Northwestern had a week off before opening the Big Ten Tournament on Thursdaynight, and for the first 20 minutes of the game, the effects of the layoffcouldn’t have been more obvious.
The No. 11 seed Wildcats were unable to find any semblance of an offensiverhythm for the entire first half against No. 6 seed Iowa, and by the time theymade a furious run in the second frame, it was too little, too late. The Catsnever had the lead against the Hawkeyes, and lost 72-55 at the United Center inChicago before a listed full-day crowd of 20,003 in their final game of theseason.
The Cats (11-19, 3-13 Big Ten) had beaten the Hawkeyes 69-61 in their onlymeeting this year, a contest that snapped the Cats’ 32-game Big Ten losingstreak. But the opening minutes—even though Iowa was still missing teamleader Luke Recker because of a fractured kneecap—proved that the Hawkeyeshad no plans of repeating the earlier result.
NU trailed 30-15 at the half, and the score wasn’t the only reason NU coachBill Carmody cringed for much of the game. The Hawkeyes (19-11, 7-9) played a1-3-1 zone for most of the half, and NU couldn’t find any good shots from thefloor.
The Cats shot 26 percent from the field in the first half, and Iowa powerforward Reggie Evans was tied 13-13 with them until the final seconds of thefirst half.
Evans ended up with 20 points and 14 rebounds, and Iowa’s domination of thepaint—the Hawkeyes outscored NU 38-24 inside—provided an edge theCats had no way of overcoming.
Carmody said his team just wasn’t ready, putting the blame on himself forthe Cats surprising lack of effort in the early going.
“They just sort of manhandled us,” he said. “It could have been worsethan 15 (points at the half) because they missed a number of layups.”
The Cats, down 19 early in the second half, made one final run to try andavoid the end of the season. NU suddenly found the layups it was unable to getin the first half and ripped off a 22-6 run that shrunk the deficit to threepoints with 10:57 to play.
NU guard Ben Johnson scored 21 of his game-high 24 points in the second half,but even his scoring burst couldn’t pull the Cats any closer than three and the Hawkeyes’ rock-solid free-throw shooting down the stretch sealed thevictory.
The Cats did win three of their final seven games, but were still upset aboutthe defeat.
“I think the season went pretty good for our standards,” NU forwardWinston Blake said. “It’s kind of disappointing that we got here andcouldn’t beat Iowa, which we thought we could.”
