The Captains' Curtain Call

Saturday, March 9

Evanston, Ill.

1:30 p.m.

Northwestern

Purdue

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3/8/2019 4:16:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor

The one is forward Vic Law. The second is the guard Jordan Ash. The third is the center Dererk Pardon. They are the Wildcats' captains and Saturday, Senior Day, they will be among those honored before the team they lead faces Purdue at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

"It's gone really fast," Law says of his time with the 'Cats. "In a blink of an eye I've gone from freshman year to fifth-year senior, faster than I would have thought. But it's been a good journey, these five years. Ryan Greer and Pete Nance and Miller Kopp and Ryan Young, I just hope they cherish every moment that they have. Before they know it, they're going to be seniors."

"It seems just like yesterday we were walking through The Arch," Ash echoes. "When you look back at it, it's, 'Where's the time gone?' It's been fun, though. It's been a fun ride for all of us."

"It's gone very quickly," Pardon concludes. "If feels like just yesterday I was a freshman coming in here for my first day of summer. It's crazy how time has passed. It's just crazy that my last home game is coming up."

Law was the first, the very first recruit to sign on with a rookie head coach named Chris Collins, whose pitch to him included the chance to make history by taking the 'Cats to the NCAA tournament.

"He said the program is going to have a different energy about it, that he was committed to building a winning brand at Northwestern and that there was something about being the first to do something," says Law when asked what convinced him to join the program. A lot of schools give you the normal selling points. 'We have the gym. We have all the bells and whistles you want.' But Coach Collins was preaching about how much better you could get basketball-wise, how much of a family Northwestern was going to be, how you'd be getting a high-level education. That was something different."

"Vic and I will always share an incredible bond. He was the first guy who believed (success was possible) and wanted to be part of it," Collins says of him. "The fact that it is a local guy (St. Rita High School), a very talented player who wanted to stay here and help us build our program, the connection that we have is incredibly strong both professionally and personally because of that. We talked about it in recruiting. There can only be one first. . .and him being a leader on the team that went to the first NCAA Tournament— all the things we talked about when we were recruiting him ended up happening for him. You love to see that come true."

"For us, as young kids, coming in that was the biggest thing. You always heard how Northwestern has never made the tournament, how they haven't won at a high level," says Ash, himself a local guy (St. Joseph). "But then you start to see with (Bryant) McIntosh and (Scotty) Lindsey and Law and (Gavin) Skelly (who were Collins' first recruiting class), you see, 'Man, we can be pretty good.' Just thinking about the opportunities for the second class, we just wanted to keep the train rolling."

"What I love about Jordan, Jordan's a leader. He's vocal. He's very smart," Collins says of Ash, whose senior season was cut short by an injury. "I feel bad for him that he hasn't had a chance to have that year with the guys he came in with. That part I feel for him. But what I love is he's stayed completely engaged every step of the way. He's become like another coach and I value his input. So even though we haven't had him as a player this year, I feel like we've almost had another coach in Jordan."

"I knew about the struggles they'd had. I knew they hadn't been to the NCAA tournament," says Pardon, who signed on for that quest after playing for Villa Angela-St. Joseph in Cleveland. "I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself."

"He's a guy who's always been about the right things and the team," Collins says of him. "He showed up every and said, 'Coach, what do you need me to do?' He just worked and he got better. His development has been incredible. To go from a guy who wasn't on anybody's recruiting list—everyone thought he was a mid-major recruit—to a potential all-conference guy is a great testament to how hard he's worked and how he's developed."

Law, as a freshman in 2014-15, suffered through a 10-game losing streak and, a season later, he redshirted after shoulder injury as Pardon and Ash endured their own growing pains. But then 2016-17, victories arrived and the 'Cats sat 7-5 in conference play as January closed and now success on their tournament quest seemed a very real possibility. That changed in February, when the team went just 2-5, and now came March 1 and a stare down with Michigan. With the game tied at 65, Nate Taphorn takes the ball out under the Wolverines' basket with only 1.7 seconds remaining.

"It was really incredible," says Law, thinking back to this moment. "It took almost three time outs to get the play together. Everything was so chaotic."

"It was an amazing play. It was unscripted," says Pardon, who is now asked about James drawing one up.

"He drew it up," says Pardon. "But the initial play was for Bryant or Scotty to come off a screen of me at half court to see if they could get the ball and shoot. But they weren't open, so I just went to the rim."

