By Ben LarrisonThe Daily Northwestern

In a Big Ten season where poor shooting has often doomed Northwestern, Saturday’s 75-68 loss to Purdue was instead the fault of an ineffective Wildcats defense.

While the Cats shot nearly 47 percent from the field and received career efforts from leading scorers Kevin Coble and Tim Doyle, they were unable to stop a high-powered Boilermaker assault in the first half. And while NU would eventually close the gap in the second half, it was never able to truly recover from the early deficit.

“We just didn’t play good defense at the beginning, and that sort of got them in rhythm,” Coble said. “And then once somebody’s in rhythm, or a team’s in rhythm, it doesn’t really matter your kind of defense. If you’re feeling it, you can get your shots to go in even against good defense, so we really needed to have done a better job of not letting it get out of hand.”

Though it took a few minutes to get used to the Cats’ 1-3-1 zone, Purdue quickly adjusted and took advantage of open looks from 3-point range, hitting eight treys. While NU struggled to defend against the 3, it was equally ineffective in recovering its opponent’s misses. The Boilermakers outscored the Cats 12-0 on second chance points, which came on just 13 total missed Purdue shots. As NU coach Bill Carmody put it: “Our defense just wasn’t there today.”

“It seems like this entire year that whoever the best perimeter player on their team is … seems to have a pretty good day against us,” Carmody said. “And our zone can help negate big guys, but we haven’t been able to stop these guys it seems like they all have big games against us, and tonight it was (David) Teague.”

Teague, the reining Big Ten Player of the Week after dropping 32 on Indiana, burned the Cats with a team-high 26 points, including a game-changing 18 in the first half. The redshirt senior’s quick release and catch-‘n’-shoot tactics from behind the arc enabled Teague to make four 3-pointers in the opening 12 minutes. And once NU defenders attempted to take away his outside shot, Carmody said, Teague remained a threat by hitting mid-range jumpers and grabbing a game-high eight rebounds.

Thanks to Teague and teammates, Purdue scored the most points of any visitor to Welsh-Ryan Arena this season, and the Boilermakers moved one win closer to a potential NCAA tournament bid.

“We’re a solid offensive team,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “But I just didn’t feel we’d be able to (score 75 points against NU in Evanston).”

Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].