The pressure of the 1-3-1 zone defense Northwestern played Wednesday night forced a Chicago State turnover early in the second half.
Sophomore Kevin Coble got the steal in the middle of the zone and lofted the ball ahead to junior guard Craig Moore for a rare breakaway layup.
Although Wildcats had it anything but easy in the first half, NU used a 14-3 run to start the second half to pull away from the Cougars and seal a 65-47 win at the Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center.
“It’s good to get a win,” coach Bill Carmody said. “Our psyche has not been very good. I thought we played decently in the first half, they were doing some things we should have taken advantage of.
“In the second half, (NU) just started playing defense. That’s all we basically talked about at the halftime.”
NU (6-8) and Chicago State played to a 24-24 tie in a first half marred by poor shooting from both teams.
But the Cats came out of the locker room with the spark.
NU defended well – especially early in the second half – and scored 17 points off of its 15 forced turnovers. The Cats held the Cougars (6-14) to just 34.8 percent shooting in the second half.
Carmody said it was that tight defense that fed the offense in the second half.
NU shot 55.2 percent after halftime, outscoring Chicago State by 18.
Coble, coming off a 34-point performance against Michigan on Saturday, recorded his first double-double of the season with 19 points and a career-high 14 rebounds.
He also chipped in a career-high seven assists.
“You can’t always control your shooting,” Coble said. “Some nights it’s just not going to go in all the time.
“You’ve just got to make sure you are focusing and helping the team in other ways, whether it is rebounding, the assists, playing better defense. You definitely don’t want to become one-dimensional because then I really think it hurts the team.”
Coble’s 14 boards were the most by an individual player at NU since current assistant coach Tavaras Hardy pulled down 14 in 2000.
Moore led the team with 22 points, shooting 8-14 from the floor and hitting six of his nine 3-point attempts.
He struggled his last four games shooting the ball, making just 15-43 attempts and shooting 23 percent from beyond the arc, but seemed to break out from his mini-slump Wednesday.
“You get open layups and you get into a rhythm and you finally get a little run, it’s going to get you going,” Moore said.
“I try to shoot it the same way. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn’t. I got the same shots tonight that I did against Michigan. Hopefully this will propel a nice little shooting streak for me.”
Carmody said he was worried about NU’s defense coming into the game. The Cats had a tough assignment defending Chicago State guard David Holston, who came into the game ninth in the nation in scoring and first in 3-pointers.
But Holston struggled. The 5-foot-8 guard scored 15 points on 4-of-14 shooting and made only 3 of his 11 3-point attempts. He also grabbed six rebounds.
NU struggled with rebounding in the first half, as Chicago State held a 24-17 rebounding advantage and grabbed seven offensive boards.
But for just the second time this season, the Cats out-rebounded an opponent. NU grabbed 19 rebounds and held Chicago State to two offensive boards in the second half to gain a 36-34 edge on the boards.
“I felt they played a little bit harder,” said Chicago State forward Carl Montgomery, who grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
“If we would have played a little hard, we would have won the game. They came hungry.”
This win should help NU regain some confidence as the team resumes conference play Saturday at No. 17 Wisconsin.
Coble said the team really showed its potential in the second half and hopes the effort against Chicago State will roll over to this weekend’s game against the Badgers.
“It gives us some positives to look at,” Coble said. “(Seeing) Craig hitting his shots, our defense improving, everyone playing more aggressively and with more intensity, I think that really helps. It was almost good to have a break from the Big Ten now going to Wisconsin.
“It gives us some confidence going in there and hopefully getting us back on track, as we’ve kind of strayed from our path the last few games.”
Reach Philip Rossman-Reich at [email protected].
