Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Wildcats Take Their Game to Spain
8/19/2015 9:14:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Previewing the team's trip to Spain
WATCH: Coach Collins | B. McIntosh | T. Demps | A. Olah
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Hot fun in the summertime, a notebook...
BRYANT McINTOSH came off the screen and accepted the pass and, behind him, his defender was late getting through. "So," remembers the 'Cat point, "I was able to take one dribble and pull up for a three and hit it. He's yelling, 'He missed! Get the rebound!' I just shook my head and started laughing. It was a good experience."
STEPHEN CURRY, the NBA's Most Valuable Player and the star of the world champion Golden State Warriors. That was the defender on McIntosh that day, which explains well enough why it was such a good experience.
THAT MOMENT came during the four days McIntosh spent at Curry's Select Camp out in Alameda, where he not only picked up that memory. He also witnessed the skill-development drills practiced by the Warrior, which he has now incorporated into his own workouts, and got an overall tutorial on the point from the current master at that position. "I learned the importance of changing pace a lot more," he will say when asked about that. "I thought I did a pretty good job of that. But being able to stand up next to the best point guard in the game right now, and learn some of the things he thinks about, some of the things he does -- his ability to change pace is something I noticed when we were playing together and against each other. He just changes pace and gets by people so well, kind of lulling his defender asleep and then getting to the spot he needs to be and going up, he's definitely special. Just some of the small things I picked up from him were huge for my game."
"It's tough to guard him on ball screens, especially since he's come back," 'Cat Tre Demps will later attest when asked if he has noticed a change in McIntosh's game. "He does a great job of looking off the big, so as a defender, you don't know what he's going to do. At the end of the day, that's what you want. You want to create indecision in the defense and he does an unbelievable job of that."
DEMPS HIMSELF spent four days in June at a camp, this one called the Nike Basketball Academy. He was surrounded there by any number of pros who push that brand and was able to hear them discuss just how one reaches their level. "One of the things they focused on was it's not about the numbers, it's about having a skill set. Finding out what your skill set can be to bring to an NBA team," he recalls. "It was cool to kind of learn that and hear what NBA GMs want from a point guard or a shooting guard. It was a lot of learning."
DEMPS, OF COURSE, hopes to one day play in the NBA. But in front of him is his senior 'Cat season, and so he is asked how he can apply what he learned to what lies just ahead of him. "B-Mac is obviously our point guard and I'm in love with the role that I have," he says. 'But I do want to take more responsibility handling the basketball. Blending that in, there's not a lot of 6-3 shooting guards in the NBA or the next level, period. So I want to be able to make reads better and handle the ball, run a team, run an offense. I've been working on that this off-season. It's a bit of an adjustment. But I'm learning every day. And just continuing to try to win. Teams want winners. So I'm trying to win."
"I want all our guys to strive to be NBA players," Chris Collins will later say when asked about Demps' ambition. "Tre's been a guy, since I've had him, he's gotten better each year. No one works harder on his game. There's an added maturity to him. He's married now, he's in grad school. You just sense, he's a man. It's nice to have that on the team. Obviously he's going to be a big scorer for us, and that's going to be a great role. But he's also going to have some ball-handling duties as well, which I know he's anxious to add to his game. So I think you'll see him in that role a little bit as well. But I think all the guys, even though they all have individual goals, I think our main goal right now is to be the best team we can be and try to win. I know that's a big, big goal of his. It's his last go-round."
So will Demps and McIntosh play together?
"They'll play together a ton," says Collins. "To me, we have a great backcourt. Certainly they're going to play a lot of minutes together. But if Bryant's out of the game, you can see Tre bringing it up. Or even if they're playing together, if a team is trying to put a small, quicker guy on Bryant, I feel comfortable that Tre can bring it up and initiate our offense as well. I think he'll be our secondary point guard and ball handler, and Vic Law has actually done a great job of that as well. I think both of those guys can help if team's are really locking in on Bryant and trying to wear him out."
McINTHOSH, IN FACT, did wear down last spring at the end of his freshman season, finishing it at 172 pounds. Now, after working with sports performance guru Mike Schweigert and sports nutritionist Katie Knappenberger, he's back up to 185 with his body fat at seven percent. "With AAU and stuff, it's hard to focus on your eating habits and strength-and-conditioning stuff until you get to college, no matter how hard you train," he says about that change. "So I think that was a big thing for all of us freshmen-to-be-sophomores."
