By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
JerShon Cobb sat stolidly at his locker in the bowels of the United Center. Some 20 minutes had passed since Indiana had ended his `Cat career by topping them in the Big Ten tourney, but still he had not changed. He instead remained dressed in his uniform. "A roller coaster ride," he would say of his journey with his team.
Then, a heartbeat later, he looked up and softly added, "I was just thinking back to when I got here as a freshman to where I am now. I'm just happy to say I'm a Northwestern Wildcat."
Three stalls to his left sat Dave Sobolewski, another whose career had closed on this Thursday night, and he too was still in uniform. Earlier, when he had been subbed out with 1:13 remaining in his last game as a `Cat, he had been embraced by any number of them, and tears filled his eyes when he finally took a seat. "I didn't think I was going to get emotional this quickly, truthfully. I didn't think it would hit me right away," he said now.
"But being subbed out, and having the guys hug me on my way out, and then having a line of teammates and coaches there, it was emotional. It hit me right away that that was the last time I'd be walking off a basketball court. I've put a lot of hard work and time into the game, and it's just hard to see that it's coming to a close."
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The `Cat season, which was as vertiginous as JerShon Cobb's career, itself closed on this Thursday night with their 15-point loss to the Hoosiers, a team they had taken down by seven 16 days earlier. In that first game, at Welsh-Ryan, Indiana had defended passively, and the `Cats had constantly gotten open looks when it switched from a man to a zone within a possession. But here, in this rematch, the Hoosiers were transformed.
Here they were defensive demons, active and alert, aggressive and always in the `Cats grille. They pushed up on the choreographing guard, point Bryant McIntosh, and blanketed the high-scoring guard, Tre Demps. They quickly doubled the force down low, center Alex Olah, and with that made the `Cats very much earn every one of the 56 points they would eventually manage. "Every time I caught the ball, I felt like there were two or three guys around me," said Olah, who went just 3-of-10 from the field while collecting 12 points. "They were not waiting for me to dribble. They double-teamed me on the catch. They were really physical, and that kind of bothered us."
"It's no secret that they weren't known for being a great defensive team. But tonight they were a great defensive team," said Demps, who managed just five shots, made just a pair of layups, and scored just four points. "They were everywhere. It started with their guards. I was being top-sided on everything, and it worked. Yogi (Farrell, the Hoosier guard) did a great job of making all my catches hard. I really didn't have any room to operate."
"They physically beat us up," said McIntosh, who finished with a team-high 13. "They were getting up in us, jamming us, kind of pushing us out further on the floor, and it was effective. They kind of showed us what Big Ten basketball is like. It was the welcoming to the Big Ten that we'd all talked about and kind of wondered when it was going to happen for some of us freshmen. I felt like that was the experience tonight. I think this was the most physical game I've played in the Big Ten so far."
The Hoosiers were physical from the start and, very quickly, that turned this game in their favor. They gave up a three to Vic Law at 19:21, a short hook to Sanjay Lumpkin at 18:37, but then they simply stymied the `Cats, held the `Cats without a field goal over the next nine minutes and 25 seconds. They would go 0-of-12 through this stretch, they would turn it over four times in this stretch and, when this stretch was over, they would be down 18 with just over 10 minutes gone.
The `Cat defense on this night would hold Indiana to 71 points, seven below its season average, and limit it to 34.4 percent shooting from distance, another figure well below their season average of 41 percent. But the Hoosiers, always physical, grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, and that netted them 20 second-chance points to a mere three by the `Cats, delivered them 65 shots to just 46 by the `Cats. "They were crashing with everybody," Olah would say. "It was tough. They're athletic. They're quick."
Their quick lead, then, never really dissolved, and never were the `Cats able to make a run that turned momentum their way. They closed to within 11 at 12:55, to 11 again at 11:43, to 11 a third time at 9:26. But each time the Hoosiers answered with a basket of their own and so, with 1:13 remaining and his team down 15, Chris Collins subbed out JerShon Cobb and Dave Sobolewski with Johnnie Vassar and Nathan Taphorn.
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The applause washed over the seniors as they began their final walk off a court and then, from Cobb's right, Hoosier coach Tom Crean approached and held out a hand. "He told me congratulations on a great career. He said, `Good job,'" the `Cat would later recall. "That means a lot. We've battled with Indiana a lot through the years and for him to be an opposing coach and see that, I really appreciate that."
"I told him he had a great career. Really proud of the career he's had," echoed Crean. "He's dealt with a lot of different things with injuries. I don't know the young man, but I thought he handled himself extremely well during his career."
Then later, as the teams exchanged post-game handshakes, Crean spoke to Sobolewski as well. "He was talking about my career, how he appreciates the way I faced adversity and all that," this `Cat would recall. "I've had a great relationship with Coach Crean over the last four years. He's been very complimentary of me, he's been very nice to me whether they beat us or lost to us. I really appreciate that from him. He said some very nice things I'll remember for a long time."
"You have two guys who are really good players, and it's not easy midway through their careers to just have everything upended," Chris Collins would finally say of this pair. "A brand new head coach. A new coaching staff. A new style. A new system. I thank them for their belief in me and our staff, to hang with us, to not jump ship, to be part of this build. I think we all knew it was going to be a build and I want the three guys--you had Drew (Crawford) last year, now Dave and JerShon--I want those three guys to really feel like they laid the foundation for where our program's headed.
"I was emotional for them because it stinks. It stinks when you've played your last game. These guys have played so much basketball and have loved it and now it's over. You feel for them. But I want them both to feel great about where we're headed. And I want them, when we get there, I want them to know how big a part they played in getting us where we need to go."
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