Acing the early test.
The Wildcats had never won a season opener against a Division I team by 44 points until Monday. And, they achieved the feat without the help of 2024 All-Big Ten Third Team and All-Big Ten Defensive Team member Brooks Barnhizer. Plus, Ty Berry, Northwestern’s best shooter, picked up two fouls early and looked a step slow throughout in his first real action after a torn meniscus.
The hope is for this to be a weekly column throughout the basketball season. The format will (at least for now) be as follows: three clips breaking down what the ‘Cats did well or poorly through their games each week (one offensive, one defensive and a floater) and concluding with the best Chris Collins emote of the week captured on camera.
So welcome to Collins’ Classroom. It’s time to examine exactly how Northwestern doubled up Lehigh.
Defense
Northwestern may have been on pace to score over 100 at halftime, but that was not the story of the first frame. The ‘Cats held Lehigh to a mere 15 points on 5-of-26 shooting. The Mountain Hawks had more turnovers (six) than made shots (five). They missed all 12 three pointers they attempted and went just 5-of-9 at the charity stripe.
Lehigh’s 46 points were the fifth lowest mark across all Division I teams on Monday, when well over 250 teams were in action. Two of the four defenses to allow fewer than 46 points were Houston and Iowa State, last year’s No. 1 and No. 2 ranked defenses respectively. Collins tends to build his teams with a defense-first mentality, but this squad has already indicated they could be the best unit Collins and defensive wizard assistant coach Chris Lowery have compiled.
This first clip set the tone early. On Lehigh’s first possession the Mountain Hawks turned it over, leading to a Matthew Nicholson dunk on the other end. This was their second possession:
Let’s break this down frame by frame, because there is so much to love in this play, both individual efforts and team connectedness. The action, starts on the left wing, where Lehigh attempts to set a stagger screen for Keith Higgins Jr. Martinelli, who is guarding the man setting the second screen, recognizes the action and cuts off the passing lane. His guy, Ben Knostman, cuts across the lane. Leach, guarding Higgins Jr., is out of position to switch so instead Northwestern executes a double switch. Nicholson follows Knostman and Leach does a great job fronting the center, Hank Alvey, to prevent an easy layup.
Nicholson ends up defending a guard on the perimeter and does a phenomenal job moving his feet to prevent a straight line drive. At the same time, Berry and Leach are forced to switch on the low block. While Berry doesn’t end up in perfect position, he stays connected to Alvey while Leach sits in help defense in the middle of the lane to double if the post entry pass is thrown. Despite that, Leach is able to run Tyler Whitney-Sidney off the line on the ensuing pass. Nicholson provides help in the paint.
Because Nicholson had to lose his man to prevent a layup, Martinelli is forced to defend two Mountain Hawks at the same time, which he does expertly. He fakes at Cam Gillus and then closes out hard on Higgins, forcing another drive. Finally, Windham times a swipe at the ball perfectly and Leach comes out of the pack with the rock going the other way.
This play is more or less a perfect example of how to play team defense. Lehigh ran a solid set and played decisively, but the ‘Cats were in sync, aggressive and had a perfect understanding of where to go at all times.
The stars of this second defensive play are Leach and Windham. The play triggers in from the baseline, where Leach stumbles trying to defend Gillus but quickly reestablishes position. He guards the ball tremendously in this possession, not giving Gillus an inch of room to drive or shoot. Gillus struggled all night creating space against the bigger Leach and Windham and a perfect example of it is shown here. Simultaneously on the weak side, Martinelli, Mullins and Windham do a fantastic job of switching seamlessly. Windham is a step slow identifying Whitlock’s cut across the paint but covers ground quickly to catch up. The Mountain Hawks try to run a handoff and put Nicholson in the action, but he hedges softly and Windham is so quick getting around the screen that the action is quickly snuffed out.
Leach gets stuck slightly out of position on the pass, but cuts down the space to Gillus quickly and takes away the shot twice. Gillus enters the ball to Edouard Benoit in the post. Mullins defends Benoit and when he makes a move to his right hand, Nicholson is there to double before Benoit can get a shot away. Alvey slides to the high post when Nicholson doubles to create a passing lane. As the shot clock is running down, he catches and has a seemingly open shot, just for Windham to display a remarkable effort to cut down the space, get a surprising hand in Alvey’s face and force a bad miss from the center.
Both Windham and Leach are new to Collins’ system, which takes a decent bit of time to learn, but both managed to flash defensively all night long in the blowout.
Offense
Despite scoring 90 points, the offense was somehow not the main storyline in the win. However, the ‘Cats were sharp in most aspects of their offensive game and scored an impressive 90 points.
This was my personal favorite offensive play, as well as being the set that generated the best half court look for the ‘Cats all day. The action starts with a couple of perimeter swings and a flat screen for Berry by Nicholson. There’s a smidge of daylight, but Mullins elects to play it safe and reset the ball up top to Big Matt.
This is where the fun starts. Mullins walks in like he’s about to set a pindown screen for Berry. Nicholson swings the ball to the weak side for Windham and then sets a pick for Berry. But Mullins never comes set and instead slips the pindown and cuts back door. Because Berry attracts magnetism as such a knockdown shooter, all of the defensive eyes go to him. Additionally, Martinelli is sitting in the corner as a decoy, but his man is in extreme help and ends up clogging the lane instead of playing help defense. Mullins glides to the hoop uncontested where Windham feeds him for the easy deuce.
Coach Collins Clip of the Week
Collins, per his usual self, was fired up all night long. He spent the majority of the first half badgering the refs, but the second half was almost exclusively designated for, putting this nicely, inspiring his team to stop making mistakes.
While there were a number of real life moments to choose from, this article is hindered by the fact that the clip has to be recorded, meaning from the broadcast more often than not. In this particular clip from garbage time, Collins lights up Fitzmorris. The grad transfer had taken a few shots in the prior possessions, including a three pointer when the shot clock was low. Fitzmorris has hit nine threes in each of his prior two seasons so it is a skill he possesses, but not one he used often or with a ton of success (28% for his career).
In this clip, Fitzmorris sets a bad screen on nobody, pops instead of rolling and then tries to shoot a three with nine seconds on the shot clock. Collins had different plans though. He alertly signaled for a timeout and was granted it. When the camera cuts to Collins, he can be seen saying “You don’t have to shoot every time you touch the [BLANK] ball.” I’ll let you as a reader fill in the blank there with your lip reading skills. Suffice to say, when Collins sees bad basketball, no matter time or score, he is going to let his team know about it.