Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Michigan State Primer
1/27/2016 9:47:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
There are no secrets this deep into a basketball season. But there are patterns. An examination of these twin realities as he 'Cats await a Thursday night visit from No. 12 Michigan State.
OPPONENTS' defenses now train their crosshairs on guards Bryant McIntosh and Tre Demps, who suffer from all the attention. Consider. The former was 25-of-53 (47.2 percent) on his threes in preseason play; in conference play, he is just six-of-31 (19.4 percent). The latter, in turn, was 25-of-77 (32.5 percent) from distance in preseason play; in conference play, he is just 11-of-49 (22.4 percent). "Teams are trying to get the ball out of Bryant and Tre's hands," notes Chris Collins.
"They're double-teaming them at every opportunity. They're trying to make them pass it to other guys. Our complementary guys, we've got to find offense for them. We've got to find ways for them to lessen the load on Bryant and Tre. It's no secret. Every team's trying to take those two kids out of the game."
"They're doubling my ball screens a lot and making me give it up," McIntosh will later expand. "We just have to make plays. When I give it up, we have a four-on-three at some point because they have two on the ball. We haven't done a great job taking advantage of that, and then I think I have to get the ball out of my hands quicker. We have to take advantage of four-on-three situations when they double the ball."
THOSE COMPLEMENTARY PLAYERS Collins referred to have been either injured (Alex Olah, Nathan Taphorn) or wildly inconsistent, which is why conference opponents have found success employing that defensive strategy. Again, just consider. Scottie Lindsey went for nine against both Nebraska and Minnesota, but was scoreless against Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio State. And Aaron Falzon went for 20 against Minnesota and for 13 at Maryland, but only five against both Penn State and Indiana. And Sanjay Lumpkin, whose primary role is doing dirty work, went for nine against Wisconsin and for six at Maryland, but was scoreless against Nebraska and Indiana and Ohio State. And Taphorn, who's battling a foot injury, was scoreless against Nebraska and Maryland and Wisconsin and Penn State.
"A lot of it is youth," Collins says when asked about that inconsistency. "Then we haven't had Alex, and we haven't had Vic Law. So if you come into the year and you say who are going to be your top-four scoring threats, it would have been McIntosh, Demps, Law and Olah. Well, you take two of those out of the equation, I don't care what team you are. It's going to be tougher to score, and we've run into that problem."
ANOTHER SEASON-LONG PROBLEM for the 'Cats has been slow starts, an issue that recurred again last Saturday in their loss at Indiana. "We're down 13-2 before you could blink. You just can't recover against really good teams doing that consistently," says Collins. "We've talked about it as a group, we've met about it. Now the guys have to take that personally, and a lot of that has to do with their energy and coming out and executing early, try to see the ball go in, get the ball to the basket, get a layup, get to the free throw line so you can ease your way into the game and feel good about the way you start. . . We've talked about everything. The way we warm up. The way we prepare. What we do on game day. We try to put the onus on them, to figure it out as players. What's going to be the best formula to play well and get off to a great start? That's going to be a huge key for Thursday."
"We have to do a good job in warmups," McIntosh says when asked about this issue. "I think that's where our slow starts begin, when we don't have a good warmup. That's something we pinpointed early on and we've talked about it. For Indiana, we didn't feel our warmup was very good."
So how will they change their warmup?
"We're going through that right now, just talking about things we want to do differently in warmups," says McIntosh. "A final decision hasn't been made, but it'll eventually come."
A BETTER BURST FROM THE BLOCKS is imperative if the 'Cats hope to topple the Spartans, who are the Big Ten's benchmark for aggression. "The first thing when you play Michigan State is you've got to match their toughness," Collins declaims. "Coach (Tom) Izzo is one of the best around, and he gets his guys to play at a really high level. They're very disciplined. They're going to go to the glass hard. They're going to run their offense, they're going to push the ball. You've got to match that before you can even talk about the strategy."