"I came back for the ball and was open," says Law. "Going through my head then, I was like, 'What shot do I have? I'm going to throw it up and try to make it.' Then when Nate threw it, I saw the ball slowly going down the court."

"Nate threw the ball. I saw it," says Pardon. "It felt like the ball was in the air at least five or six seconds. It was a long time. When the ball got closer, I said, 'I have to catch this.'"

"I saw Dererk was open," says Law. "I was just hoping he'd catch it."

"So I caught it, I turned, I didn't see anybody, I just put the ball in," says Pardon.

"I love when players can have moments. And he had a moment," says Collins. "The pressure that was on us in that game. What was on the line. To be at home. The crowd we had. It was a storybook finish."
"In that one play was our whole season," says Law. "That pass, everything was riding on that one play. The weight of the world was on that pass. But it was our season that year. Everything was aligned for us to do something great."

"It was a sense of joy," says Pardon of what came next. "Just all the emotion came out, of the whole season, of the journey we had. To be able to celebrate that at that time, knowing we'd done something special, that was amazing."

They celebrated again on Selection Sunday when they officially received the invite that Pardon's basket had assured.

"It was a whirlwind of emotions," says Ash. "We kind of knew were were going to get in. But we were in the last region (revealed). It was like the whole time, every slot we were like, 'This is going to be us.' Then it would be someone else. 'All right. This is going to be us.' It was those nerves. When we saw our name up there, we let all that emotion out. You could see Coach Collins get emotional. There weren't too many dry eyes in the stands."

"When we saw our name called, it was a sense of relief," says Pardon. "Knowing that we'd put our heart, soul and tears into it, it was amazing to know that we finally made it. That was another great moment."

"When we were finally announced, it was surreal," says Law. "The video have I have on my phone of us being announced, I'll keep that forever. Salt Lake City (where NU played the first weekend), the game against Vanderbilt, it's nothing that I can really describe in words. It's a feeling that makes all the work you do in the off-season worth it."

Now they were part of history.

"It's hard to explain," says Ash when asked how that feels. "I don't think it's going to really hit us until we're way out of college. We try to stay in the moment now. Thinking of the magnitude of that moment, I don't think it's going to hit us until later in life, when we have reunions and things like that."

"It's special," says Law. "It's something no one can take away from you. It's something that's always going to be there for you."

"It's something special. It's something that not everyone has a chance to do," says Pardon. "When you're part of it, it resonates with you the rest of your life. You will never forget it. I'll never forget that time in my life. It was one of the best times of my life."

The more recent times have been tougher, yet their accomplishment is immutable.

"When you look at things big picture, when you try to do something like we're trying to do, you're going to have ups and downs," says Ash. "It's not a linear path. It never is."

"All journeys in everybody's life have ups and downs. That's just part of life," says Pardon. "The down times are what make you a better person, able to handle the high times. Just having those journeys has made me a better person."

"My time at Northwestern has been fulfilling, everything I wanted it to be," says Law. "Obviously, you can always want more. You can wish some things happened in a different way. But I wouldn't have changed anything. I gave my heart, my mind and my body to this program. When it's all said and done, I think I'll be able to look back and be happy."

"I've made this clear to those guys," says Collins. "The thing with the senior class, especially Vic, whatever has happened this year, whatever happened with last year's team, it doesn't change anything with their legacy and what they cemented by taking this team to its first ever tournament. That was something that had never been done in the history of the program. Now obviously you want to expand on that and go the next step and that didn't happen. But the memories I have about these guys are about their commitment to me and to us when we first started this thing, and their ability to change the perception and the reality of this program. The reason there's a new arena and a new practice facility and all that is those guys. They got people excited about the potential of basketball."

Now comes Saturday, Senior Day, their day.

"This is the last time I'm going to put this jersey on in this arena," says Jordan Ash. "So I think it's going to be hard. I remember seeing Sanjay (Lumpkin) ball in he tunnel. But at the same time I'm going to try and stay in the moment. I'm going to try to really focus on the game, focus on the good things that happened to me here."

"It's going to be very emotional at first, of course. It's my last home game ever at this school," says Dererk Pardon. "But also it's going to be fun, to let all that out. No matter the record, no matter who we're playing, this is my last game here. I'm going to make the best of it."

"It's going to be a mystery when I go out there," Law finally says. "I don't know what my emotional state will be. I haven't cried in a long time."