It has been a season of many changes for Northwestern and its first-year coach, Joe McKeown. The players have had to learn McKeown’s new systems, while he has tried to adjust to personnel he did not recruit.
The Wildcats have already made significant strides this year, especially early in this season. Recently, results have been mixed. Falling short by just three on the road against Minnesota was encouraging, but the team has lost three of its past five games by at least 20 points.
The last two blowout defeats were against Michigan State and Purdue, teams NU had already faced. In both cases, the margin of defeat in the first game was slimmer than it was in the second. The Cats hope to buck that trend at home against Michigan this Thursday.
Now that they are in the second half of the conference season, the Cats are playing teams they went up against earlier in the year. After seeing the changes McKeown and his staff have implemented, these opponents are more familiar with them and have a better idea what to expect in the rematch.
“The second time around it’s probably easier to play us because maybe they aren’t so caught off-guard with (the) ‘Blizzard’ (defense),” junior point guard Jenny Eckhart said of McKeown’s matchup zone. “The first time around, a lot of teams haven’t seen that type of defense, and maybe they don’t know how to attack it.”
As a result, the Cats are starting to make even more modifications. For example, Eckhart said they were installing a new full-court press and additional in-bounds plays in practice this week.
She also said even though teams are not as thrown off by the new defense, the Cats have gotten better in it from earlier in the season. Still, NU can still improve certain aspects to make the Blizzard tougher for opponents to beat.
“We need to pick up the intensity in terms of ball pressure, denying the wings,” Eckhart said. “Make it that much harder for teams to play against it – rather than just be in the right position, we have to be a lot harder and more intense in it.”
Another factor has been the mental toll that losing has taken on the Cats. Sophomore center Amy Jaeschke, NU’s leading scorer and rebounder, said losing the first game gives the opponent an edge in the second game. Having already won once, teams like Michigan State and Purdue have the confidence to do it again.
“We have to believe we can beat these teams,” Jaeschke said. “Both first games we lost to the teams, and I think we need to go into the second half (of the season) with more confidence. In the Big Ten this year, any team can catch any team off-guard. We just have to go into the game with that mentality.”
McKeown said he did not think Purdue or Michigan State made any major adjustments the second time. And with six games remaining against teams the Cats have already played, it is too soon to make any concrete conclusions.
Rather than dwelling on the other team’s style of play, McKeown wants his players to be more comfortable with their own.
“It will play itself out,” he said. “We have to work on becoming a more well-rounded team rather than worrying about what the other teams do to us. I’m more worried about us right now – the way we play, the way we prepare.”
McKeown added that he has not made too many changes to the game plans he drew up the first time the Cats played these teams. Instead, the coaching staff picks out one or two areas of weakness from the earlier contest and works on them, using the game film as a teaching tool.
The primary focus down the stretch will be experimenting with different ways to generate more offense. NU has yet to score 60 points in conference play and is still struggling to take advantage of those two or three extra scoring chances that can swing the game.
“Most teams really work on defense and shutting people down this time of year. We got to work on offense,” McKeown said. “We got to shoot the ball better.”
