By Jasper Scherer
Northwestern Athletic Communications
It's 9:35 a.m., about half an hour into Vic Law's Thursday morning workout, and the Welsh-Ryan Arena ceiling lights reflect off the sweat on Law's bare chest. The silence of the empty arena, punctuated only by the occasional sound of the basketball hitting the rim or swishing through the net, gives Law focus.
No crowd. No TV cameras. No pressure.
No torn labrum sending jolts of pain shooting through his shoulder.
Head coach Chris Collins sits in a folding chair along the sideline, one leg crossed over the other, sipping coffee. He watches Law, the crown jewel of his first recruiting class at Northwestern, dribble around three orange cones at the top of the arc and pull up for a three-pointer. The ball clanks off the rim. So do the next three.
Visible on Law's upper left arm is the tattoo he got last summer, an image of one angel looking up at another. The engraving sits below Law's labrum – a ring of cartilage surrounding the base of the shoulder joint – that tore last year and kept him out for his entire sophomore season. The morning workouts are just one part of Law's recovery process, which dates back to his Nov. 17 shoulder surgery.
After his fourth straight miss, Law cocks his head sideways. His face betrays a moment of frustration, but it's fleeting. He returns to his starting spot and takes a deep breath. Law's legs become a blur as he slips around the cones again, chops his steps, sets his feet and rises. He releases the ball smoothly at the top of his leap.
Swish.
A key part of Law's recovery is regaining rhythm, whether that means re-familiarizing himself with his favorite spots on the floor, returning to the flow of Northwestern's offense or getting used to the hard contact he'll feel during games.
"When you sit out and don't play for a full year, you're going to lose rhythm," says assistant coach Patrick Baldwin. "And basketball is a game of rhythm."
Law spent most of his freshman year searching for rhythm as he faced expectations higher than he could hope to fulfill. It was almost like the weight of the pressure heaped on Law, Northwestern's best ever basketball recruit, went straight to his shoulder when the labrum began gradually tearing in half. Now that his shoulder is healed, Law's challenge is mental: regaining rhythm, defining his role on the team and confronting the relentless pressure of being Chris Collins' first Northwestern recruit.
This Thursday morning, the focus of Law's drills is twofold: physical conditioning, and helping Law build the mental toughness he'll need to keep pushing when he's tired. Collins and Baldwin don't really care how many shots Law makes today.
"It's going to be a process," Collins says. "He's got to know there's going to be days where he's not feeling it, and he's got to fight through that. This is the most important offseason of Vic's career."
••••••••••
Law made his intentions at Northwestern clear from the beginning. On July 4, 2013, the day he became a part of the basketball program's future by verbally committing to the Wildcats, Law spoke of ending the program's then-74-year NCAA tournament drought. He spoke of his belief in Collins and assured success.
Law's ambition and hunger transferred to Northwestern's fanbase. Never mind that he still had to play his senior year in high school, or that Northwestern had won four Big Ten games the year before. To some, Law's confidence promised immediate results.
As Collins' first recruit at Northwestern, Law will always share a special bond with his head coach. Athletic director Jim Phillips hired Collins on March 27, a few months before Law committed. Collins represented promise, and signing Law was the first step toward legitimizing fans' optimism.
"Vic was the first guy who believed in me," Collins says. "I love the fact that he wanted to have that bond with me. He wanted [us] to lock arms and kind of be the ones."
The palpable anticipation quickly gave way to reality during Law's freshman year. Northwestern lost 10 straight Big Ten games as Collins' first recruiting class got acquainted with the speed and physicality of college basketball.
"Vic has always been an elite athlete," Collins says. "At the high school level, he could get by on being a better athlete than most of the kids he played against. You can't do that anymore at this level, and that kind of hit him."
Law struggled at first, making four total shots during his first four Big Ten games. He came off the bench for most of the remainder of the season.
It wasn't fair, Collins says, to expect so much from a college freshman.
"You're talking about a Chicago kid trying to help a program get to a place that they've never been," says his dad, Vic Sr. "It's a whole lot of pressure and expectations to place upon a kid. … And I think he put a whole lot of pressure on himself."
But Law wanted the expectations – that's why he came to Northwestern in the first place. He set the bar high for himself the day he committed.
"To his credit, what I loved was, he didn't make excuses," Collins says. "He got in the gym, he watched more film, he worked harder. He didn't blame anybody."
