Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Iowa in Review
1/16/2017 12:22:00 PM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
You just don't do this, not against a school without a direction in its name and certainly not here in the belly of January. Back in November, back when you're bumping up against an Eastern this or a Western that, well, OK, maybe here you deliver a spanking while padding your won-lost record. But it's Big Ten play now, and the opponent is Iowa, and this is not something you do in that kind of setting.
Oh, sure. The Hawkeyes are young, starting four freshmen (one a redshirt) and a lone senior, but that upperclassman is not Ordinary Joe. It is Peter Jok, your conference's top scorer, and he has led that youth back into the league race with wins in eight of their last 10 games. The most-recent of those victories came just Thursday night over No. 17 and well-regarded Purdue, and after it their coach Fran McCaffrey said of his crew, "They played like a veteran group in the second half."
So, no. Against an opponent with that pedigree you do not total 37 field goals while limiting them to 18. Nor do you drop 59.7 percent of your shots while holding them to 35.3 percent shooting. Nor do you out-rebound them by 15 (39-24) or force them into more turnovers (14) than assists (12). Nor, most certainly, do you topple them by 35, your largest margin of victory in this series that began way back on March 11, 1905. (Your previous high was 25, a feat accomplished by your 1931 Big Ten champions.)
But that is just what you did Sunday night at Welsh-Ryan in your 89-54 destruction of the Hawkeyes. "When I took this thing over four years ago, and you walk into Welsh-Ryan and it's dark, all of us are kind of dreamers at heart," your coach, Chris Collins, will say when your rout is complete. "You close your eyes and you envision a night like tonight. That's what I dreamed of. Us playing really well. A predominantly Northwestern crowd. It was as loud as it's been in there in four years. And hopefully we can have that kind of support. This is a great group of guys and it's hard to win in this league. When you get that kind of support, it really makes a difference. It really does."
••••••••••
Sunday was indeed an extraordinary night at Welsh-Ryan, but it was hardly a dream. It was instead a beatdown that the 'Cats put on the Hawkeyes, a good old-fashioned butt-kicking delivered by a myriad cast. That cast, with its synchronicity, resembled a well-rehearsed chorus line, a whole far greater than any of its parts, no matter the greatness of any one of them. "That's how we have to play. We're a function of using each other," Collins would say after noting his team had 29 assists on those 37 field goals.
"They are a team that is really connected. They're playing very well together," was McCaffery's observation. "Clearly we were pretty disjointed tonight."
One reason for that was the 'Cats team defense, which held Iowa to 29 points below its season average (83). Another was the dirty work done down low by Sanjay Lumpkin (seven rebounds and a steal) and Dererk Pardon (nine rebounds, two blocks and two steals). "They provide the toughness for our team," Collins would say of them. "You have two guys on your back line that just bring a lot of strength to the team." Then there was the blanket Vic Law threw over Jok, who managed just four points after entering the game averaging 22.9. "He did a great job of chasing him around. Jok's non-stop movement," said Collins.
Scottie Lindsey, who occasionally relieved Law on Jok, also found time to fill the stat sheet, ending with 22 points and eight rebounds and five assists and three steals. "Coach asked me to make plays on both the offensive and defensive end," he would say. "He wants me to be a two-way player, so I try to do anything I can to help our team." Finally in this classic team win there was point Bryant McIntosh, who scored 20 while going nine-of-11 from the field and handing out 10 assists with just one turnover. "Tonight was vintage B-Mac. That was awesome," Collins would enthuse. "It was his game tonight. He had that game under control. He got our guys into the right spots. He found guys. He organized us. He had a great pep to his step.
"What you're seeing now is he's getting his confidence back with his shooting. He's having a lot of fun out there playing, which is really important to him. He's a kid, he comes from a good place. He wants to do well. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to do well. Sometimes that can override having fun out there. I think what's happened is he's having more fun, he's making some shots. So now he's back to being the guy we've known and seen the last two years. It was fun to watch as his coach."
"Coach and I had a great sit down January 4th at his house. It was a big heart-to-heart," McIntosh himself would say of his transformation. "I give him a lot of credit for that. The happiness. The joy."
••••••••••
You just don't do this, not against a school without a direction in its name and certainly not here in the belly of January. But Sunday night at Welsh-Ryan you just jumped all over Iowa and ran off to a 10-point lead with less than seven minutes gone. Now, here and there, the Hawkeyes would reel you back in, once even getting as close as three. But you never blinked, you never exhaled, you never relaxed your effort, and at halftime you were up a comfortable dozen.
Earlier this season, most notably against DePaul and Dayton, you frittered away leads like this in the second 20 minutes. But, not insignificantly, that would not happen here. You would instead keep your foot on the gas, keep your foot on their throat, keep your foot on their chest and not let them breath, and in these final 20 you outscored them by 23 and were never threatened. "We didn't want to let them back in the game. We didn't want to give them any life," Lindsey would later say of your ruthlessness.
"It speaks to our growth, our maturity, not to play around with the lead," McIntosh would finally echo. "That's what really good teams do. When you have a 14-point lead you make it a 20-point lead. It makes it easier on yourself. If you can bury them early, you can kind of break their spirits. We've been on the other end of that. We've been a young team.
