Members of the Wildside, Northwestern’s student section, started chanting with a couple of minutes left.
“Just like football,” they yelled.
As the final horn sounded, the Wildcats’ faithful rushed the court for the second time this basketball season.
More than three weeks after defeating then-No. 25 Illinois, Jitim Young and the Cats notched another improbable upset Saturday with a 69-51 victory over No. 14 Wisconsin before 8,117 fans at a sold-out Welsh-Ryan Arena.
NU’s win reminded fans of the football squad’s most impressive win in 2003 — an Oct. 25 victory over then-No. 20 Wisconsin.
Pounding the team that was atop the Big Ten standings helped improve coach Bill Carmody’s spirits just three days after he endured a tough 12-point loss to Ohio State.
“Even coach is laughing,” junior forward Davor Duvancic said. “I haven’t seen coach laugh in two weeks.”
Carmody didn’t smile much in the game’s first six minutes, as the Badgers raced to an 8-2 lead. But the Cats’ offense took over, embarking on a 27-5 run that gave NU a 16-point advantage. Young capped it with a jumper, putting the Cats (9-11, 4-5 Big Ten) up 29-13.
At one point during the onslaught, the Cats rattled off 15 unanswered points, their largest run of the season. The Wisconsin bench helped NU earn two of those points, drawing a technical foul during a timeout with seven minutes left in the first half.
“I said to Devin (Harris), ‘Forget it, get back here,'” Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. “And that’s all I said. And maybe (the referee) didn’t like the way I said, ‘Forget it.'”
By intermission, the Cats led 36-19 — their largest halftime advantage of the season. They shot 59 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, making 5-of-9 attempts from beyond the arc. The Badgers hit just 28 percent of their shots before the break.
“If they’re going to hit the threes, that’s three points on a possession,” Ryan said. “And that’s hard to get back. And that’s how it got away from us.”
In the locker room, Carmody told his players not to let up in the second half. They didn’t, outscoring Wisconsin 33-32 the rest of the way.
“You don’t want to lose your aggression,” Carmody said. “You don’t want to just walk through your paces.”
Midway through the second half, the Badgers cut the Cats’ lead to 10, raising the hopes of the thousands of Wisconsin fans who flooded NU’s arena. But with the Badgers trailing 47-37, guard Mohamed Hachad drained a three-pointer, effectively ending Wisconsin’s comeback.
NU led by double digits the rest of the way, sinking the Badgers (15-4, 6-2) with their strong free-throw shooting down the stretch. The Cats shot 93 percent from the line in the second half, making 14 of 15. Point guard T.J. Parker was a perfect 8 for 8. His first attempt of the game, with 1:59 remaining, earned Parker his 500th point, which he had been chasing all afternoon.
Sophomore Vedran Vukusic led the Cats’ with 18 points on 5-for-9 shooting.
“It would have been terrible to be tough the whole game and crumble at the end,” Young said. “It just wouldn’t have been right. I’m just glad we stayed strong throughout the whole game.”
Young scored 17 points and grabbed four boards, all while making life miserable for Harris, Wisconsin’s point guard.
The Cats held Harris, the top scorer in conference games, to 16 points on 4 of 18 shooting. Harris, the conference’s preseason Player of the Year, dropped a career-high 38 points in the Badgers’ win Wednesday over Minnesota.
“That’s who they look to,” Young said. “And with me in his face every time he touched the ball, it was agitating for him.”
NU played its usual matchup zone defense, but the scheme was more effective against the Badgers than at Ohio State on Wednesday. The Cats nabbed eight steals and outscored Wisconsin 14-0 on fastbreak points.
But Carmody didn’t give his defense too much credit after the game, saying: “We’ve lost to some pretty bad teams this year playing that same ‘D.”‘
