Northwestern is now 9-2 after holding on for dear life to defeat Dayton in the State Farm Legends Classic on Saturday night. As the Wildcats progress through the rest of the season, the chatter about whether they can string together enough wins to break their infinite NCAA Tournament drought will pick up accordingly. A quick review of Northwestern’s season so far reveals that star point guard Bryant McIntosh has struggled to match his production from a year ago. His numbers across the board is down — shooting, assists, scoring — and his turnovers are up. This can be viewed two different ways. The first is that a good team can become that much better if McIntosh returns to his previous levels of output. The second view of it is that the Wildcats are likely to face some problems once league play starts if their junior point guard is in the midst of a season-long swoon.
Bryant McIntosh has struggled this season for Northwestern. (AP).
McIntosh’s problems start with a prolonged shooting slump through the first 11 games — he is connecting on a miserable 24.4 percent of shots from distance — down from a career mark of 37 percent coming into the season. His shooting woes have bled into other facets of his game, including a higher turnover rate (20.6 percent, up three percent) and lower assist rate (29.3 percent, down eight percent). There have been some better moments against good competition — a 23-point game against Wake Forest and a 20-point outing against Texas — but his production in the team’s two losses of 9.5 PPG with a 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio has been a problem. The Wildcats’ loss to Notre Dame was especially brutal as the team ran several isolation plays for its lead guard during the final few minutes, but he was unable to deliver a bucket.
The nice part for Chris Collins is that every other Northwestern player seems to have improved this season, meaning that McIntosh no longer needs to lead the team in scoring for the Wildcats to succeed. With Vic Law and Scottie Lindsey averaging over 14.0 PPG and capable bench scorers Isiah Brown and Nathan Taphorn also picking up the offensive slack, the Wildcats have more margin for error than in previous years. With the Big Ten race for the middle of the pack still in flux behind Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin, Northwestern is in better position to push for a top-six Big Ten finish than it has been in years. McIntosh has proven that he can be one of the best lead guards in the conference when he’s shooting the ball well, but the fate of Northwestern’s season may depend on its gifted playmaker quickly getting back on track.