At this point last season, the Northwestern men’s basketball team – which owned a 7-6 record and a 23-game Big Ten losing streak – was about to begin a stretch that included only four wins in the final 16 regular season games.
But even with a recent slump — this year’s Cats (8-4, 0-1 Big Ten) have gone 1-3 in their last four games — the team is far ahead of where it was last year after facing its first Big Ten opponent.
“Our confidence wasn’t taken by those last two losses,” center Tavaras Hardy said, referring to NU’s 59-44 loss to Indiana on Jan. 2 and a 77-60 defeat at Arizona State on Dec. 29. “We’re definitely comfortable with our team and comfortable with the fact that we’re going to win some games.
“We’ve pulled out some tough games this year. We’ve had some close ones and we’ve been able to win down the stretch. We know how to win, we just have to go out there and do it.”
Junior Winston Blake echoed Hardy’s thoughts: “We’re definitely far ahead of where we were last year. If we play like we know we’re capable of playing, we can go .500 in the Big Ten.”
That’s saying a lot for a team that went 0-16 in the conference in 2000 and 3-16 last season.
In the last two weeks, NU hasn’t been playing like a team capable of winning half of its Big Ten games. The recent slump included a 63-60 loss to Fordham on Dec. 22 at Madison Square Garden and a 52-51 squeaker over lowly Louisiana-Lafayette — a game the Cats could have won by a hefty margin — in the first round of the azcentral.com Hoops Classic.
“Those games, we played real bad,” Blake said. “(But) I think we’re starting to move in the right direction.”
With 16 games remaining — including a mid-season nonconference matchup with Buffalo — NU needs seven more victories to clinch a winning record, which would make the Cats eligible for a bid to the NIT.
The Cats’ most recent game — the loss to Indiana in the Big Ten opener — was not an easy one to swallow for the team.
“Last game was tough,” Blake said. “We could have pulled that out, but they hit a couple big shots and we just couldn’t rebound from it.”
After trailing by seven at halftime, the Cats scored the first five points of the second stanza to bring the score to 32-30 with 15 minutes left in the half. But they got no closer to the Hoosiers.
Indiana scored seven straight points and NU was unable to touch the Hoosiers after that.
Sophomore guard Jitim Young led the Cats with 17 points, but NU had no answer for Indiana’s Jarrad Odle, who scored a career-high 16 points and contributed 15 rebounds.
“(Indiana) surprised us with some things,” Hardy said. “They banged it inside more than we thought they would.
“We just have to take care of our home court and we didn’t do that against Indiana.”
One explanation for the slump is the rash of injuries suffered by the Cats.
“Our problem right now is that we have so many guys that are hurt that its hard for us to improve,” coach Bill Carmody said. “Right now we have managers out there on the second team.”
Two starters, as well as the first two players off the bench, are currently hurt.
Starting point guard Collier Drayton has a sprained ankle and might be sidelined for the Cats’ game against Iowa on Wednesday, but the other three should still play, Carmody said.
Forward Vedran Vukusic, also a starter, has a dislocated shoulder; forward Jason Burke has been playing with a broken hand; and guard Drew Long is playing with an injury to his hip. Long will have an operation on the hip after the season, Carmody said.
The injuries will allow some of the players who have spent most of this season on the bench to see some playing time.
Carmody said Croatian import Davor Duvancic, a forward, will see some minutes in the upcoming games.
“Maybe there will be a surprise and someone who we weren’t counting on (will contribute),” Carmody said. “We just have to get back to where we can play eight or nine guys.”
