Northwestern University Athletics
A Finish For the Ages
3/2/2017 11:20:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
It is the last minute now on this Wednesday night at a rollicking Welsh-Ryan, and the 'Cats are tied with Michigan at 65. This has been a glorious affair, a stare-down filled with surges and feints and errors and spectaculars, and here the Wolverine guard Derrick Walton Jr. is isolated on the 'Cat wing Vic Law. Their confrontation has been an absorbing subplot to this evening, a game within a game that each has taken turns dominating, and this time it is Law who wins as Walton misses a jumper over his outstretched arm.
Then, after a time out, the six-foot-three 'Cat point Bryant McIntosh has the ball, and he drives the right baseline, and he offers and misses over the six-foot-eight Duncan Robinson as the clock approaches 10 seconds. This one is rebounded by the Wolverines' Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, who quickly moves it up the court and then kicks out to teammate Zak Irvin. "We could have set something up," his coach, John Beilein, will say when asked if he thought of calling a time out here. "But at the same time, my gut feeling is, 10 seconds, full court, let them play basketball and hopefully you're going to get fouled or you're going to find someone. And we did get a good shot."
But that shot, Irvin's three, is errant, and it goes out of bounds to the 'Cats with 1.3 seconds showing on the clock. They call time and huddle as the referees check the replays to see just how much time truly does remain. "We knew it was going to be inside of two seconds," Chris Collins later relates. "A couple of the assistants said, 'Let's not risk a turnover. Let's just get it in and go to overtime and play five minutes.' My instincts said, 'No. We've got to go for it.'
"Once I said that, (Assistant) Coach (Brian) James grabbed the clipboard, drew up a great play."
••••••••••
Michigan arrived at Welsh-Ryan as a team ascendent and fresh off a 12-point upset of No. 14 Purdue. The 'Cats, in stark contrast, had struggled through February as the chatter increased over their tourney possibilities, and they had closed out that month by fumbling away a late lead at Indiana and falling to the Hoosiers by a point. For so long, as the spotlight on his team grew hotter, Collins had attempted to minimize its impact. But now he altered his approach. "My instincts were to meet it head on," he would say Wednesday night.
"I've talked all year about how we've tried to stay focused on what's in front of us, and come up with other motivations. Really, a couple days ago, I decided to go completely away from that. After Indiana, I came in and challenged them. I told them there was pressure. It was the first time. I said, 'Guys, there is pressure. And anything good in life involves handling pressure and succeeding under pressure. We're not going to avoid it anymore. We're not going to skirt around it. We're not going to not talk about it. There is pressure on us and we've got to go out and win if we want to do something great.' I don't know if that helped. But it was time to be like that with them. I challenged them. I challenged them to be tougher mentally and to be stronger. To put 40 minutes together and get this done."
"To be honest, this is the (kind of) game I committed here for," Law would say minutes later. "When I committed here, everybody said, 'Why are you choosing Northwestern? They have no culture. They have no basketball presence there.' To play in a game like this— I don't think any Northwestern team has ever played in a game like this— I mean how can you not be excited to play in a game like this."
He, especially, had struggled in February, but on this evening he would be resplendent, controlling Walton and himself scoring a game-high 18 points while going seven-of-10 from the field. He was clearly his team's star here, but important too were easily-forgotten contributions made by a trio of 'Cats. The freshman center Barret Benson, the junior forward Gavin Skelly, the senior forward Nate Taphorn— each popped off the bench in the belly of this beast and helped drive the 'Cats to that tie at 65.
"We can't play with five guys. We had a collective effort tonight," Collins would say, and he was correct.
••••••••••
Brian James labored in the NBA as an assistant for over a decade and now, says Collins, "He's like my special team's coordinator. All his years in the NBA, he's got all the sideline, under out-of-bounds long, special situations." He, then, is well prepared for this moment and now, amid all the buzz and the bedlam in Welsh-Ryan, he cooly draws up a play the 'Cats have never practiced.
So it helps that the referees take long minutes to add four-tenths and reset the game clock at 1.7, and it helps too that Michigan calls its own time out after Taphorn sets up under the Wolverine basket to trigger that one final play of regulation. "It gave us more time to, 'OK, this is exactly where we want you starting. This is exactly where we want you cutting,'" Collins will explain. "It was important— we told Taphorn he couldn't air mail the pass (throw it long and out-of-bounds). That was the worst thing you could do. Then they would get the ball out-of-bounds under (their own basket). So we told him, whatever he did, he had to be sure it was in play, where the ball was touched."