Bryant McIntosh, Law's friend and the starting point guard, says Law's struggles didn't affect his outgoing personality or his day-to-day interactions with people. If Law was disappointed with his play, you couldn't tell.
Near the end of the season, things started to click. Law took smarter shots. There was no longer room for joking around during his pregame workouts.
Law's best game of the year came in a 60-39 win over Penn State on Feb. 21, when he scored 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and grabbed 11 boards, both season highs. Collins subbed Law out in the final minute of the game and pulled him aside. The Welsh-Ryan crowd rose to its feet.
"Welcome to the Big Ten," Collins said as they embraced.
Northwestern finished the season 15-17, but fans were already looking ahead to next year. Seniors Tre Demps and Alex Olah, Northwestern's leading scorers, would return for their final seasons. Law and McIntosh had each demonstrated potential during their freshman years.
That all changed when Law's shoulder began to tear in half.
••••••••••
Law's shoulder troubles date back to his sophomore year at St. Rita. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder during a tournament at Missouri State when someone dove on top of him during a scramble for a loose ball. Law's arm dislocated, but he played through the pain for the rest of the season.
Mike Schweigert, Northwestern's sports performance coach, explains that Law is "hyper mobile," which means his joints can move a lot farther and easier than most people's. They're also more susceptible to injury.
Law's second labral tear was much different than the first. There was no single incident to point to. He felt pain in his shoulder late in the summer, often when getting tangled in awkward positions during rebound battles.
His arm would pop out and back in, creating a sharp, intense pain for anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes, often followed by numbness. The pain worsened to the point where Law at times sat out multiple practices in a row. He tried combatting it with shoulder braces. He tried rehabbing his shoulder.
Eventually he had to realize the inevitable.
"I really wanted to try and push through it," Law says. "But just talking with the athletic trainer and my family and everything, it was obvious that there would be unexpected times when I was just going to have to miss a week of games."
The decision, Schweigert says, ultimately came down to what was best for Law beyond just his sophomore year. Nobody wanted him to force his way through the injury and jeopardize his career. It was Law's choice.
The breaking point came during Northwestern's exhibition game against Quincy University on Nov. 5. Law played well, making four of his six shots and grabbing six rebounds in just 18 minutes. But the pain was too much.
"After that game I just knew I wasn't going to be able to do it," Law says.
Law walked into Collins' office and told him to get his parents on the phone. He would sit out and redshirt the entire season, making him eligible to play for an extra year.
Twelve days after the Quincy game, Law had successful surgery on his labrum. Then it was time to begin the recovery.
••••••••••
The hardest part about shoulder surgery, Schweigert says, is that it renders you almost completely immobile. At the beginning, Law had his arm in a sling with strict orders to avoid physical activity. For a while, he couldn't run or do lower body exercises because that would have required moving his shoulder even slightly.
But as Law sat on the sideline next to his coaches, he observed from an unfamiliar perspective.
"I got a chance to really mature and see the game a different way, not just as a player, but as the coaches see it," Law says.
When you're playing, everything happens too fast to take in the minute differences you pick up from the outside. Sitting out allowed Law to slow things down. He became a coach off the floor.
"I think he got much smarter," McIntosh says. "He understands situations better, he knows the tendencies, especially looking at other teams and how they like to attack us."
And that, Collins says, separates players when everyone on the court is freakishly athletic.
Law may have also benefitted from having a clearer head; there was no constant pressure to be perfect, no unreasonable expectations to fulfill. Law transitioned from being an elite athlete to a smart basketball player by not playing at all.
At the same time, sitting out frustrated Law. Northwestern lost a couple stingers, including an overtime defeat in January to Maryland, then the seventh-ranked team in the country. It was a missed opportunity for a program-defining win, and Law could only watch, wondering what would have been different if his labrum hadn't nearly torn in half.
"There were a couple games where I was just so disappointed in the way we lost, and I knew if I had played I could have helped," Law says. "It was just disappointing to see some of my teammates struggling out there, and I couldn't help or do anything but just talk on the sideline."
As Law sat out, McIntosh took charge. He set the Northwestern single-season assists record and established himself as an explosive scoring threat. In Northwestern's 70-65 win over Wisconsin, McIntosh scored 28 points – a few weeks after dropping 33 on Loyola (Md.).
