Maybe it was midterms, maybe it was the snow, or maybe the Wildcats players were still trying to decipher President Bush’s State of the Union address from Tuesday night.

Whatever the reason, the Northwestern men’s basketball team came out of the gates Wednesday night without the spirit and confidence needed for a team to win in the Big Ten. The Cats weren’t even dressed particularly well, as freshman Vedran Vukusic sported a white T-shirt under his jersey to help protect his shoulder.

Fortunately for the Cats, Wisconsin didn’t look much better. The Badgers, like the Iowa Hawkeyes on Jan. 19, were absolutely baffled by NU’s switching defenses, so much so that it became amusing at times. Wisconsin ran a fluid, successful offensive possession only once or twice in the whole game, tallying most of its points on gaudy crossovers by 5-foot-10 Travon Davis and Freddie “Lefty” Owens. NU defensive specialist Collier Drayton easily grabbed three steals – and nearly had two or three more – with his lightning-quick hands.

But there’s a basic logic in basketball that says if you hold a team to 60 points, you have to score 61 to win.

So NU needed an offensive spark, and coach Bill Carmody looked no further than his “Big Three.” Forwards Tavaras Hardy and Winston Blake and guard Jitim Young spent almost 40 minutes on the floor together, directing an offense that put up 44 second-half points against one of the Big Ten’s better defenses.

We’ve come to expect clutch play and leadership from Hardy, so the bigger boosts came from Blake and Young. Blake turned his season around in the Jan. 19 Iowa game, and on Wednesday, he continued to display vital leadership qualities and a soft shooting touch. With 2:28 left in the first half, the Cats down by two and still appearing a little groggy, Blake found an open spot in the corner and drained a clutch three-pointer.

Enter Mr. Young. With seven seconds left in the first half, the sophomore, who has become one of the Big Ten’s most talented, promising and exciting players, broke a 22-22 tie on a strong layup and free throw, giving the Cats a lead they held for virtually the entire second half.

Young struggled in NU’s last five games. The last time NU’s leading scorer even took 10 shots from the field was in a Jan. 9 loss at Iowa, and since then, the only time he scored in double digits was in the win over Iowa. Young grabbed seven rebounds Wednesday, equal to his rebounding output of his last four games combined. Four assists, perfect free-throw shooting (OK, in only one attempt, but that’s better than his 3-for-9 against Ohio State on Jan. 12), 36 minutes … and one rim-rocking, tomahawk put-back dunk that had even the wealthy alumni flying out of their padded seats to cheer.

And he’s enjoying himself now. Young said Monday that he’d “gotten sidetracked a lot” and wasn’t having fun playing basketball. At a school that has been brutally attacked by transfers, those words evoke fear in the hearts of fans.

But Wednesday was different.

“It was awesome,” Young said. “I was just out there having fun. That’s when I play well. Sometimes players get caught up trying to make basketball work. The work is what we go through at Northwestern all during the day going to all these classes. That’s where we need to leave the work.”

Guess it was the midterms after all.