The Daily Northwestern

It won’t go down as a win or a loss on Bill Carmody’s record, but it will be the first test his team will encounter in the coach’s short time at Northwestern.

The Wildcats begin their new season tonight with a 7 p.m. exhibition game at Welsh-Ryan Arena against the California All-Stars, a collection of ex-college players.

Carmody leads one of the youngest teams in Division I, featuring six freshmen and only two upperclassmen — juniors Tavaras Hardy and Collier Drayton. The youth might give Carmody reason to be antsy, but he said that he’s simply looking forward to seeing his team play in a game situation.

“After three weeks of practice, you need an exhibition game,” Carmody said. “You have to see some different faces. Because, day in and day out the same guys for the most part play the same guys. You don’t really know what’s going to work. After a while, guys start to play the play they know is coming. So you don’t get a real true idea if these things are going to be effective.”

Crucial to the Cats’ success will be the sophomore-freshman guard tandem of Ben Johnson and Jitim Young, perhaps the two most talented players on the team. The team’s offense will hinge on how well the duo runs the unique system Carmody brings from Princeton.

“They’ve been pretty close in practice,” sophomore swingman Winston Blake said. “Ben’s been trying to show him the ropes and exactly what to expect this year from college basketball in general, because it’s a whole different game. So he’s kind of taken him under his wing and Jitim’s been real receptive to what he’s been saying.”

With only three weeks of practice under their belts, Young and Johnson are hardly a perfect team.

“They have a long way to go,” Carmody said. “Ben isn’t used to doing it, telling people what to do. He’s usually been on the receiving end of a lot of passes and Jitim — he can run a team. But as a freshman, can he run a team in this conference?

“Certainly, I have an idea how things are going to play out. You have a lot of young guys, they’ll be nervous and certain mistakes will be made. I’m trying to tell them to throw passes, don’t be conservative. Don’t be so cautious because it’s not that important right now if you turn the ball over a few times because you have to try things out and see how far you can go.”

Still, Young and Johnson know that the guards will determine the team’s success.

Johnson was the team’s leading scorer from last year — the only player to average double-digits — and he needs to embrace a leadership role if the Cats are to fare better this season than last, when they finished 5-25.

“The point guards and the backcourt, we set the tempo offensively and defensively,” Johnson said. “Coach has emphasized that a lot, the way we play and the way we carry ourselves is going to carry on to other guys on the team. It’s really important for us to be on the same page so the other guys can have confidence in us knowing that what we’re doing is going to help us to a win, I think that we’re getting better at that every day.”

“If we see what he’s planning, we’re going to be all right. We’ll be a pretty good team.”