In a way, he took over Law's role as "the guy."
"I don't think it's diminished Vic at all," Collins says. "When I recruited Vic and Bryant, I knew both of those guys were going to be centerpiece guys. I think it's great that they have each other and they can lean on each other. … They both want each other to be great because I think they know they need each other."
It was Collins who leaned on McIntosh at times last year. By the end of the season, he was struggling. He played 36 minutes or more in nine of the last 10 games. It was clear something was missing: Vic.
"You can't fully replace a guy like him," McIntosh says.
••••••••••
On the brink of return, Law no longer takes basketball for granted. Losing one of the most important parts of his life for months taught him to value it more than ever before.
"I feel like a lot of players just lose their appreciation for basketball," he says. "You do it so many times day in, day out, you're just like, 'Ah, we're going to practice again or ah, we're traveling again.'
"I feel like when you don't play, you get a chance to be like, 'Man, I really wish I could be out there again.' I took some of the stuff for granted. I think you've got to appreciate every day and every practice because four years does go by really quick."
Baldwin understands the feeling. He graduated from Northwestern in 1994 after four years as the starting point guard, and he still owns the all-time school record for steals. But like Vic, an injury kept him on the sideline for part of his sophomore year.
"You do gain that appreciation for the game and figure out that you really love it because it's taken away from you," Baldwin says. "The other part of it is the conditioning and all the stuff you have to do. That will test whether or not you really love it."
Baldwin thinks Law's injury brought with it a renewed sense of urgency and a hunger to get back on the floor. But with that comes the inevitable adversity and chaos Law faced as a freshman, plus his added responsibility of being a team leader.
"We're counting on him," Collins says. "He's a huge part of our future."
Law was never going to be Northwestern's savior by scoring 25 points a game; he wasn't even the go-to scorer on his high school team. It's Law's versatility on the court, and his potential to change the culture and perception of the program, that makes him valuable to Northwestern.
In four months, when thousands of noisy fans replace the silence of Law's Thursday morning workouts, he will be ready. He has to be, because the success of a hungry Northwestern basketball program depends on whether Vic Law can shoulder his share of the load.
Northwestern Athletic Communications
It's 9:35 a.m., about half an hour into Vic Law's Thursday morning workout, and the Welsh-Ryan Arena ceiling lights reflect off the sweat on Law's bare chest. The silence of the empty arena, punctuated only by the occasional sound of the basketball hitting the rim or swishing through the net, gives Law focus.
No crowd. No TV cameras. No pressure.
No torn labrum sending jolts of pain shooting through his shoulder.
Head coach Chris Collins sits in a folding chair along the sideline, one leg crossed over the other, sipping coffee. He watches Law, the crown jewel of his first recruiting class at Northwestern, dribble around three orange cones at the top of the arc and pull up for a three-pointer. The ball clanks off the rim. So do the next three.
Visible on Law's upper left arm is the tattoo he got last summer, an image of one angel looking up at another. The engraving sits below Law's labrum – a ring of cartilage surrounding the base of the shoulder joint – that tore last year and kept him out for his entire sophomore season. The morning workouts are just one part of Law's recovery process, which dates back to his Nov. 17 shoulder surgery.
After his fourth straight miss, Law cocks his head sideways. His face betrays a moment of frustration, but it's fleeting. He returns to his starting spot and takes a deep breath. Law's legs become a blur as he slips around the cones again, chops his steps, sets his feet and rises. He releases the ball smoothly at the top of his leap.
Swish.
A key part of Law's recovery is regaining rhythm, whether that means re-familiarizing himself with his favorite spots on the floor, returning to the flow of Northwestern's offense or getting used to the hard contact he'll feel during games.
"When you sit out and don't play for a full year, you're going to lose rhythm," says assistant coach Patrick Baldwin. "And basketball is a game of rhythm."
Law spent most of his freshman year searching for rhythm as he faced expectations higher than he could hope to fulfill. It was almost like the weight of the pressure heaped on Law, Northwestern's best ever basketball recruit, went straight to his shoulder when the labrum began gradually tearing in half. Now that his shoulder is healed, Law's challenge is mental: regaining rhythm, defining his role on the team and confronting the relentless pressure of being Chris Collins' first Northwestern recruit.
