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Northwestern is 'different,' and a first NCAA tournament bid is well within reach

This year's Northwestern is not the
This year’s Northwestern is not the “same old Northwestern.” (AP)

After the handshake line, and after all the jubilant hugs, Chris Collins had a chance to digest history.

Northwestern beat Ohio State in Columbus on Sunday for the first time since 1977, and when Collins was pulled aside for a postgame TV interview, he reflected on the meaning behind that achievement.

“We want to be different,” Collins said after mentioning that the 40 years of road losses to the Buckeyes had been his team’s motivation. “We want to be different,” he repeated.

Northwestern has never made the NCAA tournament, and there’s a narrative to be pushed that these Wildcats are playing for 80 years of Wildcats that have come before them. In reality, they’re doing anything but. The program has fundamentally changed, from an infrastructural level all the way up to the players and the head coach. Those 80 years of teams were what they were. This team is what it is. In many ways, the two are not relatable aside from the colors they wear and the gym they inhabit.

“We don’t have 80 years to dwell on,” point guard Bryant McIntosh said last Friday. “We didn’t have anything to do with that. … The past is the past. This is a different team.”

Northwestern is “different” this year, and not just in symbolic, historically significant ways. Collins’ fourth Northwestern team is different in perceptible, quantifiable ways, and it’s these differences, ones that set the 2016/17 Wildcats apart from previous iterations, that have them on course to break the program’s NCAA tournament drought.

A potent, guard-oriented offense

McIntosh, Scottie Lindsey and Vic Law comprise a three-guard trio that is more talented and athletically gifted than any the program has ever seen. Lindsey has developed into one of the top pure scorers in the Big Ten. Law, who sat out last year with a shoulder injury, isn’t far behind him.

Furthermore, the three work well together in a complex offense that is heavily guard-oriented. The Wildcats run more set plays than most teams, and many of the sets involve on-ball and off-ball screens for the guards. The ball moves side to side much more and much quicker than it did last year, and the off-ball activity and two-sided nature of the offense make it tough for defenses to rotate and help from the weak side. Here’s an example from Sunday’s game with backup guard Isiah Brown in for the resting Law:

(BTN2Go)
(BTN2Go)

The ability of all three guards to both drive and shoot prevents opponents from disrupting the offense, and the sheer size of the playbook makes scouting the Wildcats difficult. All of these are reasons Collins’ fourth team ranks 35th nationally in adjusted efficiency, up from 72nd the year before, 101st the year before that, and 288th in Collins’ first year.

Offensive rebounding

The Wildcats’ improved efficiency has coincided with an increased embrace of the value of offensive rebounds, and an increased ability to procure them. Collins’ first team rebounded just 22.5 of its own missed shots, which ranked 348th out of 351 Division I teams. That number jumped to 27.6 percent in Year Two, 30.5 in Year Three, and finally to 33.1 this year, the 71st best mark in the country. Northwestern’s 15 offensive boards at Ohio State Sunday were pivotal in the victory.

Northwestern has an undersized frontcourt by Big Ten standards, exemplified by 6-foot-5 starting power forward Sanjay Lumpkin; but in part because the two “bigs” on the floor are primarily relied upon as screeners in the halfcourt offense, Lumpkin, Gavin Skelly and Dererk Pardon crash the glass rabidly. And before you try to suggest the Wildcats’ rebounding success will be curtailed by the size of Big Ten frontcourts, Northwestern is actually rebounding a higher percentage of its misses through seven conference games than it did against a relatively weak non-conference schedule.

Dererk Pardon

Pardon, who is only 6-foot-8 but has bounce and a 7-foot-2 wingspan, is the primary contributor to the offensive rebounding numbers. Perhaps more importantly, though, he’s a rim-protector who can also defend away from the rim.

Alex Olah was an underappreciated shot-blocker over the past three years, but Collins often ran into problems trying to structure a defense around the 7-foot Romanian center because he wasn’t able to be that shot-blocker while also tracking opposing big men out to the perimeter.

With Pardon now playing 32 minutes per game since returning from a hand injury that caused him to miss all of December, Northwestern can play Collins’ preferred man-to-man defense without consistent issues. The Wildcats actually rank sixth nationally in block percentage, and while that number has and will fall in conference play, Pardon’s effect on the defense overall is very real.

Vic Law

So is the effect of Law’s length and athleticism. The redshirt sophomore, whom Collins routinely called the team’s best player last year even while he was sidelined, has become just that, and as much as his offense has improved, it’s his defense that has been crucial.

Law may very well be the best and most versatile perimeter defender in the Big Ten. Northwestern’s defense has been held back in the past by McIntosh’s inability to put pressure on the ball and handle quick point guards. This year, Collins has put Law on the opponent’s best perimeter scorer, whether that player is a 6-foot-7 wing or a 6-foot-1 point guard.

Law (No. 4) held Iowa’s Peter Jok, the Big Ten’s leading scorer, to four points on 2-of-9 shooting with plays like this:

(BTN2Go)
(BTN2Go)

Ten days earlier, he matched up with Nate Mason, who had put 31 points on Purdue in Minnesota’s previous game. Law held the Gophers’ point guard to 2-of-8 shooting with defense like this:

(BTN2Go)
(BTN2Go)

Law’s presence gives Northwestern a backcourt that is generally very long — the starters are 6-foot-3, 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-7 — and more disruptive than it’s been in past years.

A stretch-four who isn’t all stretch

Junior forward Gavin Skelly, who was a 10-minute-per-game energy guy through the first year-and-a-half of his Northwestern career, didn’t make a three-pointer until Jan. 31 of his sophomore year. Skelly, however, has developed into a somewhat legitimate stretch-four who can hit pick-and-pop threes from the top of the key, and who can come off a down screen, fade to the wing when his defender goes under, and drill a triple in rhythm:

(BTN2Go)
(BTN2Go)

Skelly, though, unlike other shooters that Collins has played at the four over the three previous seasons, is a good rebounder, screener and defender as well. Collins’ offense doesn’t absolutely need that fourth shooter to be good, but Skelly’s shooting, or even just the threat of it, is a big boost. Skelly is 7-for-11 from three in Northwestern’s five Big Ten wins, and 0-for-7 in NU’s two Big Ten losses. Because Skelly is more than just a shooter, though, Collins can enjoy that boost without sacrificing more traditional power forward attributes.

Transition scoring

Collins inherited a roster accustomed to Bill Carmody’s methodical Princeton offense. He has talked ever since about increasing the team’s offensive pace, but, through three years, hadn’t really been able to do so.

In Year Four, the Wildcats are starting to get out in transition more. Their average offensive possession length still ranks just 218th nationally, but that’s up from 283rd last year and 317th in Collins’ first season. Per hoop-math.com, they’ve taken 21.7 percent of their shots within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, a number that has increased every year under Collins.

With Law, Lindsey and McIntosh filling those fast break lanes, and not only making beelines for the rim but occasionally spotting up at the three-point line, per hoop-math, Northwestern is shooting 46.9 percent on transition threes, one of the best such percentages in college basketball.

All of these stats tell of a team that is significantly improved from a year ago, and one that is “different” — different than any other team fans in Evanston have seen.

Of course, history won’t care about these on-court improvements if the Wildcats slip up and fail to claim that elusive NCAA tournament bid. Then they’d just be the “same old Northwestern.” And their résumé, even in late January, is still very incomplete. An upcoming stretch that includes home games against Indiana and Maryland and road tilts at Purdue and Wisconsin will be telling.

But there is so much evidence from the last two-plus months to suggest that this isn’t same old Northwestern, and to suggest that this will be the year we stop asking whether this could be the year.