March 18, 2011
NUsports.com Special Contributor Skip Myslenski explores key themes from Northwestern's WNIT opening round win over Creighton, including paralysis by analysis, taking care of the basketball and the luck of the Irish.
There was once a third baseman named Mike Schmidt and, through his many years with the Philadelphia Phillies, he authored a career that gained him entrance into baseball's Hall of Fame. But early on, back before he grew into one of the best who ever played his position, he often struggled to simply perform without interference from his mind. "You can't think and try and hit a fastball coming at 90 miles an hour," he once told this Scribbler. "Once the pitcher gets right here"-and he cocked his arm above his right ear-"your mind basically goes blank. . . I know this, except in less successful stretches I sometimes find myself trying to think in that blank period. . .(and) I detract from my concentration on the ball. The whole idea is to have your mind as clear during this period as it can possibly be. . . When I'm able, the hell with it, I don't care about it, I'm happy about life or something, I find myself being able to perform better."
There is now a Wildcat named Kendall Hackney and, though only a sophomore, she has already manifested some skills that can only be labeled special. But on occasion, and to her detriment, she finds herself struggling to simply perform without interference from her mind. "As a teammate, I'm constantly trying to encourage Kendall and tell her to just have fun and play because that's when she does her best," says her senior teammate, point guard Beth Marshall. "If she makes a mistake, I'll be the first one to tell her, 'Drop it. You're fine. You've got the next one. Keep your head up.'"
Is relaxing and just playing something Hackney has been working on?
"Yeah. Yeah. I have," Hackney herself says. "Kind of just letting things go, just kind of playing the game, and the coaches and my teammates have definitely been supporting me on that."
It was late on St. Patrick's Day when the Wildcats faced off with Creighton in a first-round game of the WNIT and 13 days had passed since their last public appearance. In it, down in Indianapolis at the Big Ten tourney, they had performed fitfully and struggled mightily and been spanked by Michigan State. They had practiced since then, and that was OK, but this moment is what they had been truly waiting for, this moment when they could atone for that performance. "All week we've just been enjoying competing with one another," Marshall would later explain. "But we've been waiting, and were so anxious, to get on the floor and play again. So we felt great as a team going into this game. We decided this was a new tournament and we were going to have amnesia after the Michigan State loss. And we're going into this after a WNIT title."
"I'll tell you the other thing I think helped us," added her coach, Joe McKeown. "We're in finals right now and I think our men having a game here last night (against Milwaukee), it created an exciting basketball atmosphere around here. I think our players fed off of that too. When they (the men) won last night, hey, our team's competitive too. They're like, 'Hey, we want to play too.' I really think Coach (Bill) Carmody and what they did last night helped."
'Cat guard Meisha Reed took the game's first shot, an errant jumper, but Marshall ran down the rebound and found Hackney for a lay up. Twenty-three seconds later there was Hackney again, this time with a short turnaround, and 38 seconds after that, she calmly buried a three from the top of the circle.
She was, clearly, simply playing now, and this was the start of what would be a 26-point 'Cat victory and a display of all the considerable skills at her disposal. Her first miss came with a mere 15 seconds remaining in the opening half and only after she had dropped seven in a row. Her final line would be 9-of-12 overall and 3-of-6 on threes and 21 points, but that was not all. She also grabbed a half-dozen rebounds and handed off a pair of assists and had a steal and a block in there as well.
"I think it was obvious tonight Kendall was just playing basketball and having fun," Marshall would later say. "She played amazing, her shots were falling, she was great on defense."
"No paralysis of analysis," McKeown said of Hackney, who is also an accomplished singer. "No Sound of Music and Glee and Wicked going through her head. She just played basketball and when she does that, she's a really good player."
"I was just trying to be aggressive and the shots fell, which was great," said Hackney herself.
Was she in that proverbial zone?
"Yeah. A little bit. It was nice to feel that way. I was just kind of relaxed and wasn't thinking about it. It was great to be back on the floor like Beth said. We've been looking forward to it all week, so I was really excited and the shots were falling and it was fun."
And how big did the basket look from the zone?
She giggled, which she does often, and then she said: "Today, it was a lot bigger than normal."
The 'Cats margin-of-victory was their second-largest of the season and so, quite clearly, the spotlight this night did not belong to Hackney alone. Marshall, their intrepid leader who had missed Senior Day with an eye injury that had hindered her in Indy as well, was back to her feisty-ol'-self, finishing with nine points and five assists and 3-of-6 on her threes. "For her to miss Senior Day with an injury. For her to not be able to function, practice, at the Big Ten Tournament, to have an opportunity to play again was a great thing. And to play at home, for her, it meant a lot," McKeown would say. "She's a though little competitor and that (to watch on Senior Day) was hard for her."
"It was fun. It's always fun to play at home," said Marshall herself. "I hope we get to continue to play at home during this tournament."
Reed, a second senior on this team, was a dervish and every bit as aggressive as Hackney and authoring a line that showed her with 16 points and three assists. "I thought Meisha Reed played one of the best games that she played all year tonight," McKeown said. "That really helped us. It kept Creighton off balance and she attacked the basket, which we hadn't been doing."
Then there was Amy Jaeschke, the third and last senior of this group. "Amy gets double-teamed going to Subway. So when we make shots, that opens up things for her," said McKeown, and that explains how she ended up with 16 points (as well as a dozen rebounds).
"The senior class this year is amazing. They're such great leaders for us as underclassmen," Hackney would say when asked of this trio's performance. "I look to them on the court when things go bad to keep their cool and to be like, 'We're going to fight through this.' They never give up and we learned a lot from them this year. For all the seniors to score like that tonight, I think they're just reaping the rewards from all their hard work during the season."
The old saw states that statistics are for losers. But this one wasn't and so should be noted. Entering their game with Creighton, the 'Cats had 516 assists and 535 turnovers and a negative assist-to-turnover ratio. In their game with Creighton, the 'Cats had 21 assists and only nine turnovers and a 2.3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. "We didn't force passes into the post," said McKeown, explaining this turn around. "Instead of forcing it into Amy, we got the ball to other people and they made shots. That was a big difference. When we don't turn the ball over, we're a pretty good team."
It should be noted too that they held Creighton, which can be dangerous from the outside, to a mere 7-of-27 shooting (25.9 percent) on its three-point attempts.
"For an Irishman like me," McKeown says to open his post-game press conference, "I'll never forget, I had to play Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament on St. Patrick's Day once. They wore green, everybody wore green, 8,000 of them, and I'll never forget that. So it's good for me to win on St. Patrick's Day."
"To keep playing at this time of year is great," he will then say some minutes later. "When I got here, I tried to explain to our team, you've got to build programs for March, not for November and December. I think our players have bought into that. Tonight was a big step."
Finally, as he is about to step away from the group that has been questioning him, word comes that his team's next game will be Sunday at Welsh-Ryan against Alabama. "Yes," Joe McKeown exclaims and here he is smiling.
Now, from behind that grin, he concludes, "I'm not going to sing Danny Boy. But (if she were here) my grandmother would."