By Andrew SimonThe Daily Northwestern
Penn State delivered a rude wake-up call to Northwestern on Wednesday night in the Wildcats’ Big Ten season opener. Now the Cats must get on their feet in time to face a talented Michigan squad Saturday at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
NU rode into State College, Penn., as winners of four straight games and nine of its last ten. But none of that mattered as the Nittany Lions jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, burying the Cats, 83-57.
“We’ve got to come out with a different mindset (against Michigan),” sophomore Craig Moore said. “We probably came in a little too high on ourselves from being 10-3. We’d played well. We’d beaten some good teams. If we’d shown up and done what we were supposed to, we could have won.”
Even if NU is able to significantly improve on its effort against Penn State, the Cats will have their work cut out for them against the Wolverines, who are coming off a 10-point victory against Illinois.
The biggest challenge for NU’s defense could be containing 6-foot-6 senior Lester Abram, who dropped a season-high 25 points on the Illini. In three career games against the Cats, Abram has averaged 20.3 points on 66.7 percent shooting.
“Lester played on my (Big Ten) all-star team this summer when we went to Australia, so I got to see him play quite a bit,” senior forward Tim Doyle said. “I know he was struggling a little bit earlier in the year, but he’s a guy who always seems to play well against us.”
Michigan’s lineup also includes talented veterans like senior guard Dion Harris and senior center Courtney Sims. Although his 6-foot-10, 245-pound frame could present problems for NU’s undersized defenders, Sims has managed only 14 points in his last three games and scored just five against the Cats last season.
In losing to the Wolverines in their only meeting last season, the Cats surrendered 68 points. NU was giving up just 51.6 points per game this season before allowing a season high against Penn State.
“We couldn’t stop them,” Moore said. “Guys were hitting shots everywhere, and sometimes games happen like that. We know our defense has been good in the past, so one game isn’t going to kill us in the long run.”
It is also essential for NU to rebound aggressively and limit Michigan’s second-chance opportunities, Moore said.
Hitting the boards has been a problem for NU most of the season, as the Cats’ have been out-rebounded by a margin of nearly six per game. Meanwhile, the Wolverines are averaging eight more rebounds per game than their opponents.
But despite the Cats’ physical disadvantages, Doyle is confident they will find a way to win.
“(The Wolverines) are everything we’re not,” Doyle said. “They’re long; they’re athletic; they’re fast. But we’ve had great success against teams that are those things, and playing at home, we’re going to be playing with a lot of confidence. On paper, it probably doesn’t look like a favorable match-up, but those are the situations in which we really (thrive).”
Reach Andrew Simon at [email protected].
