BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Shutting down Indiana’s physical post players was Northwestern’s biggest defensive concern heading into the team’s trip to Assembly Hall.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been.
NU held forward Jeff Newton and center George Leach to a combined 14 points, but the Cats’ focus on defending the inside gave Indiana’s struggling guards the chance to pounce on the perimeter.
“(Indiana shooting) 25 of 40 kind of sums it up,” NU coach Bill Carmody said. “We have a way of breaking guys out of their slumps.”
Indiana’s struggling senior guards, Kyle Hornsby and Tom Coverdale, shot the Hoosiers to a 71-57 victory — the squad’s 29th straight home win over NU.
Out-shot and out-rebounded, the Cats had little opportunity to regroup from an early 11-0 deficit. NU never came closer than six points, and that was with 14 minutes left in the first half.
Indiana’s guards carried the offensive load even without the services of freshman Bracey Wright, the Hoosiers’ leading scorer, who sat out with minor back pain.
More than half of the Hoosiers’ shots came from beyond the arc, and they drained 13 of 22 attempts.
NU joined Indiana in relying on perimeter production. After shooting just 31 percent in the first half, the Cats connected on 64 percent of their attempts after the break, including 7 of 11 from 3-point range.
The two teams combined for 45 3-point attempts — more than half of the game’s total shots.
Senior Jason Burke made 3 of 5 treys and paced the team with 14 points.
Fellow senior Winston Blake went 0-for-4, failing to score.
Carmody announced he would be making a line-up change after the game and asked the media to hold him to it.
Blake said he needed to find new ways to contribute because what he’s doing now is “hurting the team.”
Junior guard Jitim Young said Blake’s problems are in his head.
“Everytime Winston shoots the ball I put my hands up because I know it’s going in,” Young said. “He just needs to have that same confidence that I have in him.”
The Hoosiers used the contest to bounce back after yielding 11 offensive rebounds in Saturday’s 81-69 loss to Ohio State.
To motivate his squad, Davis said he checked the rule book to see if he could make his team run sprints after the game.
“The rules said we couldn’t go until the next day, ” he said. “So I told the guys if they gave up more than seven offensive rebounds they’d be up at 5:30 the next morning to run.”
Indiana limited NU to four offensive boards.
Newton responded by pulling down seven rebounds — all defensive — before halftime.
“I guess Newton doesn’t like to wake up at 5:30,” Davis joked after the game.