Law and swingman Scottie Lindsey, two others in that group, each put on 15 pounds during the off-season and are now, says Collins, "Playing stronger." Demps, in that interlude, improved his bench press and his vertical and his mile time (to under five minutes), and cut his body fat to four percent. Then there's senior center and tri-captain Alex Olah, who this summer won the team's Pound The Rock award that goes to the 'Cat who best reflects the mantra to bring it every day, both on and off the court. "He's completely changed his body," Collins says of him. "He's leaner than he's ever been. He's running better than he ever has."
"My fat percentage (10) went way down," the 280-pound Olah himself says. "But I'm not trying to think about that now. I'm just trying to see how I feel when I play. If I feel great with my weight, I'm just going to do that. I knew before I had to lose weight in order to run faster, to be more athletic, to be more agile. That helped me a lot. Now I'm at the point where I don't think about it anymore."
THESE RE-FORMED 'CATS, along with their four new teammates, are set to wrap up their summer in Spain, where they'll play five exhibition games before flying home on Sept. 1. "To me, it's a great year to take a trip like this," says Collins, thinking of both those newcomers and his relatively-young roster. "You get a chance on foreign soil to eat a lot together, to go on tours, to see things-- a lot of these guys, it's the first time they're leaving the country, so it's an exciting trip. Obviously you want to win the games, you want to play well, you want to try and see things about your team. But those things are secondary to what I think a trip like this can do for a team in terms of how they bond and the chemistry they have on the court.
AND FINALLY, Collins, on the expectations surrounding the 'Cats as he embarks on his third season as their coach: "It's good. People are excited about our team, they think we have a chance to do some things. I like that. I've never been one to shy away from expectations. I think they're good. But that being said, it can be a distraction if players allow it to be. So the thing we've focused on, we have goals for ourselves. We want to be a team that's talked about in March. But to do that, you can't skip steps along the way. It's August right now and we don't talk about March. We talk about what we're doing on this Spain trip. Teams can really hurt themselves if they get too far ahead of themselves (thinking about) what they want to do down the round. Then you stub your toe and there is no discussion at that time of the year. So I'm excited about the talk of us being on the upswing and having a chance to be good. But like I tell our guys all the time, to me the words upside and potential, the only things they mean is you haven't done anything yet."
WATCH: Coach Collins | B. McIntosh | T. Demps | A. Olah
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Hot fun in the summertime, a notebook...
BRYANT McINTOSH came off the screen and accepted the pass and, behind him, his defender was late getting through. "So," remembers the 'Cat point, "I was able to take one dribble and pull up for a three and hit it. He's yelling, 'He missed! Get the rebound!' I just shook my head and started laughing. It was a good experience."
STEPHEN CURRY, the NBA's Most Valuable Player and the star of the world champion Golden State Warriors. That was the defender on McIntosh that day, which explains well enough why it was such a good experience.
THAT MOMENT came during the four days McIntosh spent at Curry's Select Camp out in Alameda, where he not only picked up that memory. He also witnessed the skill-development drills practiced by the Warrior, which he has now incorporated into his own workouts, and got an overall tutorial on the point from the current master at that position. "I learned the importance of changing pace a lot more," he will say when asked about that. "I thought I did a pretty good job of that. But being able to stand up next to the best point guard in the game right now, and learn some of the things he thinks about, some of the things he does -- his ability to change pace is something I noticed when we were playing together and against each other. He just changes pace and gets by people so well, kind of lulling his defender asleep and then getting to the spot he needs to be and going up, he's definitely special. Just some of the small things I picked up from him were huge for my game."
"It's tough to guard him on ball screens, especially since he's come back," 'Cat Tre Demps will later attest when asked if he has noticed a change in McIntosh's game. "He does a great job of looking off the big, so as a defender, you don't know what he's going to do. At the end of the day, that's what you want. You want to create indecision in the defense and he does an unbelievable job of that."
DEMPS HIMSELF spent four days in June at a camp, this one called the Nike Basketball Academy. He was surrounded there by any number of pros who push that brand and was able to hear them discuss just how one reaches their level. "One of the things they focused on was it's not about the numbers, it's about having a skill set. Finding out what your skill set can be to bring to an NBA team," he recalls. "It was cool to kind of learn that and hear what NBA GMs want from a point guard or a shooting guard. It was a lot of learning."
