COLUMBUS, Ohio – Saturday’s game played out like a bad sequel for Northwestern.
The script was similar to Wednesday’s road game at Illinois, and the outcome was the same – a road loss.
For the second straight game, the Wildcats fell behind by double digits in the second half on the road against a ranked opponent – this time against No. 12 Ohio State. And like the Illinois game, NU rallied to make it a one-possession game.
But again the Cats failed to break through and take the lead, as the Buckeyes limited the Cats to one field goal in the final 3:44.
Ohio State (19-4, 8-4 Big Ten) outscored NU by seven points down the stretch and held off the Cats (12-12, 4-8) in a 61-52 win in front of 18,500 fans at Value City Arena.
“It’s just like the Illinois game,” senior guard Evan Seacat said. “We fought back from a big deficit again, and it’s nice to see the effort on our part. But then we couldn’t find a way to score. We fell apart again.”
During a three-minute stretch in the second half, NU senior guard Mohamed Hachad exploded on the offensive end and helped erase Ohio State’s 11-point advantage. He scored 15 consecutive points to bring the Cats within two with 5:31 remaining.
On the next two possessions, Ohio State and NU traded baskets, as the Buckeyes led the Cats 52-50.
But NU went cold on offense, while Ohio State senior center Terence Dials dominated the interior of the NU defense. The Cats shot 1 of 6 on the game’s deciding possessions, as Dials scored eight points in the paint and collected three crucial offensive rebounds for the Buckeyes in the final four minutes.
“We had some major scoring droughts, and we don’t have many people we can go to (for scoring),” NU coach Bill Carmody said. “And the offensive boards obviously killed us.”
Hachad scored 19 points, and senior forward Vedran Vukusic scored 17 points in his first game back after sitting out with a lower back injury.
But the Cats’ three other starters – freshman guard Craig Moore (8 points), junior forward Tim Doyle (2) and junior forward Bernard Cote (6) – combined for just 16 points, and NU got zero points from its bench.
“It’s going to take some of us other guys to step up and make some shots,” said Cote, who shot 0 of 3 from 3-point range. “The last two minutes of the game are obviously important, but during the rest of the game, we also missed layups and some other wide-open stuff. We can’t afford to miss those against good teams.”
Carmody said his team needs to “get over the hump” in these close road games. He said the difference has been the Cats’ inability to make shots with the game on the line.
Though NU continues to show it can play with the top teams in conference, Cote said he and his teammates don’t view tough losses against quality opponents as moral victories.
“This game and Illinois, we knew we could have won these games,” Cote said. “So there’s no way this is really that satisfying for us.”
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