MORE FROM THE NCAA TOURNAMENT: Northwestern backcourt comes up big in biggest game of the year l Takeaways: Northwestern 75, Boise State 67
SACRAMENTO-While Northwestern fans flooded out of the Golden1 Center to celebrate Northwestern's first-round NCAA Tournament win over Boise State in bars across Sacramento on Thursday night, head coach Chris Collins and his staff were already starting to prepare for UCLA.
"They better be not eating popcorn and concessions over there," Collins joked about his assistants in the press conference after the win. "They better be over there figuring out [the game plan], doing what they do.
"We have an amazing staff. They are so good with the scouting reports. They help these guys [get] ready."
The second-seeded Bruins are a tough test in almost any environment, let alone on two days' notice. But Northwestern's players and coaches are getting ready as best as they can.
"For the players, we want to give them as much rest as you can [between games]," Collins said. "These games are exhausting for them, they're laying it all on the line.
"It's physical, we don't have a lot of depth so our main guys are playing a lot of minutes."
Senior forward Robbie Beran talked about the team's turnaround from one of the biggest wins in program history on Thursday to squaring off with one of the best teams in the country on Saturday.
"We really wanted to enjoy the moment, enjoy the win last night," Beran said. "We got to spend some time and say hello to family after the game and hang out with them.
"Once we woke up this morning, we were ready to turn the page. Coach talks about it all the time. Enjoy it, but we got to move on."
Collins went through the team's process to prepare for the West Region's second-best squad in fewer than 48 hours. It's safe to say that he and the staff will be a bit short of getting their eight hours of rest per night.
"We met with the guys briefly last night after UCLA had advanced, just to kind of tell them who we were playing, and we watched a little bit of an edit last night. The coaches were up most of the night to do a deep dive.
"I tried to watch a number of their games to get a better feel for who they are, how we could attack them, and what they would probably try to do against us, so we can come [on Friday] morning and be ready to give our guys a full scouting report."
Collins said that his staff was able to deliver a standard scouting and prep package together for the Bruins on a short turnaround.
"That's what we did this morning. We had a full edit, went through our scouting and personnel, got everything in order. Then we came over here [to the Golden1 Center] and got 90 minutes on the floor to kind of put our game plan out on the floor and go through it...We'll meet again tonight. Fortunately we're not playing until 5:40 tomorrow, we'll have a little bit of time in the morning as well to prepare."
The second-seed Bruins cast a long shadow on reputation alone, deepened by a dominant first round win over UNC-Asheville, 30 wins on the season and an extensive list of Pac-12 accolades.
"I feel like we'll be prepared, but it doesn't make it any easier," Collins said. "You could have a week to prepare for these guys and not be ready to go."
UCLA has the prestige and history, and doesn't even have to leave their home state. But the Wildcats and Collins have experience playing tough opponents on short notice and picking up wins in the face of adversity.
"Our guys are good, they're older guys, they're used to it," Collins said. "Remember, we had a COVID pause. We had a stretch during the conference [schedule] where we played six conference games in [13] days...
"We're used to short preps and hopefully we can draw upon that as we go into this game tomorrow."
Northwestern is currently the second-heaviest underdog on Saturday's second-round slate, listed at +7.5 on DraftKings. But Collins thinks that through preparation, and his team's confidence, they'll be able to give the Bruins a run for their money.
"I think our guys are excited." Collins said. "You have no chance if you come into the game and you don't think you can win. We respect UCLA fully. I mean, they're a great team. We respect everything they're about.
"But I don't want my guys to come in tomorrow not believing they can win. We have got to have that belief and that confidence. Then we got to do our best to carry it out on the floor once the game starts."
