CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Minutes after clinching a share of the Big Ten title Wednesday night with a masterful performance against Northwestern, Illinois’ Luther Head, Dee Brown and Roger Powell carried the celebration to the postgame press conference. They laughed, joked and exchanged fist pounds.
The scene was radically different in NU’s corner, where players still were recovering from the team’s worst loss of the season, an 84-48 drubbing.
“We just have to throw this thing behind us because we have three tough games in front of us, and then the Big Ten Tournament,” NU forward Vedran Vukusic said. “If we want to make it to the postseason, we have to do something from now on.”
The Wildcats (13-13, 5-8 Big Ten) trailed 45-22 at halftime — their largest halftime deficit of the season. The 36-point loss was the worst of the season.
Illinois shot 60.9 percent from the field and went 14-for-23 from 3-point range. Brown was unstoppable all game, scoring 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting, hitting 6 of 8 treys.
“It’s a good team, move on,” Carmody said. “We play Michigan now.”
Illinois (28-0, 14-0) has beaten 10 teams by more than 20 points this season, but only one opponent — Valparaiso on Dec. 19 — lost by a wider margin than NU.
“The way I’m going to look at it, we lost to the No. 1 team in the country,” Vukusic said.
“Nobody’s managed to beat them this year so far, and they’re going to be a tough team to beat in the future.”
Prior to Wednesday’s blowout, NU’s worst defeat this season came Dec. 20 at Arizona State, a 90-55 loss. The team responded by beating Robert Morris at home just two days later.
“We have to stay positive,” guard Mohamed Hachad said. “This is a part of basketball — you get a bad loss and you have to get up and snap out of it.
“Hopefully we get two good practices and are ready to go on Saturday.”
Hachad said the team might get together before today’s practice and discuss how to get back on track.
NU must win two of its remaining three games — Michigan and Michigan State at home, then at Indiana — to be eligible for the postseason.
“We definitely want to make it to the postseason, and this is our chance,” Hachad said. “We have three games left, so we have to make sure we got out there and leave it out on the court.”
Despite losing to the best team in the nation, Vukusic said Wednesday’s loss won’t be much easier to handle than any other this season. But he said the future is what’s important now.
“Any loss is a tough loss, we just have to throw it away,” Vukusic said. “You can’t dwell on it forever because it’s just going to hurt you more.”
Ready Anthony Tao at [email protected].
