All season Northwestern has relied on sophomore guard Michael Thompson, junior forward Kevin Coble and senior guard Craig Moore for most of its offense.
In the first half of the Wildcats’ 70-67 overtime loss to Michigan on Sunday, the three leading scorers combined for just 10 of their 27 points. The team was in unfamiliar territory.
But freshman forward John Shurna scored 13 of his 17 points in the opening frame to catapult the Cats to a 27-25 lead heading to the lockers. The scoring outburst came three days after his classmate, center Luka Mirkovic, tallied 14 points in a loss to Illinois.
“I hate wasting a good game from Shurna,” coach Bill Carmody said. “Because he played extremely well and aggressive, and didn’t play like a freshman.”
With some exceptions Shurna has struggled since January, when the New Year coincides with the beginning of Big Ten play. But when the Wolverine defense held Thompson scoreless and Moore and Coble to five points a piece, Shurna bought the trio time to get hot. He nailed all five of his attempts from the field and grabbed two offensive rebounds for extra NU possessions.
“We had him on our scouting report,” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “But we were hoping he’d play more in the first half like a typical Big Ten freshman, and not like a junior or senior.”
The typical Big Ten freshman Beilein describes is the one who plays well during the non-conference schedule but hits a wall when forced to face Big Ten opponents twice a week.
“The good ones just figure it out, they just gradually get there,” Beilein said.
Shurna appears almost to have gotten there. In the three games before this one he averaged 20 minutes and 10 points per game, the first time he has achieved those figures in a three-game stretch since before Big Ten play started.
By the time NU left the locker room for the second half, the team was no longer as desperate for Shurna’s scoring. Coble and Thompson had found their scoring touch.
“The shots I was getting in the first half were pretty tough,” Coble said. “But eventually we just stayed with everything and it started opening up. We know that if we stay with what we’re running, we’re going to get what we want, and we just settled down and started hitting some shots.”
The junior forward scored 11 points in the second half, including a 3-pointer with less than 20 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime, when he scored seven more points.
Meanwhile, after being held scoreless in the first half, Thompson chipped in nine points on 4-of-7 shooting in the second half.
With his more experienced teammates awoken, Shurna began to help the Cats in other ways. He scored four points in the second half, but also grabbed six rebounds – four of them on the offensive end.
“Johnny did a good job for us,” Coble said. “Not only with scoring, but also (with) a lot of hustle plays; it seemed like he was always on the floor, diving for loose balls, getting a big offensive rebound for us and getting us another possession.”
With just six games separating the Cats from the Big Ten tournament, a freshman has now dented the box score in two consecutive games. That trend bodes well for NU’s chances of turning around its recent three-game slide.