"We played Maryland really tough, but against Indiana it was going really bad for us and I felt when they had that big lead, I felt like nobody was really competing," Olah will later say. "That was our thing. Whenever we go on the court, we're going to compete. I don't feel we did that against Indiana. Looking forward we have to improve on that. Our level of preparation must go up a lot."
THE 'CATS not only lacked aggression against the Hoosiers. The same was true early in their Jan. 16 loss to Penn State, which prompted Collins to later say, "To start the game, they had better energy. They were more competitive. They brought the fight to the start of the game and I thought it knocked us back a little bit."
"It's hard when you have so many people beat up, hurt," Olah will say Tuesday when asked about the 'Cats inconsistency in this area. "Nobody can really practice, we're trying to save our legs. That kind of transitions into our games, not being able to play hard in practice. Then you go against a team like Indiana who runs and plays hard every possession, that's something that hurt us."
So how do they correct that before Thursday?
"Just practice," he says. "We had a really good practice yesterday where we used pads and everything to get tougher and more physical."
THOSE TACTICS and that inconsistency have saddled the 'Cats with a three-game losing streak, which has stirred Collins. He is not one to sit still as defeats mount and Tuesday he admits, "We've looked at some different things, but it's been really hard with this group because we have a lot of injuries. So even guys who can play in games, they don't get to practice that much. That's why I've been happy with this stretch. We did play early on Saturday and we had a chance to give them Sunday off and come back yesterday, and have a couple days to work on us. You feel like you're always in game-prep mode, and when you're dealing with guys who are tired and injured and bumped and bruised, it's hard to get a lot better with changes. You just can't practice the way you want to. We're tinkering with a few things, looking at some different lineups, trying to put the pieces together. You know me. When things aren't going well, I'm one to try to do something different to get us going."
AND FINALLY, Collins, on reality: "We're going through a tough stretch right now. Everyone in our league goes through it at some point. The message is you've just got to keep moving forward. . . If you allow one performance, good or bad, to dictate how you play the next game, you can be in real trouble. . . I want our guys' confidence to remain high. We still have a lot of games left. We have more league games (left) than we've played. So there's still a lot of opportunities for us to get quality wins. It's another great chance on Thursday."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
There are no secrets this deep into a basketball season. But there are patterns. An examination of these twin realities as he 'Cats await a Thursday night visit from No. 12 Michigan State.
OPPONENTS' defenses now train their crosshairs on guards Bryant McIntosh and Tre Demps, who suffer from all the attention. Consider. The former was 25-of-53 (47.2 percent) on his threes in preseason play; in conference play, he is just six-of-31 (19.4 percent). The latter, in turn, was 25-of-77 (32.5 percent) from distance in preseason play; in conference play, he is just 11-of-49 (22.4 percent). "Teams are trying to get the ball out of Bryant and Tre's hands," notes Chris Collins.
"They're double-teaming them at every opportunity. They're trying to make them pass it to other guys. Our complementary guys, we've got to find offense for them. We've got to find ways for them to lessen the load on Bryant and Tre. It's no secret. Every team's trying to take those two kids out of the game."
"They're doubling my ball screens a lot and making me give it up," McIntosh will later expand. "We just have to make plays. When I give it up, we have a four-on-three at some point because they have two on the ball. We haven't done a great job taking advantage of that, and then I think I have to get the ball out of my hands quicker. We have to take advantage of four-on-three situations when they double the ball."
THOSE COMPLEMENTARY PLAYERS Collins referred to have been either injured (Alex Olah, Nathan Taphorn) or wildly inconsistent, which is why conference opponents have found success employing that defensive strategy. Again, just consider. Scottie Lindsey went for nine against both Nebraska and Minnesota, but was scoreless against Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio State. And Aaron Falzon went for 20 against Minnesota and for 13 at Maryland, but only five against both Penn State and Indiana. And Sanjay Lumpkin, whose primary role is doing dirty work, went for nine against Wisconsin and for six at Maryland, but was scoreless against Nebraska and Indiana and Ohio State. And Taphorn, who's battling a foot injury, was scoreless against Nebraska and Maryland and Wisconsin and Penn State.
