Chris Collins Northwestern Media Day Notes

Chris Collins

• “Banged up here and there but nothing long-term besides Rapolas” on injuries here and there. Fully expects Ivanauskas to make a full recovery, get surgery soon, get a medical red-shirt.
• “McIntosh is going to be our leader, there’s no question there.” Said B-Mac is “more vocal.”
• These guys are the key to the team: “Falzon, Lindsey, Skelly, Pardon” as far as consistency.
• On Vic Law post-injury: “He’s a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy.” He sees “a renewed sense of hunger from Vic Law” this year.
• On Derek Pardon’s impact this year: “He got quality minutes last year. He’s a different player from Alex [Olah] but there are some things we can do with him. He can cause a lot of problems for other teams.” He praised Pardon’s athleticism and mobility and how that will be more present in the center position this year.
• On Isaiah Brown and Barret Benson’s impact their freshmen years: “Isaiah can score. Losing a guy like Tre [Demps], we need a guy who can put it in the basket.” “With Barret, we’re planning on having him and Derek tag-team that five position.”
• On having Vic Law and Aaron Falzon play on the court together for the first time: “That’s part of the preseason, mixing and matching lineups to see who plays well together. We’re still kind of figuring out who’s going to start and who we’re gonna bring off the bench.”
• On Bryant McIntosh’s improvement into the future: “He wants to become a better defender. I want him to be a better shooter, sometimes he can be a little streaky, but he’s gonna have to be a double-figure scorer. He needs to get to the foul line more, he’s a great free throw shooter. As a team we didn’t get to the line enough.”
• On the origins of #BMAC4THEDIME: “I love it, I think Bryant gets a little undervalued as to how good he really is. I think it was good of the marketing team to get him on a pedestal as one of the best players in the Big Ten and also one of the best, in his position, in the country.” “I want when people when they think of Northwestern Basketball they think ‘That’s Bryant McIntosh’s team.’”
• On how/if goals and expectations have changed since he arrived at Northwestern: “My goal from the get-go when I got here four years ago was to make a basketball program that was in the mix every year in the Big Ten. Our product on the floor has gotten every year, but the goal is to be a team that’s good every year.”
• On being old in college basketball in an era of one-and-done’s: “Yeah being old can be an advantage, I mean look at the Final Four last year: Villanova had all old guys, North Carolina had all old guys, Oklahoma had guys who started like 100 games together. It’s time for us to get old.”