Nash, Northwestern look for payback against Illini
Yes, Northwestern finds itself in the Associated Press' national poll for the first time in 41 seasons.
It's a milestone, an achievement, a scrapbook moment.
But it's not THE hot-button topic among the 18- to 22-year-olds currently wearing Northwestern's uniforms.
As the No. 25 Wildcats prepare for today's Big Ten opener at Illinois (8 p.m., BTN), they're thinking about the 14-point lead they blew in the final 5:21 of last year's lone meeting.
"We've been talking about it all week," said Northwestern senior guard Jeremy Nash. "We knew we got complacent with our lead last year.
"Our guys have a little salt (in the wound) from them coming back from 15 down and getting a win in our place. Now we want to go back and give them a little bit of the taste of what they gave us last year."
Northwestern (10-1) has left most opponents with an unexpected taste in their mouth this year.
When the Wildcats lost scoring and rebounding leader Kevin Coble to a season-ending foot injury three days before the opener, everyone expected NU to take a step back. Instead, players such as Nash lifted up the Wildcats by living up to their long-held potential.
When Nash was a sophomore at Marist High School on Chicago's South Side, he was considered a strong enough prospect that Illinois and other Big Ten schools welcomed him for unofficial visits.
"Illinois, it was a nice place," Nash said.
But Nash, who also was a standout wide receiver at Marist, neither grew enough nor improved his outside shot enough to keep the biggest schools interested. Northwestern was the only BCS conference school to offer him a scholarship.
Nash gradually worked his way into sixth-man status midway through last season, then Coble's injury thrust him into the starting lineup for the first time.
Already known for his defense, Nash has become a stat-sheet stuffer on both ends of the court.
He enters league play averaging 8.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.1 steals per game. He ranks third in the Big Ten in steals and free-throw shooting (89 percent) and stands sixth in assist-to-turnover ratio.
In short, he's the type of experienced and versatile athlete Illinois wants freshmen Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson to become.
"(The experience) helps a lot, but you've got to go out and play basketball," Nash said. "If you've got athletes who don't really know too much, that might help us a little bit because we can go out and be a little more aggressive with them and hopefully they make some mistakes.
"But we know that they're great players. They're going to figure it out sooner or later. Hopefully it's not this game."