"A lot of it is youth," Collins says when asked about that inconsistency. "Then we haven't had Alex, and we haven't had Vic Law. So if you come into the year and you say who are going to be your top-four scoring threats, it would have been McIntosh, Demps, Law and Olah. Well, you take two of those out of the equation, I don't care what team you are. It's going to be tougher to score, and we've run into that problem."
ANOTHER SEASON-LONG PROBLEM for the 'Cats has been slow starts, an issue that recurred again last Saturday in their loss at Indiana. "We're down 13-2 before you could blink. You just can't recover against really good teams doing that consistently," says Collins. "We've talked about it as a group, we've met about it. Now the guys have to take that personally, and a lot of that has to do with their energy and coming out and executing early, try to see the ball go in, get the ball to the basket, get a layup, get to the free throw line so you can ease your way into the game and feel good about the way you start. . . We've talked about everything. The way we warm up. The way we prepare. What we do on game day. We try to put the onus on them, to figure it out as players. What's going to be the best formula to play well and get off to a great start? That's going to be a huge key for Thursday."
"We have to do a good job in warmups," McIntosh says when asked about this issue. "I think that's where our slow starts begin, when we don't have a good warmup. That's something we pinpointed early on and we've talked about it. For Indiana, we didn't feel our warmup was very good."
So how will they change their warmup?
"We're going through that right now, just talking about things we want to do differently in warmups," says McIntosh. "A final decision hasn't been made, but it'll eventually come."
A BETTER BURST FROM THE BLOCKS is imperative if the 'Cats hope to topple the Spartans, who are the Big Ten's benchmark for aggression. "The first thing when you play Michigan State is you've got to match their toughness," Collins declaims. "Coach (Tom) Izzo is one of the best around, and he gets his guys to play at a really high level. They're very disciplined. They're going to go to the glass hard. They're going to run their offense, they're going to push the ball. You've got to match that before you can even talk about the strategy."
"We played Maryland really tough, but against Indiana it was going really bad for us and I felt when they had that big lead, I felt like nobody was really competing," Olah will later say. "That was our thing. Whenever we go on the court, we're going to compete. I don't feel we did that against Indiana. Looking forward we have to improve on that. Our level of preparation must go up a lot."
THE 'CATS not only lacked aggression against the Hoosiers. The same was true early in their Jan. 16 loss to Penn State, which prompted Collins to later say, "To start the game, they had better energy. They were more competitive. They brought the fight to the start of the game and I thought it knocked us back a little bit."
"It's hard when you have so many people beat up, hurt," Olah will say Tuesday when asked about the 'Cats inconsistency in this area. "Nobody can really practice, we're trying to save our legs. That kind of transitions into our games, not being able to play hard in practice. Then you go against a team like Indiana who runs and plays hard every possession, that's something that hurt us."
So how do they correct that before Thursday?
"Just practice," he says. "We had a really good practice yesterday where we used pads and everything to get tougher and more physical."
THOSE TACTICS and that inconsistency have saddled the 'Cats with a three-game losing streak, which has stirred Collins. He is not one to sit still as defeats mount and Tuesday he admits, "We've looked at some different things, but it's been really hard with this group because we have a lot of injuries. So even guys who can play in games, they don't get to practice that much. That's why I've been happy with this stretch. We did play early on Saturday and we had a chance to give them Sunday off and come back yesterday, and have a couple days to work on us. You feel like you're always in game-prep mode, and when you're dealing with guys who are tired and injured and bumped and bruised, it's hard to get a lot better with changes. You just can't practice the way you want to. We're tinkering with a few things, looking at some different lineups, trying to put the pieces together. You know me. When things aren't going well, I'm one to try to do something different to get us going."
AND FINALLY, Collins, on reality: "We're going through a tough stretch right now. Everyone in our league goes through it at some point. The message is you've just got to keep moving forward. . . If you allow one performance, good or bad, to dictate how you play the next game, you can be in real trouble. . . I want our guys' confidence to remain high. We still have a lot of games left. We have more league games (left) than we've played. So there's still a lot of opportunities for us to get quality wins. It's another great chance on Thursday."
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