February is not for the meek. It is for the bold, the peaking, the mentally tough, the hungry, the gamers, the coaches. February is moving month. Some surging, some sliding, some just hanging on. It is Boilers on the make. Indiana and Michigan at a crossroads. Drew Neitzel doing his best impression of Louden Swain and Tom Izzo leading his Spartans on a vision quest. It is Badgers and Buckeyes battling for a crown and the top of the polls. February is proving, yet again, to the uninitiated and poorly informed that the Big Ten’s bell has yet to toll.
Wednesday’s conference slate boasts only one marquee matchup, but at this time of year every game is fraught. It features two teams in Indiana and Illinois that must overcome significant adversity to notch crucial home wins, Purdue almost tasting Dance punch, an Iowa squad still clinging to postseason relevance, a Michigan squad that may well be defending the job of its head coach, a team in Northwestern that desperately needs wins in its perennial longshot bid for the NIT, and the heavily bruised, but unbowed Nittany Lions and Gophers who are playing for the pride of the program, for, as John Huston growls in Chinatown, “The Future!”
Crucible Over A Blue Flame: Minnesota at Indiana
A shallow look at the numbers suggests this contest is a foregone conclusion. Minnesota arrives in Bloomington with three conference wins, nine in total, an interim coach, and an offense that has been at best, fickle. The season in the Twin Minny has been a crucible held without relief over a blue flame. It’s a wonder Haz-Mat suits aren’t mandatory for visitors to Williams. Somehow the Gophers are maintaining their structural integrity. Though they are not bulking up Jim Molinari’s career head coaching numbers, his inherited Gophers have given him the second highest compliment. They have competed hard for him every night out. Molinari’s ability to forge a team that believes in the program and each other when they have countless reasons not to needs to be heralded. Again, what is easily lost in the numbers of a 9-18 record is that Molinari has done a great coaching job in the most difficult of circumstances.
Indiana still controls the three position in the conference race, is undefeated at home, and has, in the most obvious sense, a lot more to play for. But after two straight road defeats and with a Saturday gauntlet at the Breslin looming ominously, the Hoosiers can’t afford to lose this one. Kelvin Sampson is realizing that February in the Big Ten is going to require more of him and his team than he may have thought during those salad days of January. And the injury of Earl Calloway doesn’t explain the loss at Mackey and won’t excuse his team not closing on the NCAA.
Indications are, after the Saturday loss in Ann Arbor, the pressure may be getting to Kelvin. His postgame sell-out of junior guard Lance Stemler is a troubling sign for a coach who has been speaking of team as “family,” the importance of class and comportment, coaching and playing the right way. When asked why Stemler passed up a three in favor of a pass to D.J. White, a decision that prevented the Hoosiers from getting a last shot off, Sampson failed to defend his player, saying “I’ll have to ask Lance that question.” His revision after the press conference that he wished he’d saved another timeout to set up a final play is the right answer, but doesn’t erase the stink of his original statement. Class coaches don’t make the mistake of using press conferences to embarrass individual players.
The Assembly Hall should provide the kind of restorative balm that Kelvin and his Hoosiers need. But, the Gophers aren’t going to concede until forty minutes of basketball have elapsed. If they can keep it close, it will be interesting to see how Kelvin and his team respond. And it will be telling to see how the Hoosiers respond to a final stretch where they cannot afford more than one loss. Will more cracks appear in the carefully constructed, well spun Sampson veneer?
Battle of the Multis: Texas-Pan American at Northwestern
Big Ten teams should beat hyphenates and multi-geographicals even when the Big Ten team in question is itself a multi-directional. It is this truism that Bill Carmody had in mind when he scheduled the Broncs. Correctly anticipating that his heavily underclassman dependent team might be needing a soft landing in late February, he filled his bye week with the pride of Edinburg, Texas. One of the last remaining independents, the Broncs are coming off a 1-1 homestand against North and South Dakota State.
The Cats are riding the wave of two well fought road losses to Iowa and Illinois and sit in their customary February just below .500 pose. Tonight’s game and home dates with Purdue and Indiana next week give Northwestern a faint, but not entirely hopeless opportunity to make a run at the NIT. At the very least, it would be heartening to see the Cats play spoiler against the Hoosiers or Boilermakers.
But, tonight is the game at hand and though it is a matchup worthy of chuckles from anyone outside Evanston or Edinburg, it is yet another litmus test for Carmody. A solid forty minutes of basketball and a decisive win would do wonders for his team. A tepid, half baked performance and/or loss would be devastating and would not go unnoticed by those invested in Northwestern basketball. These are the kind of games in which Northwestern, despite its youth and perennial struggles, needs to represent the Big Ten with a muscular showing.
