By Ben LarrisonThe Daily Northwestern
After emphasizing the need to get off to a good start during practice earlier in the week, the Wildcats did just the opposite Wednesday. They would never fully recover.
Northwestern trailed by as many as 19 and dropped its fifth-straight at Welsh-Ryan Arena 58-43. With the loss, the Cats fell bellow the .500 mark to 11-12, including a 1-9 record in the Big Ten.
“It’s bad – we can’t win at home,” senior Tim Doyle said. “And that’s somewhere we’ve been good traditionally. We’ve played well at home the last couple of years, and the guys have got their heads down right now.”
NU started out cold from the floor, failing to score in the game’s first five minutes. By the time freshman Jeff Ryan made the Cats’ first basket of the game, Illinois (18-8, 6-5) had already built a nine-point lead. NU would make just one field goal in the first 11 minutes and trailed 17-3 with 8:55 remaining in the half.
Sloppy play from both teams filled the game’s early minutes, but Illinois was the first to settle down offensively. The Illini took the lead quickly by exploiting NU’s lack of post presence and pouring in points in the paint. Warren Carter killed the Cats with eight of Illinois’ first 15 points, six of them coming on layups.
“I thought we did a good job against the zone early, getting inside touches and getting easy looks inside,” Illinois coach Bruce Weber said.
NU would finally break through with just fewer than nine minutes remaining, scoring seven-straight points and cutting the Illinois lead in half. The Illini responded with a 9-2 run of their own, putting them up 26-12 with fewer than five minutes to go.
Over the next four-plus minutes, the Cats would pull themselves from the brink of a blowout back into the game. Led by seven points from freshman Kevin Coble, NU went on an 11-0 run and moved to within one possession of Illinois. But the Illini would score the final five points of the first half and begin the second with a 31-23 advantage.
“I don’t know what we can do,” NU coach Bill Carmody said. “We tried a lot of different combinations … I don’t think that (the players) are quitting, I just think that our shooting’s just not good enough, so teams are going to start laying off you even more and that gets into your head a little bit.”
The Cats again struggled with their shooting after halftime. Though NU got itself within five, the Illini soon had an offensive breakthrough and took control of the game.
While the Cats remained cold, Illinois had a 12-0 burst to go up 45-28, securing a lead it would never surrender.
NU shot more than 40-percent from the floor, but it was just 3 for 18 from behind the arc. The Cats were out-rebounded 40-16, another disappointing showing on the boards for a team that is last in the Big Ten in rebounding ratio.
“It’s sort of the same old story for us,” Carmody said. “We’re not shooting the ball very well, and we can’t seem to get any rebounds.”
Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].
