really good. So we can't lose sight. We all want to win, we're playing really hard. But we can't lose sight of where we're at and where we're trying to go. How many freshman did Nebraska play in the game the other night? One, who played five minutes. That makes a big difference at this level. I'm not making excuses. That's just the reality."
• THAT IS INDEED THE REALITY, and this too is real. As a freshman Frank Kaminsky, the Badgers' National Player of the Year candidate, averaged just 1.8 points and 1.4 rebounds and 7.7 minutes per-game. All of these are the kinds of facts Collins now shares with his prepubescent 'Cats, who are mottled with performers only familiar with success. "These guys," he explained on Thursday, "are used to playing really well, and they play against Terran Petteway, and they see what he is now. They don't see the kid who was 20 pounds lighter at Texas Tech. They see Frank Kaminsky and they see maybe the best player in the country. They don't see the kid who averaged seven minutes a game as a freshman and got one point and one rebound a game.
"You have to bring up those examples. That's where a lot of our guys are right now. They're finding their way. These guys are getting thrown into the fire, and you know what? Sometimes you learn some really tough lessons. Nobody feels sorry for us because we're young. Everybody's trying to win. But you have got to give these guys those examples so they don't get beaten down.
"You have to remind these guys to keep their spirits up. When it's not going well, when you have a string of losses like we've had, you can have a tendency to get beaten down. We can't afford that. We're developing. We're growing. While we're doing that, we want to try and win. That's not going to change. We're going to fight. But in the grand scheme of things, we need our guys to continue to get better and not get beaten down."
• HERE IS ONE MORE PIECE OF REALITY. The young 'Cats are on a journey that has already been arduous and wearying, but still has over a month to go. "I think there's no question. I think there's no question," Collins would say when asked if they just might be hitting a wall. "It's a long year for these guys. You start your team stuff now in the summer. We started our year in July. Now we're in February and they've never been asked to do these things on a daily basis. How you have to practice. How you have to study scouting reports. The strength and conditioning. The nutrition. Over time, when you're going through it for the first year, you're going to hit the wall a little bit.
"That's why you've constantly got to keep their spirits up. We've got to address those things we're not doing well. But we can't get beaten down. We've got half our conference season left. We're going to keep fighting, get ourselves up off the mat, and hopefully put ourselves in a position (to win)."
• THE 'CATS WERE IN A POSITION to win the first half-dozen games of their losing streak and failed to close the deal. But in each of their last two they suffered fatal four-minutes lapses that doomed them to defeat. "We've got to make sure if they score once or twice in a row, we've got to make it stop there and not let it turn into a big run that pushes the game out for them," Dave Sobolewski, one of their veterans, said Thursday. "We have to do a better job of ending their runs before it becomes too costly for our team. That's definitely something we've been talking about as a group."
To stay with the Badgers they must also be better defensively than they were against the Cornhuskers, who hit them for 76 points after totaling just 86 in their previous two games. "We were not good defensively in the Nebraska game," admitted Collins. "I thought we were very soft. We weren't physical attacking cutters. We let them get to the basket. We got away from our scouting principles. It was just a very disappointing defensive effort. We have to play harder on that end. We have to be more disciplined. And we have to be more physical."
• QUICKLY NOTED: Forward Nathan Taphorn, who has missed the last five games with a stress-related injury, is doubtful for Saturday. But guard JerShon Cobb will again play even though, said Collins, he's "Nowhere near close to 100 percent." He has not been that all season. "But," Collins went on, "he's fighting. It's hard for him, especially trying to make a move. Anything laterally is tough. He's become a very good spot shooter for us. And his presence for us is great for us on the floor. He's an older guy who knows what it takes.
"But I feel for him. Mentally, he's there. But when it comes time to make that move physically, he doesn't have it. But he's giving us all he can, and I really respect and admire that. He very easily could have said, `Look, I can't play.' But he doesn't want to do that. When he's not out there, he's in a boot. All the time! I respect the fact that he's stayed engaged, that's he trying to help us win, and he's really done a good job with leadership."
I do too.
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