Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody isn’t taking a stuffed suitcase to this weekend’s four-day Big Ten tournament.
But it’s not because he likes to wear dirty clothes. Or because the second-year coach plans on getting bounced in the opening round.
Rather, Carmody wants to avoid what he called “the whammy.”
“It’s the jinx,” he said. “All I ever hear about is guys saying, ‘We’re packing for four days,’ and those teams always seem to lose.
“I got one shirt and one jacket, that’s it. You put a jinx on your team if you’re doing differently. You’re stacking the deck against you.”
Without a change of clothes in hand, Carmody may have to hustle around Indianapolis in search of a dry cleaner Thursday night if his seventh-seeded Wildcats pull off a win in the first round.
NU (16-12, 7-9 Big Ten) will take on No. 10 seed Michigan (10-17, 5-11) today in a 3:30 p.m. showdown. NU won the only matchup between the teams this year, 58-54 in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Jan. 16.
The Big Ten tournament is changing its venue for the first time, to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, after being held at Chicago’s United Center for the past four years.
In the No. 7 slot, the Cats will be playing a lower-seeded opponent for just the second time in the tournament’s five-year history.
NU has entered the last two tournaments as the 11th seed, and the Cats were trounced 72-55 by Iowa in the first round last year.
Seniors Tavaras Hardy and Collier Drayton are the lone NU players who have tasted victory in the conference tournament, both as members of the 1999 team that knocked off ninth-seeded Penn State in the first round.
After helping his team post its best regular-season record since his rookie year, Drayton said the Cats are in a good position to go deeper into the tournament this time around.
“We’re very confident, granted we lost the last three games (of the regular season),” Drayton said. “I just hope this is where we peak.”
If NU knocks off the Wolverines tonight, the Cats would play a second-round game against Ohio State on Friday. And Carmody hinted that, of the league’s four co-champions, the Buckeyes would provide the most even competition for the Cats.
Ohio State beat NU twice this season, but the victories came by a combined eight points.
In the first meeting in Evanston, the Buckeyes held off the Cats down the stretch to win 55-48. Less than a month later, when NU traveled to Columbus, Ohio, the Cats controlled the entire game but lost 58-57 after a few late-game blunders.
“We match up physically with Ohio State better than we do with most teams in the Big Ten,” Carmody said. “But they’re very good players. At least the size and the physicality (of Ohio State) doesn’t dominate you.”
Even though NU holds its highest tournament seed ever, the Cats are still sticking with a favorite clich
