The closest game Northwestern has played since the injury to graduate forward Jared Swopshire came Feb. 14 against Ohio State.
The Wildcats led the Buckeyes for most of the game, but a late 12-0 run from Ohio State handed NU its second loss in what has evolved into a five-game losing streak.
Just two weeks after the fact, the two teams meet in Evanston headed in opposite directions. The Buckeyes are coming off an upset of then-No. 4 Michigan State on Sunday and the Cats have lost five straight and seven of their last eight contests.
Sophomore guard Dave Sobolewski said the Cats understand they can be competitive with the Buckeyes if they execute their game plan. However, NU has gotten off to so many poor starts recently it has been tough to overcome those hurdles.
“We’re getting off to some bad starts, which is really starting to kill us,” Sobolewski said. “If we could find a way to start well like we did out there in Columbus. We don’t have to be up 10, but make it a two-point game with 10 minutes to go in the first half then we’ll feel much better.”
Freshman forward Kale Abrahamson said he feels the team has lost some of its edge since the loss to Ohio State. He said it is important for the team to regain some of its toughness from previous games. He added it will be up to the individuals to make that commitment to get mentally tougher.
“It starts with each individual,” Abrahamson said. “The team is a collection of all those individuals, but each one has to do their own mental preparation before the game to get into that mindset.”
Confidence has been a key word for this team lately as it seems the players have grown less confident since Swopshire went down. However, Sobolewski said he feels like the team is playing with a lot of confidence, but it is just not executing well enough to keep it in games.
NU’s loss to Purdue on Sunday was a perfect example of this apparent loss in confidence. After the Boilermakers took a big lead early, the Cats began to force the issue a little bit too much on offense and tried to do too much outside the framework of the offense.
Coach Bill Carmody said that style of play hurts NU on the defensive end which in turn gives the opponents more confidence. He said a poor offensive performance allows the opposing offense to be looser because they know you can’t score. This puts more pressure on the defense which becomes a cyclical process of degrading confidence and putting more pressure on each end of the floor.
“It’s one (connected) game,” Carmody said. “When you’re missing shots it’s harder and harder to defend.”
Sobolewski said he feels like there is almost no pressure on the Cats at this point in the season. With all the injuries to NU’s roster the expectations from the outside have been lowered dramatically which should in theory allow NU to play looser.
However, the Cats have seemingly put a lot of pressure on themselves to carry the team. Sobolewski said he doesn’t know who would be putting pressure on the Cats considering the expectations from the outside have been lowered and the coaches have not changed their approach. Regardless, Sobolewski said the team just needs to play like they have nothing to lose.
“We got some good opportunities here,” Sobolewski said. “We should really be having a lot of fun. There’s no pressure on us for everything, so hopefully we can go out there give it our all and have some fun.”
