With the tallest player on the Northwestern men’s club basketball team standing at 6-foot-5, size is an issue. The 13-player team faces an impeding problem against its opponents.
Most of them are bigger and more physical in the paint.
“The biggest thing in these games is size,” freshman Bennett Kissel said. “Our guys shoot a lot and it’s hard to find players (here at NU) who can match up against those guys.”
The club team does not belong to any particular league, forcing them to play various Division II and III schools and top junior and community colleges from the Midwest.
“None of us have made that full-time commitment,” senior Colin Meyn said. “We are not here to be athletes. We are here to be students. If any of us wanted to have that kind of experience, we would have pursued basketball beyond high school.”
All of the team members played competitively before they came to NU. But they are playing club basketball as an extracurricular activity, practicing twice a week at most. Their opponents practice up to five times per week.
“There were a lot of teams bigger and more athletic,” said senior Mike Sitkowski, former team president. “But then again, there are a lot of teams that take us pretty lightly because we are a club team, and those are the teams we usually beat. If they don’t play hard, and don’t play well, we can surprise them.”
NU closes its season each year by participating in the Nike Extramural Tournament at DePaul against club teams from around the country. This past season, the Cats made it to the semifinals, only to be defeated by the eventual champion.
“This year guys are getting to know each other, and are just learning how to play together,” Sitkowski said. “They’ve got a good core of guys in place that have gone through one or two years.”
Of the 13 players on this year’s squad, eight are returning next year. With a strong, young nucleus that has played together for at least a year, the team knows what type of competition it will be going up against. And they know what it will take to get to the next level, playing as a team.
“We don’t necessarily have all the best shooters or the biggest players, Kissel said. “But you have to be able to play team basketball (to win). If you can’t play as a team at this level, you can’t win.”