If they need any extra motivation, the Wildcats can look to the Broncs bench and find first year Assistant Coach Ben Johnson. Johnson played two seasons in Evanston before jumping ship to Minnesota. He was one of several strong ballplayers who, if they’d stayed, had a chance to help reverse the inertia in Evanston. His arrival to the Broncs sideline comes after one year as a graduate assistant to Brian Gregory at Dayton. Their relationship goes back to Evanston where Gregory was a lead assistant to Kevin O’Neill and helped recruit Johnson to Northwestern.
Glide Versus Slide: Penn State at Ohio State
It’s hard to imagine the Buckeyes relaxing enough to spoil their weekend collision with Wisconsin, a game in which they should be defending an outright Big Ten title. But it was equally mystifying to watch the Buckeyes give up 43 points in a half last week in Happy Valley and nearly lose. A team with the stratospheric talent of the Buckeyes can glide and still win. But at this juncture of the season these kind of half-hearted performances are dangerous to a team that is going to need to be sharp and consistent in March.
And the second half explosion last week is indicative of both how poor the Buckeye defensive commitment and lead protection can be, but also of Penn State’s ability to play occasional stretches of dangerously high quality basketball. The Lions are a team that in addition to the Phoenix Suns’ imitation against Ohio State has 129 point and 83 point efforts against VMI and Northwestern, respectively. Claxton and Cornley always merit attention underneath, but it is the shooting of Morrissey, Luber, and Walker that are make or break for Penn State. When those three are making the most of open looks, Penn State is a potent inside-outside team.
Ed DeChellis needs to reverse the eleven game slide. Doing it tonight is clearly a tall order, but remember the huge upset of Illinois in Champaign last year? DeChellis is capable of getting his teams to play world beater in the most hostile environments. Whatever the case, his program can’t afford to lose out. Like Minnesota and Northwestern, Penn State’s play the rest of the way is about pride in process, pride in the program. It is about setting the right tone for next year and giving prospective recruits and fans something to believe in.
Distraction Central: Michigan at Illinois
The subplots swirling around this game were already thick, but with yesterday’s DUI aggravated felony charge against Jamar Smith, it will be hard for anyone in orange and white to concentrate on basketball much less properly honor the final home games of Rich McBride, Warren Carter, and Marcus Arnold. But concentrate the Illini must as this is a yet another Big Ten team with scant margin of error.
First, it is important to hail the recovery to full and uncompromised health of Brian Carlwell. The young man was in critical condition a week ago and has already made it back to Bruce Weber’s bench. That breath of relief sighed, when you add McBride’s DUI in November to the equation, Weber has an official public relations nightmare on his hands and his response to it will be much more important to his coaching career than how his team finishes this season.
Certainly, it is difficult, if not impossible for a coach to micromanage every aspect of his players’ lives. But things proceed from isolated event to bad trend in the time it takes to count from one to two. People had moved on from the McBride DUI, but now the harsh bulb will turn to Weber and the tough questions will be asked. Does he have control of his program? Is he bringing in kids of marginal character in his quest to answer criticism of his recruiting? Whether the questions are specious or unfair is irrelevant, perception is everything. And perceptions in these kind of scenarios can quickly snowball and put a coach, even one as successful and well perceived as Weber, in a position where he is fighting for survival.
Of course, if Weber can somehow circle the wagons around his team and get them to play NCAA qualifying basketball the next two weeks, he certainly won’t hurt his cause. Despite the distractions, they gutted out a win Sunday against Northwestern and need to do so again tonight. Before the accident and Chief Illiniwek became the only stories, Weber was quietly, incrementally bringing his team into good form the last few weeks and proving yet again why he is one of the conference’s finest coaches.
Michigan, on the other hand, thanks to the infinite patience or incompetence of Athletic Director Bill Martin, is facing the same set of distractions that have plagued the program for several years running. Will Amaker steer the Michigan ship into the rocks yet again? And this time even Bill Martin has to know if the answer is no, Amaker must go. Amaker’s seniors have suffered mightily from their coach’s lack of leadership over their years in Ann Arbor. Can they somehow find the grit to come up big, if not to save their head coach, for themselves? The Indiana win was big, but Illinois, Michigan State, and Ohio State are three of the next four. Can Amaker win two more?
Muncie Versus New Castle: Purdue at Iowa
Purdue is going to have the freshest legs in the conference after nearly a week since their resume bolstering Indiana win. Iowa needs to win out just to get on the bubble. But given that the consensus had Alford’s bunch picked in the Northwestern neighborhood of the conference this year, playing for a top half Big Ten finish and the bubble isn’t a mean achievement. Of course, Alford’s probably still having nightmares about Drake and Northern Iowa.
This has the best chance of being the game of the night. Matt Painter was a Muncie point guard who like many an Indiana schoolboy dreamed in cream and crimson. The same dream that Alford took from New Castle and turned into Hoosier legend. Knight never came calling for Painter, however, and he took his steady game to West Lafayette. From today’s vantage point, I’m sure Painter has no regrets about how things turned out. But something tells me, in addition to the current win now or die requirements of their current teams, the Indiana backstory is adding an extra bit of fire to the bellies of both men.
