EAST LANSING, Mich. — The flu limited point guard T.J. Parker to an unproductive five minutes and kept senior center Davor Duvancic from even making the trip, but the turnover and rebounding bugs ultimately led to Northwestern’s undoing.
NU committed 19 turnovers and was outrebounded 30-19 on Saturday against No. 20 Michigan State in an 87-58 loss. During one stretch in the first half, the Wildcats (8-6, 1-1 Big Ten) turned the ball over eight times in 10 possessions.
The showdown between the league’s top offense (Michigan State, 84.2 points per game) and best scoring defense (NU, 56.5 points per game) turned into a classic road defeat for the Cats: succumbing to a quicker, stronger, more athletic opponent.
“(Michigan State) is a very good team,” NU coach Bill Carmody said. “They took us out of what we wanted to do.”
Still the Cats survived a scare early in the game.
With eight minutes left in the first half, Vukusic drove down the lane and appeared to get hit in the shoulder by Michigan State’s Anderson. He crumbled to the court in pain, but he would later return and finish with 12 points. He said afterwards that he was “completely fine.”
While the Cats struggled on the offensive end, the Spartans (10-2, 2-0) had no such problems. Michigan State’s four starting guards — Shannon Brown, Chris Hill, Maurice Ager and Alan Anderson — scorched the Cats’ defense for 45 points.
Ager, who has consistently played well against NU, led all scorers with 18 points and was one of four Spartans to score in double digits.
The Cats also had no answer for Michigan State preseason All-Big Ten center Paul Davis, who put on a show for the 14,759 fans at the Breslin Center. He finished with 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting.
NU’s Mike Thompson was responsible for containing Davis, but he was hampered by foul trouble and played 25 minutes. Sophomore Vince Scott played a season-high 16 minutes, but he also picked up four fouls guarding the Spartans’ interior players.
Michigan State scored 50 points in the paint, compared to NU’s 22.
“They play four guards, so it’s definitely going to be a match-up problem,” NU swingman Tim Doyle said. “And they’re such good shooters, they’re such good players, you don’t want to help on one guy and then get burned by another.”
NU took its only lead when Thompson, who led the Cats with 16 points, hit his first 3-pointer to give NU a 3-2 edge. But the Cats would score only three points in the next seven minutes while committing eight turnovers.
The turnovers were uncharacteristic for a team that set a Big Ten record last season with a plus 5.12 turnover margin in conference play.
Entering Saturday’s game, the Cats were averaging just 12 turnovers a game — a number they matched in the first half.
“That’s bad,” junior Vedran Vukusic said. “It was pretty much team turnovers all over the place.”
To add to the Cats’ misery, Carmody was whistled for a technical foul with 2:47 remaining. But by then, the game was well out of reach.
Reach Anthony Tao at [email protected].