"So that was big for us, to come out and do that to them."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
You just don't do this, not against a school without a direction in its name and certainly not here in the belly of January. Back in November, back when you're bumping up against an Eastern this or a Western that, well, OK, maybe here you deliver a spanking while padding your won-lost record. But it's Big Ten play now, and the opponent is Iowa, and this is not something you do in that kind of setting.
Oh, sure. The Hawkeyes are young, starting four freshmen (one a redshirt) and a lone senior, but that upperclassman is not Ordinary Joe. It is Peter Jok, your conference's top scorer, and he has led that youth back into the league race with wins in eight of their last 10 games. The most-recent of those victories came just Thursday night over No. 17 and well-regarded Purdue, and after it their coach Fran McCaffrey said of his crew, "They played like a veteran group in the second half."
So, no. Against an opponent with that pedigree you do not total 37 field goals while limiting them to 18. Nor do you drop 59.7 percent of your shots while holding them to 35.3 percent shooting. Nor do you out-rebound them by 15 (39-24) or force them into more turnovers (14) than assists (12). Nor, most certainly, do you topple them by 35, your largest margin of victory in this series that began way back on March 11, 1905. (Your previous high was 25, a feat accomplished by your 1931 Big Ten champions.)
But that is just what you did Sunday night at Welsh-Ryan in your 89-54 destruction of the Hawkeyes. "When I took this thing over four years ago, and you walk into Welsh-Ryan and it's dark, all of us are kind of dreamers at heart," your coach, Chris Collins, will say when your rout is complete. "You close your eyes and you envision a night like tonight. That's what I dreamed of. Us playing really well. A predominantly Northwestern crowd. It was as loud as it's been in there in four years. And hopefully we can have that kind of support. This is a great group of guys and it's hard to win in this league. When you get that kind of support, it really makes a difference. It really does."
••••••••••
Sunday was indeed an extraordinary night at Welsh-Ryan, but it was hardly a dream. It was instead a beatdown that the 'Cats put on the Hawkeyes, a good old-fashioned butt-kicking delivered by a myriad cast. That cast, with its synchronicity, resembled a well-rehearsed chorus line, a whole far greater than any of its parts, no matter the greatness of any one of them. "That's how we have to play. We're a function of using each other," Collins would say after noting his team had 29 assists on those 37 field goals.
"They are a team that is really connected. They're playing very well together," was McCaffery's observation. "Clearly we were pretty disjointed tonight."
One reason for that was the 'Cats team defense, which held Iowa to 29 points below its season average (83). Another was the dirty work done down low by Sanjay Lumpkin (seven rebounds and a steal) and Dererk Pardon (nine rebounds, two blocks and two steals). "They provide the toughness for our team," Collins would say of them. "You have two guys on your back line that just bring a lot of strength to the team." Then there was the blanket Vic Law threw over Jok, who managed just four points after entering the game averaging 22.9. "He did a great job of chasing him around. Jok's non-stop movement," said Collins.
Scottie Lindsey, who occasionally relieved Law on Jok, also found time to fill the stat sheet, ending with 22 points and eight rebounds and five assists and three steals. "Coach asked me to make plays on both the offensive and defensive end," he would say. "He wants me to be a two-way player, so I try to do anything I can to help our team." Finally in this classic team win there was point Bryant McIntosh, who scored 20 while going nine-of-11 from the field and handing out 10 assists with just one turnover. "Tonight was vintage B-Mac. That was awesome," Collins would enthuse. "It was his game tonight. He had that game under control. He got our guys into the right spots. He found guys. He organized us. He had a great pep to his step.
"What you're seeing now is he's getting his confidence back with his shooting. He's having a lot of fun out there playing, which is really important to him. He's a kid, he comes from a good place. He wants to do well. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to do well. Sometimes that can override having fun out there. I think what's happened is he's having more fun, he's making some shots. So now he's back to being the guy we've known and seen the last two years. It was fun to watch as his coach."
"Coach and I had a great sit down January 4th at his house. It was a big heart-to-heart," McIntosh himself would say of his transformation. "I give him a lot of credit for that. The happiness. The joy."
••••••••••
You just don't do this, not against a school without a direction in its name and certainly not here in the belly of January. But Sunday night at Welsh-Ryan you just jumped all over Iowa and ran off to a 10-point lead with less than seven minutes gone. Now, here and there, the Hawkeyes would reel you back in, once even getting as close as three. But you never blinked, you never exhaled, you never relaxed your effort, and at halftime you were up a comfortable dozen.
Earlier this season, most notably against DePaul and Dayton, you frittered away leads like this in the second 20 minutes. But, not insignificantly, that would not happen here. You would instead keep your foot on the gas, keep your foot on their throat, keep your foot on their chest and not let them breath, and in these final 20 you outscored them by 23 and were never threatened. "We didn't want to let them back in the game. We didn't want to give them any life," Lindsey would later say of your ruthlessness.
"It speaks to our growth, our maturity, not to play around with the lead," McIntosh would finally echo. "That's what really good teams do. When you have a 14-point lead you make it a 20-point lead. It makes it easier on yourself. If you can bury them early, you can kind of break their spirits. We've been on the other end of that. We've been a young team.
"So that was big for us, to come out and do that to them."
••••••
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