WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Change swept through the White House Saturday afternoon — but for the Wildcats, things remained the same.
On Inauguration Day, Northwestern looked anything but presidential during Saturday’s 78-59 loss to Purdue.
Just to reinforce that it had no intentions of reversing a then-27-game conference losing streak, NU went five minutes, 36 seconds from the tip without scoring a point, falling behind 13-0 before guard Jitim Young battled for a layup.
Things got better for the Cats, but not much — they trailed 16-2, a score also seen in their Jan. 6 loss to the Boilermakers.
NU (7-11, 0-6 Big Ten) came within three points of Purdue in the second half, but a late run featuring wide-open three-pointers and thunderous alley-oops sentenced the team to a 19-point loss at Mackey Arena before 13,994 fans.
Purdue went on a 15-2 run that started with 14:08 to go and the Cats down 39-36. NU never got closer than 12 points the rest of the way.
Forward Rodney Smith once again played the lead role for Purdue (12-5, 4-2). In the first contest he led the Boilermakers with 21 points. In this game he poured in 27, going 10-for-12 from the field, including a perfect 8-for-8 second half. He slammed home two alley-oops, one from Carson Cunningham and one from Austin Parkinson, and dunked two other times on his own.
“Same thing at our place with Purdue,” said a subdued NU coach Bill Carmody. “Sixteen-two, déjà vu all over again — one of those deals.
“You just wonder now, you have this nice effort coming back — is it going to be the same all the time? How do you remedy that?”
Both teams had trouble finding the basket in the first half, helping NU stay in the game after its horrific start. The Boilermakers led 30-22 at the half, and neither team shot 30 percent from the field.
For NU, the biggest surprise came from forward Winston Blake, who struggled mightily for the entire half and much of the game. Blake has averaged 12.7 points per game on the year and 14.6 per game in the conference — both tops on the team — but couldn’t find his range Saturday.
Going 0-for-5 from the field — and 0-for-4 from three-point range — in the first half, Blake suffered chants of “airball” from the Purdue crowd the entire game after badly missing two early treys in the first eight minutes.
NU depends on Blake’s outside shooting, and the first-half misses cost the team a chance to take advantage of Purdue’s cold hand.
“I don’t know what you do about your best shooter,” Carmody said. “He’s wide open on two shots in the first half and he’s over the basket by 4 feet.”
Blake had no explanation for his shaky play, only offering some hope for the future. He said there wasn’t anything unusual bothering him, and a twisted ankle he sustained in the game wasn’t a factor.
“I’ve never shot that badly in my life,” Blake said. “It’s disappointing for me knowing how badly I shot and how badly the team needed me to make those baskets. I just need to get back to Evanston and shoot about 1,000 jumpers and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Blake ended up 2-for-10 from beyond the arc and 4-for-15 overall — not much worse than the team, which shot 26 percent and 33 percent, respectively. The Cats readily admitted they must avoid falling behind early, a troubling habit of late.
Playing a regular rotation of only eight players has made it difficult to sustain long comeback runs, as was the case Saturday.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get ourselves psyched up more so we don’t start off so slow,” said center Aaron Jennings, who led NU with 13 points off the bench. “It seems like we get to the 15-minute mark and it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re playing basketball.'”
