The ‘Cats allowed 75 points in back-to-back home games without Barnhizer. Figuring out defensive coverages without the best defender in the conference is imperative going forward.
Northwestern’s three-game homestand was supposed to be a chance at redemption after a difficult first half of the season and a chance to vault the team back into tournament contention. Instead, the Wiildcats suffered back-to-back defeats at the hands of Rutgers (read: Ace Bailey) and Wisconsin before eking out a 77-75 victory over USC that should never have needed a Nick Martinelli game winner.
Furthermore, Northwestern lost its most important player both on and off the floor when Chris Collins announced that Brooks Barnhizer was done for the season. Jalen Leach went down with about six minutes left in the USC game and ‘Cats fans are anxiously awaiting the results of an MRI on his knee.
With all that said, the offense has surprisingly stayed afloat. The ‘Cats tallied 72, 69 and 77 points in their three contests for an average of 72.7 points per game, just under their season average of 74. The defense, however, has taken a massive hit without Barnhizer and that will be the focus of today’s column.
(Note: There are no clips from the USC game. There’s no particular reason for that other than I didn’t feel like any moments from that game represented what I felt was most important to mention in this week’s column.)
Defense
Northwestern is usually a good second half team, but the ‘Cats allowed 50 points in the second half of the Wisconsin game before allowing another 44 against USC in the latter frame, including a major late comeback. Not having Barnhizer on the floor has caused the ‘Cats problems in both defending on the ball, communicating off the ball and their overall rotation decisions.
Without Barnhizer, Northwestern will have a tough time countering when teams go small against them. The Wildcats simply don’t have enough perimeter pieces to consistently play small. In this instance, it becomes a problem when Fitzmorris is stuck guarding Carter Gilmore. Greg Gard instantly recognizes the mismatch on the perimeter and pulls Gilmore out of the paint. Gilmore receives a pass and then moves the ball along before motioning to set a drag screen on Berry. However, he slips the screen and ends up wide open at the break for an easy three. Fitzmorris does not identify the slip and ends up guarding the ball for way too long. He’s so used to defending rollers as a center that the idea of a pick-and-pop takes a second to cross his mind. The other problem is that Fitzmorris, for as well as he’s played the last few games, is simply too slow to defend an action like this. Chris Collins usually does a good job of ensuring his lumbering big men don’t end up on perimeter threats, but in this case there wasn’t another option and the ‘Cats got burned.
The second clip is more of the same. Gard draws up a set where Northwestern’s center, this time Big Matt Nicholson, is forced into action while guarding a three point shooter in Steven Crowl. Max Klesmit curls off a down screen set by Crowl and has a step on Berry, forcing Nicholson to help down low. As soon as that happens, Berry should have turned and sprinted back to defend Crowl. Instead, the play wasn’t communicated well by the two most veteran players on the squad. Klesmit ends up doubled and smartly pivots to hit a wide-open Crowl. This is the kind of play that simply cannot happen, even more so considering the players at fault. This is a very basic action that gets screed up because of a lack of communication and costs the ‘Cats three points.
Offense
The offense was moderately successful this week without Barnhizer, which Collins will surely take as a win. I want to take a second to note that two of the big storylines offensively in the win over USC were Fitzmorris and Justin Mullins who combined for 22 points. However, their buckets largely came in flow rather than as a drawn-up set, so I didn’t focus on either of them. Instead, I picked out a few clips highlighting the coaching staff’s wizardry on inbounds plays.
The first play is a simple but effective action, not unlike Wisconsin’s that we saw above. Leach receives the pass at the top of the key and Berry lines up on the block. Mullins and Nicholson set a double wide screen on Blackwell. Berry catches the pass going full speed ahead and hits Nicholson on a lob for an easy dunk. In recent games, we’ve seen Berry throw more of these alley-oop passes for Nicholson and showcase some of his passing ability as an off-ball guard. It’s a clever use for Berry since he struggles scoring off the bounce but the defense often expects a shot from the shooting guard. In this case, Crowl would have been much better off keeping contact with Nicholson and letting Berry attempt the layup but instead Crowl peels off and Nicholson is left all alone at the rim.
This time, it’s a baseline inbounds play and Leach is the target. Northwestern lines up in their typical formation with three on the strong side of the lane and a singular player on the weak elbow. Leach quickly gets it in to Nicholson who resets to Barnhizer. Then Nicholson joins Martinelli in setting a stagger screen for Leach. The result is chaos among Rutgers defenders. Ace Bailey is supposed to end up on Leach but he gets lost in the sauce and Leach, who was on fire until the USC game, gets a wide-open look. Collins needs to continue to empty his bag for easy buckets off inbounds plays like these because scoring is hard to come by for Northwestern and will get even harder without Barnhizer and potentially Leach going forward.
Coach Collins Clip of the Week
This is pure gold on the Collins reaction to a terrible whistle. Whichever ref whistled the play dead was acting purely on anticipation (Butler game, anyone?) and as a result didn’t stop to watch Martinelli chuck the ball off the rim in a designed pass to Matt Nicholson. But watch Chris Collins as the whistle blows. All of his limbs start vibrating at the same time as he quick steps his way over to the nearest ref to take his head off while pinwheeling his arms in disbelief. The cut to his face, like usual, is comedy. Collins has his typical mask of surprise on his face whenever he just cannot believe a call that’s made. He clearly says to one ref, “Brian it hit the rim,” before turning to another and emphasizing, “The ball hit the rim.” Nothing brings more joy than watching Chris Collins react to a bad call that is about to get overturned and seeing him yell at the refs anyways, especially in a game that otherwise did not go Northwestern’s way at all.