ANN ARBOR, Mich.- Winning on the road has reached nearly mythic proportions in the Big Ten, as the home team has taken 17 of the first 24 conference matchups this year.
But the Northwestern men’s basketball team apparently didn’t get the memo.
In a sparsely populated Crisler Arena, the Wildcats (9-6, 1-3 Big Ten) defeated Michigan 58-54 on Wednesday before a paid attendance of 10,884.
The Cats owned the first half, holding Michigan (6-8, 2-3) scoreless for the first 4:20 of the game. But NU let the Wolverines creep back into the game after the break.
“It came down to guys having to make free throws,” said NU forward Tavaras Hardy, who led the Cats with 19 points, 15 of them in the second half. “We have to work on our foul shooting, (but) we were able to keep our composure and get the win.”
NU has struggled from the line, especially of late, shooting only 56.9 percent from the charity stripe in conference games. The team made 11 of 22 free throws against Michigan-the same as against Ohio State on Saturday-missing nine of those foul shots in the second half.
But the Cats managed to sink enough key baskets to earn their first Big Ten victory.
“We just looked at each other (at the end of the game) and said, ‘Let’s not blow it. We can’t lose this game,'” Winston Blake said. “It’s a building block for the Big Ten season.”
NU, after losing its first three conference games, came out gunning. Instead of going down 8-0 in the first half, as the Cats did Saturday against Ohio State, they dominated the early play, staking a 7-0 lead that they never relinquished.
“Getting (behind) to this team isn’t like getting (behind) to any other team,” Michigan head coach Tommy Amaker said, “because there’s not a lot of possessions in the game where you can overcome the lead.”
With 4:23 left in the first half, NU widened the margin to 16 points, the largest lead of the night. The Princeton offense was in full effect, with the Cats converting on five backdoor passes before the break.
Amaker said the Wolverines have been practicing to counter the Princeton offense all week, but the team didn’t react well at game-time.
Only four Michigan players scored in the first twenty minutes, and LaVell Blanchard, the Wolverines’ leading scorer, was limited to nine minutes in the first half because of foul trouble.
With a 31-19 halftime lead, the Cats seemed to be cruising over the hapless Wolverines. But intermission adjustments by Michigan changed an easy victory into one NU had to earn.
Blanchard scored his first point of the game – and Michigan’s first of the second half – with 15:10 left in the game on a pair of free throws, cutting NU’s lead to 14 points. The junior forward managed to rack up three personal fouls before he made a shot.
But the Wolverines then took control, cutting the Cats’ lead to just one point. A three-second violation by NU gave Michigan a chance to take its first lead with three minutes left to play.
The Wolverines missed a shot and the putback, and Hardy made a field goal, igniting a six-point run by the Cats. Michigan again cut NU’s lead to one point with 40 seconds left.
And then the Princeton scheme returned to the rescue.
Vedran Vukusic slipped a backdoor pass through three Michigan defenders to a slashing Jason Burke, who converted for his only points on the night.
The Cats had to rely on their inside shooting after halftime, as they missed all eight of their three-point attempts in the second half.
One of the highlights of the game was NU’s stifling defense. In addition to limiting Michigan to 19 points in the first period, the Cats collected five steals.
“We have a switching zone defense,” said Hardy. “They don’t know whether it’s man or zone. They don’t know what we’re doing. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing.”
For the game, the Cats grabbed eight steals while only committing seven turnovers. But it was a different story on Michigan’s side of the court. NU forced 16 turnovers and the Wolverines managed just one steal.
“There aren’t too many teams in the country that play defense like us,” Hardy said.
