I’m going to preface by saying two things. For one, I will not be talking much in depth about the UCLA game outside of the result of it. I haven’t had time to give it the substantive analysis it properly deserves. I will be mentioning it in result only, because I think the result in a vacuum is enough to illustrate the point that I’m looking to make with this one. The one thing I will comment on is that I was expecting a return to the lineup for Baraka Tarleton, or even a first career start for Gavin
Baer, who is about as collegiate-ready as it gets for a First-Year, but neither of those happened to my surprise.
The last little bit of housekeeping is that the past few weeks have been absent of a MOTM and a Top Five performer. I elected to omit them largely due to the tone of these last two entries, and I’m waiting for the squad’s next win to bring it back in a celebratory manner. I will say that my man of the match for the Penn State matchup is a toss-up between Bryant Mayer and Dominic Pereira. Leaning towards the former.
Secondly, the last few weeks I have been talking about Northwestern’s chances of making the Big Ten tournament. Up until that point, I believed the tournament would consist of four teams like last year’s. I looked for information that would prove contrary, and didn’t see any when I checked, however many weeks ago. I don’t believe the Big Ten official websites gave any official indication of what the format would be. Perhaps I shouldn’t have assumed it would be four, given the format has changed practically every year. Since then, I’ve learned that the Big Ten tournament will be six teams, not four. This should objectively raise NU’s chances of getting in, and all in all is good news. I just wanted to get that out of the way first.
I don’t think you could have drawn up a more frustrating outcome to the Penn State game than the one that actually transpired Friday night. For one, it was senior night. Last year’s senior night was a 2-0 win against a ranked Indiana squad. Realistically, the circumstances weren’t set up to be able to match last year’s senior night in terms of excitement or the level of satisfaction the win might bring. But, at the very least, it was expected that one thing would be consistent from last year to this year: NU would gain all three points.
And NU was in a position where it needed the three points desperately. Sitting one point and one spot out of a Big Ten tournament place going into the match, a home game against the bottom of the conference was the closest thing the ’Cats’ remaining schedule had to a “guaranteed” three points.
NU was (and still is) two weeks without a win. This was the definition of a “get right” game.
Which is why Fritz Volmar’s red card at 12:27 made me want to pull my hair out. Was it soft? Yes, that I will admit. It was much less cut and dry than Andrew Johnson’s second yellow against Michigan. Volmar didn’t explicitly drag him down, and I think Etienne Reck went down easily for a ball he would have gotten to anyway had he simply stayed on his feet.
But giving the referee the opportunity to make a decision like that is already losing half the battle. And Volmar is one of the most experienced members of this squad; he leads the team in minutes this year after playing every single minute last year and starting 15+ games two of the last three seasons. I imagine that after the Michigan game, or just based on how results in general have been this season, Russell Payne is in the locker room every day preaching (or maybe pleading for?) discipline. Volmar had only been booked three times before this game; he was the last player you would expect to be sent off that early.
The one thing NU couldn’t do was give Penn State a platform in that game, and it did just that before hitting the 15-minute mark.
I will give the ’Cats credit, the defending with 10-men was very strong throughout the first half. Pereira was only called into action one time, and he made a brilliant save when needed. But the team seemed to wear down as the game went on. The ball ended up in the box more times and was barely scrambled to safety on numerous occasions, and eventually one of those instances led to an attempt from Joe Sheridan that Pereira never really saw coming through the traffic.
Under normal circumstances, I would have questioned the team’s ability to focus on defense for a full 90 (as I have in the past), but doing so here would ring hollow. The squad blanked #10 UCLA yesterday, so they still have it in them. But expecting consecutive 10-man clean sheets would have been silly.
There are three games left in the regular season, nine points up for grabs. NU winning out and a Maryland loss on the road to Washington would see the ’Cats leapfrog both the Terrapins and the Badgers and clinch that sixth-place spot. I’m not confident in that happening, but I’m not confident in any outcome.
Or let me rephrase. No matter what happens, I’m confident that it’ll leave me confused.
On to next week.
