Northwestern University Athletics
Big Ten Tournament Primer
3/11/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
A potpourri as the `Cats await their Thursday rematch with Indiana at the United Center in their opening game of the Big Ten tourney.
THESE TEAMS met two weeks ago at Welsh-Ryan and the `Cats, who once led by as much as 14, emerged with a comfortable seven-point win. But that final margin-of-victory is a bit misleading and here is why. This game was tied at 40 at halftime and, with 13:23 remaining in it, the Hoosiers were down just one. They had, until this moment, converted 10-of-their-17 three-point attempts, but now they went into the deepest of freezes, going scoreless over the next 10 minutes and converting only two-of-their-last-14 attempts from distance. "But a lot of those shots were open," Chris Collins recently noted, and then he took a look ahead to their rematch.
"So we have to do a much better job in our defense, identifying their shooters, not letting them get going from the three-point line, and then being efficient offensively ourselves. We were able to do that in the first game. In order to beat Indiana, you have to score. To me, they're one of the best offensive teams in our league. So it's not going to be a low-scoring, grind-it-out type of game. In order to beat them, you've got to put the ball in the basket."
THE HOOSIERS are potent enough offensively to lead the Big Ten in scoring(78.0 ppg), in three-point field goal percentage (41.0) and in three-point field goals made (9.4 pg). It was no wonder, then, that Collins also said, "I think collectively we're going to have to score to beat them. But I don't want the game in the 80s. That's their game. We're going to have to score enough, but keep it more in the high 60s, low 70s."
THE `CATS leading scorer is guard Tre Demps, who over their last eight games has averaged 16 points and converted a scalding 52.6 percent of his three-point attempts (20-of-38). He was even hotter in the first game between these teams, ending that night with 23 while shooting 66.6 percent from the field (eight-of-12), and so it was no surprise that Collins would say, "I think they'll be on high alert for Tre.
"Some teams have been doubling our guards in pick-and-roll situations, sending more help, making those guys give the ball up. If that's the case, our other guys have to step up, and that's where Tre has to trust his guys. If they're going to put a lot of attention on taking him out of the game, that means other guys are going to be open and they've got to step up and make the open shots and be aggressive."
ONE KEY to Demps' string of sterling performances has been his willingness to trust his teammates, a stance he better adopted in this season's second half. "I'm always somebody who wants to go get it," he explained. "That's how I was raised. That's how I am. It's kind of hard for me to sit back and see how the defense is playing me, kind of get a feel. Before I think I was just trying to attack, attack, attack right off the bat, and I'd get myself in trouble, get into a bad rhythm. Now I'm letting the game come to me. Early on, I'm just feeling the game out a little bit and other guys'll get shot. That kind of opens up things for me later on in the game. It's just trusting the system and then, as the game evolves, things will start to open up."
"To me, he's been a lot more efficient the second half of the season," echoed Collins. "He's played at a good tempo. He's let the game come to him. He hasn't forced it. And because of that he's a better player. He's learning to trust his guys better, which has helped his game."
ONE OF HIS GUYS is forward Nathan Taphorn, who was asked what he must do if Demps does get closely attended by the Hoosiers. He deflected the question initially, noting that this was not only about him, but also about Vic Law and Scottie Lindsey and others as well. But then he got to the answer when he simply said, "We need to move without the ball, be in open spots."
That may sound mundane. But here is why it could well be of vital importance on Thursday.
THE HOOSIERS, in that first game, employed a defense that often shifted from man-to-man into a zone during a single possession. When they do that, explained Taphorn, "They want you to stop and think and look at what's going on. What you need to do is just play because when they do it, they lose guys and guys are wide open. We watched tape today, we only watched eight minutes of the game, and we saw like five to ten times where guys were just wide open. If we just play and see those guys, we'll get open shots."
"When they're switching within," picked up Collins, "you have a tendency (to think), `What are they in? Are they in man? Are they in zone?' What we try to do with our guys in that situation is simplify it. `Just look for the open areas and try to hit the open guys and keep the floor spaced.' They want you to be confused. They want you to be in a man-to-man play, and then all of a sudden they go zone, and they want you to reset and go to a zone play. For us, we had more success the first time just hitting open people, taking shots when they were there, driving, being aggressive. That's what you have to do. If you start thinking too much, it can confuse you."
"They have to set back up into that zone, sometimes they're out of place, so they'll just leave guys sometimes," concluded point Bryant McIntosh. "So that's the thing, keeping your head up, seeing the floor and finding that one guy they've left. You've just got to play. You've just got to play. Early on the first time we played them, we got on our heels and pulled the ball back out and set up a different offense for their zone rather than just playing. I think that's where we'll do a better job this time. If they go to a different defense throughout a possession, we'll be able to make that change quicker."
TWO QUICKIES about McIntosh himself. (1) He is on antibiotics are getting laid low by migraine headaches and a sinus infection. But on Tuesday he said, "I feel good. My body feels really good right now. My energy's up. It's much better than it's been in about a week. So I'm excited. I'm ready to go."
And (2) He was, shall we say, a bit over-excited the first time the `Cats played Indiana, the team he rooted for as a kid. Now, he also said Tuesday, "I think I'm past that. Playing them once was a great opportunity for me and I really enjoyed it. It was kind of like the childhood thing, it was the team you watched. Now I've got that out of the way. I think I'm past that now."
HERE IS ONE last thing to watch for on Thursday. Late in that first game, after they fell behind by 14, the Hoosiers pressed the `Cats, got some turnovers and cut into their deficit. "We hear," said McIntosh, "how they shouldn't have waited to pressure us so much. So as a guard that's one thing I'm focusing on, being ready for that pressure. I'm sure they'll probably pick us up full court a little bit more and things of that nature."
"I'm expecting the pressure that worked for them at the end of the game," echoed Demps. "I expect them to get into the ball a little bit more, pressure us, make me and BMac tired. It's going to be important that we have poise when they pressure us like that."
AND FINALLY, Collins, when someone noted that Indiana is playing for its (NCAA tourney) lives: "But so are we. The next time we lose, our season's over. That's the kind of urgency we need to play with."
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