Now the six-foot-seven Taphorn has the ball, and in front of him is the six-foot-nine Wolverine Mark Donnal, and up-the-court screens are being set for McIntosh and Scottie Lindsey. The Wolverines are switching on these screens, and eventually their six-foot-one Walton is guarding the six-foot-eight 'Cat center Dererk Pardon, and here comes Taphorn's pass from the other end of the court.
"If we don't switch the screen," explains Beilein, "McIntosh can get loose. With one point seven, he can get a dribble and a 15-footer. So we decided to switch it. It had to be an absolutely perfect pass."
"My initial instinct was I thought he threw it too long," says Collins. "So I was a little bit worried he had air mailed it and they were going to get the ball under. The way it was sailing, I said, 'Oh, no. Not tonight.' It ended up being a perfect pass."
"My ego wants to say no," Taphorn says when asked if he was worried he had air mailed it. "But I'm going to say I was worried for a second. When I let it go, I thought it might be a little bit long. But Dererk can get up."
"In so many words, he said, 'Go long and score the ball,'" says Pardon, speaking of James. "When I saw the ball come out of Nate's hands, I thought it was long. I thought it was going out-of-bounds at first. But then as I caught it, I'm like, 'The rim is right there.' So I turned around and shot a layup."
"He's devastated right now," Beilein says of Walton, his star. "Probably more because he's not six-foot-ten with long arms and able to get that ball."
"As soon as Dererk caught it, I was already jumping, doing cartwheels, " says Law. "When that ball went in, I ran and tackled Dererk."
"Having another three-tenths, whatever (actually four-tenths), you didn't have to rush it," says Collins. "You had almost two seconds. So if you caught it, you could gather and have time to go back up. I think that helped Dererk."
"When I shot the ball and heard the buzzer go off, I don't know what I was doing," says Pardon. "I just ran and all of a sudden I was on the ground. After that, it was a blur."
"That's a play I'll always remember, especially it being my last week here at Welsh-Ryan," says Taphorn.
"To finish the game the way we did, it's fitting," says Collins. "When you're trying to do things that are really hard, it takes exceptional things sometimes."
"This is why we all came here," Vic Law finally says. "This was the biggest game of our season. Michigan was playing as good as anyone in the conference. We knew coming in, if we wanted to be different, this was the game we needed to take. This was the game we needed to stop the bleeding. We weren't going to back away.
"I think it's the best moment ever in Welsh-Ryan Arena."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
It is the last minute now on this Wednesday night at a rollicking Welsh-Ryan, and the 'Cats are tied with Michigan at 65. This has been a glorious affair, a stare-down filled with surges and feints and errors and spectaculars, and here the Wolverine guard Derrick Walton Jr. is isolated on the 'Cat wing Vic Law. Their confrontation has been an absorbing subplot to this evening, a game within a game that each has taken turns dominating, and this time it is Law who wins as Walton misses a jumper over his outstretched arm.
Then, after a time out, the six-foot-three 'Cat point Bryant McIntosh has the ball, and he drives the right baseline, and he offers and misses over the six-foot-eight Duncan Robinson as the clock approaches 10 seconds. This one is rebounded by the Wolverines' Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, who quickly moves it up the court and then kicks out to teammate Zak Irvin. "We could have set something up," his coach, John Beilein, will say when asked if he thought of calling a time out here. "But at the same time, my gut feeling is, 10 seconds, full court, let them play basketball and hopefully you're going to get fouled or you're going to find someone. And we did get a good shot."
But that shot, Irvin's three, is errant, and it goes out of bounds to the 'Cats with 1.3 seconds showing on the clock. They call time and huddle as the referees check the replays to see just how much time truly does remain. "We knew it was going to be inside of two seconds," Chris Collins later relates. "A couple of the assistants said, 'Let's not risk a turnover. Let's just get it in and go to overtime and play five minutes.' My instincts said, 'No. We've got to go for it.'
"Once I said that, (Assistant) Coach (Brian) James grabbed the clipboard, drew up a great play."
••••••••••
Michigan arrived at Welsh-Ryan as a team ascendent and fresh off a 12-point upset of No. 14 Purdue. The 'Cats, in stark contrast, had struggled through February as the chatter increased over their tourney possibilities, and they had closed out that month by fumbling away a late lead at Indiana and falling to the Hoosiers by a point. For so long, as the spotlight on his team grew hotter, Collins had attempted to minimize its impact. But now he altered his approach. "My instincts were to meet it head on," he would say Wednesday night.