This Thursday morning, the focus of Law's drills is twofold: physical conditioning, and helping Law build the mental toughness he'll need to keep pushing when he's tired. Collins and Baldwin don't really care how many shots Law makes today.
"It's going to be a process," Collins says. "He's got to know there's going to be days where he's not feeling it, and he's got to fight through that. This is the most important offseason of Vic's career."
••••••••••
Law made his intentions at Northwestern clear from the beginning. On July 4, 2013, the day he became a part of the basketball program's future by verbally committing to the Wildcats, Law spoke of ending the program's then-74-year NCAA tournament drought. He spoke of his belief in Collins and assured success.
Law's ambition and hunger transferred to Northwestern's fanbase. Never mind that he still had to play his senior year in high school, or that Northwestern had won four Big Ten games the year before. To some, Law's confidence promised immediate results.
As Collins' first recruit at Northwestern, Law will always share a special bond with his head coach. Athletic director Jim Phillips hired Collins on March 27, a few months before Law committed. Collins represented promise, and signing Law was the first step toward legitimizing fans' optimism.
"Vic was the first guy who believed in me," Collins says. "I love the fact that he wanted to have that bond with me. He wanted [us] to lock arms and kind of be the ones."
The palpable anticipation quickly gave way to reality during Law's freshman year. Northwestern lost 10 straight Big Ten games as Collins' first recruiting class got acquainted with the speed and physicality of college basketball.
"Vic has always been an elite athlete," Collins says. "At the high school level, he could get by on being a better athlete than most of the kids he played against. You can't do that anymore at this level, and that kind of hit him."
Law struggled at first, making four total shots during his first four Big Ten games. He came off the bench for most of the remainder of the season.
It wasn't fair, Collins says, to expect so much from a college freshman.
"You're talking about a Chicago kid trying to help a program get to a place that they've never been," says his dad, Vic Sr. "It's a whole lot of pressure and expectations to place upon a kid. … And I think he put a whole lot of pressure on himself."
But Law wanted the expectations – that's why he came to Northwestern in the first place. He set the bar high for himself the day he committed.
"To his credit, what I loved was, he didn't make excuses," Collins says. "He got in the gym, he watched more film, he worked harder. He didn't blame anybody."
Bryant McIntosh, Law's friend and the starting point guard, says Law's struggles didn't affect his outgoing personality or his day-to-day interactions with people. If Law was disappointed with his play, you couldn't tell.
Near the end of the season, things started to click. Law took smarter shots. There was no longer room for joking around during his pregame workouts.
Law's best game of the year came in a 60-39 win over Penn State on Feb. 21, when he scored 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and grabbed 11 boards, both season highs. Collins subbed Law out in the final minute of the game and pulled him aside. The Welsh-Ryan crowd rose to its feet.
"Welcome to the Big Ten," Collins said as they embraced.
Northwestern finished the season 15-17, but fans were already looking ahead to next year. Seniors Tre Demps and Alex Olah, Northwestern's leading scorers, would return for their final seasons. Law and McIntosh had each demonstrated potential during their freshman years.
That all changed when Law's shoulder began to tear in half.
••••••••••
Law's shoulder troubles date back to his sophomore year at St. Rita. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder during a tournament at Missouri State when someone dove on top of him during a scramble for a loose ball. Law's arm dislocated, but he played through the pain for the rest of the season.
Mike Schweigert, Northwestern's sports performance coach, explains that Law is "hyper mobile," which means his joints can move a lot farther and easier than most people's. They're also more susceptible to injury.
Law's second labral tear was much different than the first. There was no single incident to point to. He felt pain in his shoulder late in the summer, often when getting tangled in awkward positions during rebound battles.
His arm would pop out and back in, creating a sharp, intense pain for anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes, often followed by numbness. The pain worsened to the point where Law at times sat out multiple practices in a row. He tried combatting it with shoulder braces. He tried rehabbing his shoulder.
Eventually he had to realize the inevitable.
"I really wanted to try and push through it," Law says. "But just talking with the athletic trainer and my family and everything, it was obvious that there would be unexpected times when I was just going to have to miss a week of games."
The decision, Schweigert says, ultimately came down to what was best for Law beyond just his sophomore year. Nobody wanted him to force his way through the injury and jeopardize his career. It was Law's choice.
