His Wildcats were blown out 68-44 by Michigan State at home Feb. 10. It was his team’s 10th consecutive loss, and finding motivation was becoming increasingly ?difficult.
So he hit the reset button. In his mind, Northwestern’s record was 0-0, and since then, everything has changed.
The ?suddenly hot Wildcats (13-14, 4-10) are on a three-game winning streak, with IU (19-9, 9-6) traveling to Evanston, Ill., to play at 7 p.m. today for its final road game of the season.
Northwestern is no longer sneaking up on opponents, having caught its stride late.
The Wildcats have a chance tonight to win a fourth consecutive Big Ten game for the first time since January 1967. The first Super Bowl came that month.
“It was coming all year, I don’t think there’s any question,” IU Coach Tom Crean said of Northwestern’s success. “This league, it’s hard to get any traction, and they’ve certainly gotten some, but it’s been because they’ve been so close in so many games.”
Close games were a struggle for Northwestern in the first half of the conference season.
There was a five-game stretch in January where Collins felt the Wildcats were playing good enough basketball to win. They just weren’t closing out games.
Junior guard Tre Demps missed a game-winner against Michigan State on the road. Maryland’s Dez Wells almost single-handedly led Maryland to a furious comeback win capped with a late tip-in.
Freshman guard Bryant McIntosh couldn’t hit a high-percentage layup in the closing seconds in Ann Arbor, Mich., and gifted the Wolverines a win.
Northwestern was finding any and all ways to lose games. Now, it’s finding ways to win.
“The main difference now in the last couple of weeks is we’ve been able to win some close games and finish it out,” Collins said. “That’s been big for our guys to learn how to do that. It’s just great for our guys to have confidence where they do right now.”
The Wildcats are shooting 44.3 percent from beyond the arc and making more than 10 3-pointers per game in their streak.
At the same time, they’re limiting opponents to just 34.3 percent shooting in that span. Collins has just recently begun relying on a 2-3 zone defense that’s been effective in forcing poor shots.
Crean compared the Wildcats’ zone to that of Syracuse or Michigan but said they can throw multiple looks IU’s way.
“I don’t know if it’s anything that we look at, and we say, ‘Well, they’ll just play us this one way,’” Crean said. “Our bottom line is more understanding their personnel and doing what we have to do to keep moving ?the ball.”
IU knows the significance of another road win at this point in the season.
Junior guard Yogi Ferrell was quick to rattle off that a win would be IU’s fourth road win, 10th conference win and 20th overall win of the season.
But against a confident Wildcats team, Ferrell said IU will need to play well to get out of Evanston with a win. He said teams can no longer afford to underestimate a once-struggling Northwestern team.
“Northwestern is the hot team in the league right now,” Ferrell said. “We’re going to get their best shot.”
