After losing five of its first six Big Ten games, Northwestern travels to Piscataway, N.J., tonight to take on a Rutgers team that has the same conference record. For the Wildcats to reverse their downward trend and get the W, the key may be Dererk Pardon.
Night in and night out, no Wildcat has outperformed Pardon this season. Unfortunately, the Wildcats haven’t utilized the talented big man to his capacity this year.
Northwestern has gone away from their most consistent performer far too often throughout the season, and has repeatedly failed to get him the ball in critical situations, opting instead for long jumpers and tougher shots. To an extent, in each of Northwestern’s close losses, not getting the ball to Pardon enough in late-game positions has cost the team victories.
Simply put, there is a gargantuan difference in the production of the offense when it is run through Pardon versus when it is not. Pardon’s 61.5-percent conversion rate on field goals is by far the best on the team and 18 percent better than Vic Law, the Wildcats’ next most efficient scorer. Pardon ranks third on the team in shots (8.7 per game) and second in scoring (13.8). Pardon also produces the third most assists per-game for Northwestern (2.0), and his 7.8 rebounds per game lead the team.
In Big Ten play, Pardon is even better, scoring 16.5 points per game on 67.7 percent shooting to lead the team in both categories.
Yet Pardon has taken just 148 shots this season. Law, by comparison, has taken 213 shots, 65 more than Pardon, while Ryan Taylor has put up 189 shots, 41 more than Pardon.
While both Law and Taylor are weapons on the offensive end, they don’t produce at anywhere near the rate that Pardon does. Pardon, who takes most of his shots from the post or on put-backs, is shooting north of 60 percent, a far better clip than either Law (43.2 percent) or Taylor (37.0), who take most of their shots from the outside.
But even in games this season where Pardon was clearly the team’s most useful option on the offensive end, it has opted to go away from him in crunch time.
Against Indiana in the Big Ten opener on Dec. 1, Pardon had 24 points on 73 percent shooting from the field, yet he didn't take a single one of the team’s five shots in the final four minutes of the game. Only one of those five shots was made, and Northwestern fell by 2 points.
Again, later in the same week against Michigan, Pardon was the most effective player for the team. He had 20 points on 9-for-10 shooting from the field but didn’t take any of the final five shots of the game. In both of these contests, the Cats opted for jumpers and contested looks instead of feeding the ball to Pardon and letting him go to work.
Collins praised Pardon after the Michigan game, calling the senior “fantastic,” and noting that “no one works harder for us.” But Pardon isn’t just a hard-working player – he is the most effective player on the team. His play begs the questions why the Wildcats don’t put the ball in his hands when it matters most.
The same trend continued in tight losses to Oklahoma and Iowa. Northwestern had Oklahoma, a quality Big XII opponent, on the ropes at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Once more, Pardon was the most efficient scorer for the team. The only starter that shot more than 50-percent percent from the field, Pardon had a single attempt in the final four minutes of the game: a put-back dunk. The team was 2-for-6 on shots other than that dunk and squandered a chance to earn a vital overtime win.
In a winnable home game versus Iowa, Pardon only had one attempt in the final 10 minutes of the game. Not coincidentally, the Wildcats saw their 7-point lead evaporate in what would become a 10-point loss during that same period. Despite shooting 60 percent in that game, Pardon only attempted five shots and scored just 6 points.
Northwestern’s offense, which has sputtered through much of the year, seems to flow better when Pardon gets a touch in the post. From there, he can use his patented hooks in the lane, dish out to shooters if a team double-teams him or possibly draw a foul. The Wildcats typically call a play for Pardon on their first possession; then, they often forget seem to forget about him or are unable to get an entry pass to him on the block.
To an extent, Pardon also has to become more assertive in demanding the ball. He has been passive for stretches in recent games, even attempting four 3-pointers against Michigan. He missed all four of his triples but went 10-for-12 on his 2-point attempts to finish with 20 points.
The bottom line is, Pardon is one of the only Northwestern players capable of consistently creating his own shot and converting. The Wildcats need to put the ball in his hands more often, especially in late-game situations.
The Cats still have nine games left against the teams in the bottom half of the conference, so there is still time to salvage this season. Chances are that any progress is going to start with Pardon.
