RICHMOND - No other team in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament can claim to have as talented or diverse a backcourt as third-seeded Northeastern. It is quite a melting pot. The Huskies' top three guards hail from radically different compass points: Watertown, Minn., Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Ferin, France.
"We all come from different places," said Chaisson Allen, a 6-foot-4-inch sophomore from Murfreesboro, "but we all came to do the same thing and that's to play basketball."
NU will rely upon that backcourt tonight in the quarterfinals at Richmond Coliseum against 11th-seeded Towson, which upset sixth-seeded Drexel, 73-62, last night.
"I'm not shocked at all," NU coach Bill Coen said of the Tigers, whom the Huskies defeated at home, 68-53, Jan. 10. "They're an extremely talented team and a very versatile team. Towson is one of those teams we haven't played in so long, and we haven't seen them since early January, so it's going to be an interesting matchup."
The Huskies will require their backcourt to set the tempo.
First, there's junior captain Matt Janning, a 6-4 baby-faced assassin who is NU's leading scorer (14.3 points per game) and was recently named to the all-conference first team. He came to Boston from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, an area known more for pond hockey and ice fishing than hoops.
"Everybody can do different things and everybody has different talents," Janning said of NU's backcourt, "and that's what makes us so special."
Then there's Allen, a strong perimeter defender, ballhandler, and shooter from the Volunteer State who was left with the mistaken impression about Janning's role on the team when they met during Allen's recruiting visit.
"I was like, 'Is he one of the team managers or something?' " said Allen, an all-CAA defensive team selection who ranked fifth in the league in steals with 50. "They were like, 'We look forward to seeing you playing with him.' After seeing him and then playing with him on the court, it was a different story."
Off the bench, there's 5-10 junior Baptiste Bataille, who you could say is the most erudite of the bunch after making the conference All-Academic team. Born in Lille, France, which is "about 20-25 minutes north of Paris," Bataille came to the United States on a basketball scholarship to the Community Christian School, a prep school in Stockbridge, Ga.
"It is a melting pot," Bataille said of NU's backcourt. "It's very interesting and a good thing to be part of this team for matters outside of basketball, because we get to experience different cultures and people who come from different areas.
"But on the court we speak the same universal language of basketball," added Bataille, who is averaging 3.8 points, 1.5 assists, and 14.7 minutes this season. "We understand each other. We look at each other, make eye contact, and those things have no language, you know? It's all about basketball."
And, as Janning suggested, the Huskies can put three guards on the court at the same time without the fear of redundancy.
"We can put guys in there who are playmakers, we can put in guys who are shooters, we can put in guys who can do other stuff," Janning said. "I think our team chemistry is one of the biggest things for us. It's one of the closest groups of guys I've been with and that just helps out on the court.
"From watching Baptiste, you know he's going to give you everything he's got. If he plays three minutes or 30 minutes, he's going to leave everything out on the floor. Chase has done a really good job of stepping up his game this year. He started out the year not shooting the ball very well, but he went back to where he was last year and you could tell he was really working on it at midseason when he started knocking down shots."
As for Janning? He has struggled to knock down his shots, hitting 33.3 percent overall (28 of 84) and 22.8 percent from the 3-point arc (8 of 35) in the last eight games. "Everybody knows he's our first option and he's going to get guarded," Bataille said. "But I think he's done a great job of trying to play through it."
In a 57-54 overtime loss to visiting Old Dominion in the regular-season finale last Saturday night, Coen looked upon one play in particular when he called Janning's number and he delivered, with a 25-foot trey that gave NU a 50-47 lead with 23.1 seconds left in regulation, as a positive sign.
"That just shows where he's at," Coen said. "He still wants the ball in that situation and that's a great sign for us."
"My confidence is still there," Janning said. "I'm going to go out there thinking I'm going to make every shot."