DEMPS, OF COURSE, hopes to one day play in the NBA. But in front of him is his senior 'Cat season, and so he is asked how he can apply what he learned to what lies just ahead of him. "B-Mac is obviously our point guard and I'm in love with the role that I have," he says. 'But I do want to take more responsibility handling the basketball. Blending that in, there's not a lot of 6-3 shooting guards in the NBA or the next level, period. So I want to be able to make reads better and handle the ball, run a team, run an offense. I've been working on that this off-season. It's a bit of an adjustment. But I'm learning every day. And just continuing to try to win. Teams want winners. So I'm trying to win."
"I want all our guys to strive to be NBA players," Chris Collins will later say when asked about Demps' ambition. "Tre's been a guy, since I've had him, he's gotten better each year. No one works harder on his game. There's an added maturity to him. He's married now, he's in grad school. You just sense, he's a man. It's nice to have that on the team. Obviously he's going to be a big scorer for us, and that's going to be a great role. But he's also going to have some ball-handling duties as well, which I know he's anxious to add to his game. So I think you'll see him in that role a little bit as well. But I think all the guys, even though they all have individual goals, I think our main goal right now is to be the best team we can be and try to win. I know that's a big, big goal of his. It's his last go-round."
So will Demps and McIntosh play together?
"They'll play together a ton," says Collins. "To me, we have a great backcourt. Certainly they're going to play a lot of minutes together. But if Bryant's out of the game, you can see Tre bringing it up. Or even if they're playing together, if a team is trying to put a small, quicker guy on Bryant, I feel comfortable that Tre can bring it up and initiate our offense as well. I think he'll be our secondary point guard and ball handler, and Vic Law has actually done a great job of that as well. I think both of those guys can help if team's are really locking in on Bryant and trying to wear him out."
McINTHOSH, IN FACT, did wear down last spring at the end of his freshman season, finishing it at 172 pounds. Now, after working with sports performance guru Mike Schweigert and sports nutritionist Katie Knappenberger, he's back up to 185 with his body fat at seven percent. "With AAU and stuff, it's hard to focus on your eating habits and strength-and-conditioning stuff until you get to college, no matter how hard you train," he says about that change. "So I think that was a big thing for all of us freshmen-to-be-sophomores."
Law and swingman Scottie Lindsey, two others in that group, each put on 15 pounds during the off-season and are now, says Collins, "Playing stronger." Demps, in that interlude, improved his bench press and his vertical and his mile time (to under five minutes), and cut his body fat to four percent. Then there's senior center and tri-captain Alex Olah, who this summer won the team's Pound The Rock award that goes to the 'Cat who best reflects the mantra to bring it every day, both on and off the court. "He's completely changed his body," Collins says of him. "He's leaner than he's ever been. He's running better than he ever has."
"My fat percentage (10) went way down," the 280-pound Olah himself says. "But I'm not trying to think about that now. I'm just trying to see how I feel when I play. If I feel great with my weight, I'm just going to do that. I knew before I had to lose weight in order to run faster, to be more athletic, to be more agile. That helped me a lot. Now I'm at the point where I don't think about it anymore."
THESE RE-FORMED 'CATS, along with their four new teammates, are set to wrap up their summer in Spain, where they'll play five exhibition games before flying home on Sept. 1. "To me, it's a great year to take a trip like this," says Collins, thinking of both those newcomers and his relatively-young roster. "You get a chance on foreign soil to eat a lot together, to go on tours, to see things-- a lot of these guys, it's the first time they're leaving the country, so it's an exciting trip. Obviously you want to win the games, you want to play well, you want to try and see things about your team. But those things are secondary to what I think a trip like this can do for a team in terms of how they bond and the chemistry they have on the court.
AND FINALLY, Collins, on the expectations surrounding the 'Cats as he embarks on his third season as their coach: "It's good. People are excited about our team, they think we have a chance to do some things. I like that. I've never been one to shy away from expectations. I think they're good. But that being said, it can be a distraction if players allow it to be. So the thing we've focused on, we have goals for ourselves. We want to be a team that's talked about in March. But to do that, you can't skip steps along the way. It's August right now and we don't talk about March. We talk about what we're doing on this Spain trip. Teams can really hurt themselves if they get too far ahead of themselves (thinking about) what they want to do down the round. Then you stub your toe and there is no discussion at that time of the year. So I'm excited about the talk of us being on the upswing and having a chance to be good. But like I tell our guys all the time, to me the words upside and potential, the only things they mean is you haven't done anything yet."
Players Mentioned
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