With 1:13 left in the second half of Saturday’s game, NU head coach Bill Carmody sent five reserves onto the floor.
The score at that point was 63-45, and with a lead that big, Carmody had no further need for his starters.
That’s right. A lead.
The Northwestern men’s basketball team (10-6, 2-3 Big Ten) never trailed in Saturday’s 63-50 upset of No. 17 Iowa (13-7, 2-4) before an energetic crowd of 7,017 at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The Wildcats led by as many as 20 points in the second half and held a 14-point halftime advantage.
“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Northwestern,” Iowa coach Steve Alford said. “They deserved the win. We were embarrassing. I apologize.”
The Cats came out strong for the second straight game, jumping out to a 6-1 lead. The Hawkeyes didn’t make their first field goal until six minutes into the game.
The victory marked NU’s first back-to-back wins at home over Iowa since 1967-68. Last year’s 69-61 upset over then-No. 14 Iowa snapped the Cats’ 32-game regular-season Big Ten losing streak.
This season, the Hawkeyes defeated NU 70-60 in Iowa City on Jan. 9. Reggie Evans, who had 21 points and 11 rebounds, and Luke Recker, who tallied 20 points, dominated that game.
But Evans struggled throughout Saturday’s contest, although he finished with 17 rebounds and 14 points. The senior didn’t convert a field goal in the first 27 minutes of play.
Carmody couldn’t pick the best word to describe the 6-foot-8 junior-college transfer.
“A horse, a house, a monster,” Carmody said. “He’s close to unstoppable on the glass.”
The Cats held Recker, tied for first in the conference with 18.3 points per game heading into Saturday, to just eight points.
“For the first time I’ve realized that the chant of ‘overrated’ does make sense,” Alford said. “We’re definitely overrated. We will not play this way … again.”
Alford said the only player who has earned a spot in the starting lineup for Iowa’s next game is senior Ryan Hogan.
Hogan, who has not started a game this season, scored 12 points and was the lone bright spot for the Hawkeyes against NU.
The rest of the Iowa team appeared disoriented against a Cats’ defense that had seven steals and nine blocked shots. But the Hawkeyes’ main problem was free-throw shooting.
Iowa came into the game shooting 69.5 percent from the charity stripe, compared to NU’s 59.7 percent.
But on Saturday, the Hawkeyes missed 17 of 32 free throws – Evans alone bricked 10 of them.
The Cats put the game out of reach with an 11-2 run late in the second half, which included an acrobatic, up-and-under layup by Hardy, as well as a missed dunk by Evans.
NU maintained a large advantage throughout the second half, something it wasn’t able to do in Wednesday’s win over Michigan. After holding a 12-point lead at the break in that game, the Cats allowed the Wolverines to come within one point.
But that wasn’t the case on Saturday. NU never let the Hawkeyes come closer than 11 points in the second half.
“It seemed like we made a big play here and there and we actually made some foul shots (down the stretch),” Carmody said.
Winston Blake led the team with 16 points and Collier Drayton collected eight assists.
Junior Aaron Jennings had one of the best performances of his NU career, Carmody said. The Iowa native grabbed eight rebounds and scored eight points.
“He got rebounds that other guys on the team can’t get,” Carmody said. “He just seemed very active today, going from block to block on the defensive end.”
The win was NU’s second consecutive Big Ten victory, marking the first time the Cats have won two in a row since February of 1999, when they beat Michigan and Penn State. NU hasn’t won three straight conference games since 1976.
Carmody said the upset victory might have shown the team that it has the capability to win in the conference.
“If you beat a good team like Iowa, then (the ability) has probably been in there before,” Carmody said. “It’s been there and we just haven’t unveiled it or discovered it. And now you know.”