The breaking point came during Northwestern's exhibition game against Quincy University on Nov. 5. Law played well, making four of his six shots and grabbing six rebounds in just 18 minutes. But the pain was too much.
"After that game I just knew I wasn't going to be able to do it," Law says.
Law walked into Collins' office and told him to get his parents on the phone. He would sit out and redshirt the entire season, making him eligible to play for an extra year.
Twelve days after the Quincy game, Law had successful surgery on his labrum. Then it was time to begin the recovery.
••••••••••
The hardest part about shoulder surgery, Schweigert says, is that it renders you almost completely immobile. At the beginning, Law had his arm in a sling with strict orders to avoid physical activity. For a while, he couldn't run or do lower body exercises because that would have required moving his shoulder even slightly.
But as Law sat on the sideline next to his coaches, he observed from an unfamiliar perspective.
"I got a chance to really mature and see the game a different way, not just as a player, but as the coaches see it," Law says.
When you're playing, everything happens too fast to take in the minute differences you pick up from the outside. Sitting out allowed Law to slow things down. He became a coach off the floor.
"I think he got much smarter," McIntosh says. "He understands situations better, he knows the tendencies, especially looking at other teams and how they like to attack us."
And that, Collins says, separates players when everyone on the court is freakishly athletic.
Law may have also benefitted from having a clearer head; there was no constant pressure to be perfect, no unreasonable expectations to fulfill. Law transitioned from being an elite athlete to a smart basketball player by not playing at all.
At the same time, sitting out frustrated Law. Northwestern lost a couple stingers, including an overtime defeat in January to Maryland, then the seventh-ranked team in the country. It was a missed opportunity for a program-defining win, and Law could only watch, wondering what would have been different if his labrum hadn't nearly torn in half.
"There were a couple games where I was just so disappointed in the way we lost, and I knew if I had played I could have helped," Law says. "It was just disappointing to see some of my teammates struggling out there, and I couldn't help or do anything but just talk on the sideline."
As Law sat out, McIntosh took charge. He set the Northwestern single-season assists record and established himself as an explosive scoring threat. In Northwestern's 70-65 win over Wisconsin, McIntosh scored 28 points – a few weeks after dropping 33 on Loyola (Md.).
In a way, he took over Law's role as "the guy."
"I don't think it's diminished Vic at all," Collins says. "When I recruited Vic and Bryant, I knew both of those guys were going to be centerpiece guys. I think it's great that they have each other and they can lean on each other. … They both want each other to be great because I think they know they need each other."
It was Collins who leaned on McIntosh at times last year. By the end of the season, he was struggling. He played 36 minutes or more in nine of the last 10 games. It was clear something was missing: Vic.
"You can't fully replace a guy like him," McIntosh says.
••••••••••
On the brink of return, Law no longer takes basketball for granted. Losing one of the most important parts of his life for months taught him to value it more than ever before.
"I feel like a lot of players just lose their appreciation for basketball," he says. "You do it so many times day in, day out, you're just like, 'Ah, we're going to practice again or ah, we're traveling again.'
"I feel like when you don't play, you get a chance to be like, 'Man, I really wish I could be out there again.' I took some of the stuff for granted. I think you've got to appreciate every day and every practice because four years does go by really quick."
Baldwin understands the feeling. He graduated from Northwestern in 1994 after four years as the starting point guard, and he still owns the all-time school record for steals. But like Vic, an injury kept him on the sideline for part of his sophomore year.
"You do gain that appreciation for the game and figure out that you really love it because it's taken away from you," Baldwin says. "The other part of it is the conditioning and all the stuff you have to do. That will test whether or not you really love it."
Baldwin thinks Law's injury brought with it a renewed sense of urgency and a hunger to get back on the floor. But with that comes the inevitable adversity and chaos Law faced as a freshman, plus his added responsibility of being a team leader.
"We're counting on him," Collins says. "He's a huge part of our future."
Law was never going to be Northwestern's savior by scoring 25 points a game; he wasn't even the go-to scorer on his high school team. It's Law's versatility on the court, and his potential to change the culture and perception of the program, that makes him valuable to Northwestern.
In four months, when thousands of noisy fans replace the silence of Law's Thursday morning workouts, he will be ready. He has to be, because the success of a hungry Northwestern basketball program depends on whether Vic Law can shoulder his share of the load.