Sledgehammer-like biceps and pulsating pecs are usually the measure of a strong low-post basketball player. But for the Northwestern men’s basketball team, those upper-body muscles are only secondary.
Instead, it’s the calf muscles that count.
Because of their lack of size, the Wildcats must often combat physical play with speed, making a strong lower body, not a brawny torso, the key to their power attack.
NU (8-5, 0-2 Big Ten) will be looking to utilize those agile feet against the quick – and powerful – Ohio State Buckeyes in Saturday night’s 7 p.m. contest at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
While the Cats will have a tough matchup against the Buckeyes’ bruisers – 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward Will Dudley and 7-foot, 230-pound center Velimir Radinovic – their main focus will be halting Ohio State’s skillful perimeter players.
“We have to shut down their guards first,” NU assistant coach Craig Robinson said. “If we can shut down their guards and keep them from scoring and getting the ball into (their big men), then that’ll defeat a lot of their game plan.”
But should the Buckeyes (11-2, 2-0) look to bang inside, the Cats will have to find a way to counter Ohio State’s brute strength. And the solution comes with one small concept: movement.
From the moment opposing teams begin advancing the ball in a half-court set, NU’s big men rush to the post to battle for position. But instead of trying to force the opposition’s forwards and centers out of the way, the Cats’ post players look to avoid contact, Robinson said. They use their quickness to loop in front of the offensive player – to end up between him and the ball – and prevent an entry pass, he added.
“Guys like (Iowa forward) Reggie Evans and (Michigan State forward) Aloysius Anagonye, they want to feel your contact, they want to feel you up against them,” Robinson said. “Then they can use their leverage to score.
“We teach our guys to keep your feet moving and let a guy back you down as far as you can, and then you run around and get in front of them. You use their strength against them.”
But in instances when the opposition manages to toss the ball over an NU defender’s head and into the post, the Cats’ big men rely on their weak-side help to pick up the slack. It is the back-side defender’s job to stall the offensive player’s move to the hoop and help contest the shot, NU forward Tavaras Hardy said.
When efforts to front a post player fail, the defender has to body up against his opponent one-on-one, Cats center Aaron Jennings said.
“You have to keep your chest in front of him,” Jennings said. “And if he does turn around and get a shot off, you have to try and contest it. Or we have to rely on help defense to come and contest the shot.”
On the offensive end, bruising from the low blocks isn’t NU’s style – rather, the Cats try to hit their frontcourt players on the move. To free Hardy, for instance, coaches may have him start off on the left side of the lane, cut to the right side and then knife back into the middle, Robinson said.
Not only does this strategy allow the Cats’ front line to avoid contact, but it also wears out their opponents’ big men.
This gameplan worked to perfection in NU’s regular-season opener against Virginia Commonwealth, when the Cats were able to wear out the Rams’ 6-foot-11 center, L.F. Likcholitov.
Jennings and Hardy said they rely on quick offensive moves when facing strong opponents.
“Once you catch the ball, if they’re smaller, we have to try and use our bodies to score on them, shoot over the top or take it inside,” Hardy said. “(You) just make sure they stay behind you so you can catch the ball.”
Yet the numbers show an NU team that tends to settle for the outside shot and hesitates to power the ball inside, producing a negative effect on NU’s shooting percentage. The Cats, who have taken 42.9 percent of their shots from beyond the arc this season, have the second-worst field-goal percentage in the Big Ten.
By contrast, only 26.4 percent of Ohio State’s field goal attempts this year have been taken from three-point range. And the Buckeyes enter Saturday’s contest boasting the conference’s best shooting percentage.
The Cats’ guards have been getting in on the physical play as well.
NU point guard Collier Drayton points to the tugging on jerseys and arms that guards often revert to when trying to stay with – and irritate – their opponents. The friendly hand checking sometimes turns into not-so-friendly hacking when backcourt players get into the heat of battle, Drayton said.
He recalled giving Kansas State’s Larry Reid an extra forceful shove to stop the point guard from tugging at him. And it worked, Drayton said.
“The kid was holding me, and he wouldn’t let me go, so I just shoved him,” Drayton said. “I knew I was going to get a foul, but I just let him know it’s not going to be (like that). You gotta do that – let him know.”
