Bryant McIntosh used the F-word when talking about Northwestern’s shooting struggles in the second half of Thursday night’s loss to Minnesota: fatigue.
The star guard said that the Wildcats weariness was a reason that they shot 1 for 15 (6.7 percent) on their 3-pointers and 11 for 38 (28.9) overall in their 70-66 home loss to the Gophers.
"I think we got a little fatigued, for one,” said McIntosh, who led Northwestern with 21 points. “In the first half it was a fast-paced game. We didn't execute as well. Our fatigue played into that a little bit.”
Something was clearly amiss. Scottie Lindsey and Vic Law, Northwestern’s two leading scorers, shot a combined 3 for 15 in the second half and just 8 for 24 in the game. Gavin Skelly and Lindsey combined to miss all 10 of their 3-pointers in the final 20 minutes, as just about everybody on the roster seemed to miss a wide-open look at a triple at some point while the Wildcats blew a 7-point, second-half lead.
“It’s going to be hard to win a game, guys, if you do that… at least 10 of them were wide open,” said head coach Chris Collins. He said that his team “got a little tired” down the stretch, when Minnesota went on a 10-0 run that proved to be the turning point of the game.
“We didn’t cut as sharp and that forced us to take tough shots at the end of shot clocks,” said McIntosh. “We have to do a better job of cutting hard and setting everything up because we run great offense. You’ve got to run it sharp.”
There are two types of fatigue a basketball team experiences: game fatigue and season fatigue. McIntosh was talking about the former in this instance, but the bigger concern for the Wildcats may be the latter as they push toward the school’s first-ever NCAA tournament invitation.
One might question why Northwestern was tired at all against the Gophers. Due to the vagaries of the holiday schedule, the Wildcats were playing their first game in six days and just their third in two weeks. What’s more, center Dererk Pardon was back in the lineup after taking six weeks off for a broken hand, so the Wildcats had more depth than they’ve had in more than a month.
Still, that depth – or lack thereof – may prove to be the Wildcats undoing in the grueling meat grinder that is the Big Ten schedule. Every night figures to be a dogfight, and Northwestern is down three scholarship players that could have provided valuable minutes this season.
First, there is the extra scholarship that is center of the Johnnie Vassar controversy. Northwestern is playing with 12 scholarship players instead of the NCAA limit of 13 that its opponents are using. That, in itself, could prove significant.
The Wildcats are also down a pair of talented wings. Six-foot-eight sophomore Aaron Falzon, who played in all 32 games last season and averaged 24.6 minutes, 8.4 points and 3.4 rebounds per game with Law out for the year, was put on the shelf in December after undergoing knee surgery. Six-foot-nine freshman Rapolas Ivanauskas had shoulder surgery before the season even started and is redshirting.
Both Falzon and Ivanauskas are tall, athletic players who can stretch a defense with their outside shooting. Falzon and Ivanauskas could have spelled Lindsey, Law, Sanjay Lumpkin, “sixth starter” Skelly and even Pardon, giving them all a chance to rest during a game. It also would have given Collins more flexibility in going with a big or small lineup. As it is now, Taphorn is really the only small forward he has on the bench.
Collins played 10 players against the Gophers, but true freshmen Isiah Brown and Barret Benson played just two minutes each. It remains to be seen how much Collins trusts either of them in crunch time in Big Ten play.
In previous years, Northwestern seemed to wear down for stretches in Big Ten play, no one more than McIntosh himself, a slight player who logs a lot of minutes – currently a team-high 33.6 per game.
Will that fatigue McIntosh spoke of catch up to Northwestern in its quest for the tournament? No one knows for sure. Maybe it was just a one-game aberration, but it certainly bears watching.