"I've talked all year about how we've tried to stay focused on what's in front of us, and come up with other motivations. Really, a couple days ago, I decided to go completely away from that. After Indiana, I came in and challenged them. I told them there was pressure. It was the first time. I said, 'Guys, there is pressure. And anything good in life involves handling pressure and succeeding under pressure. We're not going to avoid it anymore. We're not going to skirt around it. We're not going to not talk about it. There is pressure on us and we've got to go out and win if we want to do something great.' I don't know if that helped. But it was time to be like that with them. I challenged them. I challenged them to be tougher mentally and to be stronger. To put 40 minutes together and get this done."
"To be honest, this is the (kind of) game I committed here for," Law would say minutes later. "When I committed here, everybody said, 'Why are you choosing Northwestern? They have no culture. They have no basketball presence there.' To play in a game like this— I don't think any Northwestern team has ever played in a game like this— I mean how can you not be excited to play in a game like this."
He, especially, had struggled in February, but on this evening he would be resplendent, controlling Walton and himself scoring a game-high 18 points while going seven-of-10 from the field. He was clearly his team's star here, but important too were easily-forgotten contributions made by a trio of 'Cats. The freshman center Barret Benson, the junior forward Gavin Skelly, the senior forward Nate Taphorn— each popped off the bench in the belly of this beast and helped drive the 'Cats to that tie at 65.
"We can't play with five guys. We had a collective effort tonight," Collins would say, and he was correct.
••••••••••
Brian James labored in the NBA as an assistant for over a decade and now, says Collins, "He's like my special team's coordinator. All his years in the NBA, he's got all the sideline, under out-of-bounds long, special situations." He, then, is well prepared for this moment and now, amid all the buzz and the bedlam in Welsh-Ryan, he cooly draws up a play the 'Cats have never practiced.
So it helps that the referees take long minutes to add four-tenths and reset the game clock at 1.7, and it helps too that Michigan calls its own time out after Taphorn sets up under the Wolverine basket to trigger that one final play of regulation. "It gave us more time to, 'OK, this is exactly where we want you starting. This is exactly where we want you cutting,'" Collins will explain. "It was important— we told Taphorn he couldn't air mail the pass (throw it long and out-of-bounds). That was the worst thing you could do. Then they would get the ball out-of-bounds under (their own basket). So we told him, whatever he did, he had to be sure it was in play, where the ball was touched."
Now the six-foot-seven Taphorn has the ball, and in front of him is the six-foot-nine Wolverine Mark Donnal, and up-the-court screens are being set for McIntosh and Scottie Lindsey. The Wolverines are switching on these screens, and eventually their six-foot-one Walton is guarding the six-foot-eight 'Cat center Dererk Pardon, and here comes Taphorn's pass from the other end of the court.
"If we don't switch the screen," explains Beilein, "McIntosh can get loose. With one point seven, he can get a dribble and a 15-footer. So we decided to switch it. It had to be an absolutely perfect pass."
"My initial instinct was I thought he threw it too long," says Collins. "So I was a little bit worried he had air mailed it and they were going to get the ball under. The way it was sailing, I said, 'Oh, no. Not tonight.' It ended up being a perfect pass."
"My ego wants to say no," Taphorn says when asked if he was worried he had air mailed it. "But I'm going to say I was worried for a second. When I let it go, I thought it might be a little bit long. But Dererk can get up."
"In so many words, he said, 'Go long and score the ball,'" says Pardon, speaking of James. "When I saw the ball come out of Nate's hands, I thought it was long. I thought it was going out-of-bounds at first. But then as I caught it, I'm like, 'The rim is right there.' So I turned around and shot a layup."
"He's devastated right now," Beilein says of Walton, his star. "Probably more because he's not six-foot-ten with long arms and able to get that ball."
"As soon as Dererk caught it, I was already jumping, doing cartwheels, " says Law. "When that ball went in, I ran and tackled Dererk."
"Having another three-tenths, whatever (actually four-tenths), you didn't have to rush it," says Collins. "You had almost two seconds. So if you caught it, you could gather and have time to go back up. I think that helped Dererk."
"When I shot the ball and heard the buzzer go off, I don't know what I was doing," says Pardon. "I just ran and all of a sudden I was on the ground. After that, it was a blur."
"That's a play I'll always remember, especially it being my last week here at Welsh-Ryan," says Taphorn.
"To finish the game the way we did, it's fitting," says Collins. "When you're trying to do things that are really hard, it takes exceptional things sometimes."
"This is why we all came here," Vic Law finally says. "This was the biggest game of our season. Michigan was playing as good as anyone in the conference. We knew coming in, if we wanted to be different, this was the game we needed to take. This was the game we needed to stop the bleeding. We weren't going to back away.
"I think it's the best moment ever in Welsh-Ryan Arena."
••••••
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