When they write the book on Northwestern basketball, they might just say Kyle Rowley turned the Wildcats’ season around.

OK, maybe not. But whatever it was, something lit a fuse under the Cats in the second half.

With 18 minutes left in the game, NU trailed 40-28. And it wasn’t really that close. Ohio State had abused NU inside, scoring 13 points in the paint and outrebounding the Cats 21-9 in the first half alone. Seven-foot center B.J. Mullens looked like a white Greg Oden, corralling offensive rebounds and dunking at will.

Meanwhile, the Cats were playing 3-on-5 on offense. Kevin Coble, Craig Moore, and Michael Thompson combined for 28 points in the first half. The rest of the team scored just as many points as the fans: nada.

Then the Cats’ biggest player made one of the game’s biggest plays.

Up to that point, Rowley had been unable to get anything going against the larger, stronger Mullens. Then he caught an entry pass in the post, faked to the middle and powered through the Buckeyes’ Evan Turner to hit a layup… AND THE FOUL!!! (thanks, Marv).

The freshman center made the free throw, cuttting the NU deficit to 40-31. At the time, it didn’t seem like much, just an isolated heartening play in an otherwise forgettable game.

But from that moment on, the Cats roared into fifth gear and stayed there the rest of the way. Rowley’s three-point play started a sizzling 21-3 run, as NU sped past the shell-shocked Buckeyes behind an increasingly raucous crowd at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The 1-3-1 zone was working at its finest, forcing nine Ohio State turnovers in the second half and offsetting the eight 3-pointers hit by Buckeyes’ guard Jon Diebler. And NU’s supporting cast came alive on offense, as Rowley, John Shurna, and Jeremy Nash combined for 20 second-half points.

Most impressive, though, was the sheer determination and desire to win shown by every single player on the team. Coble called it “resiliency” – I’d be fine with “heart.”

Some of that heart shows up in the box score – the undersized Cats had 15 second-half rebounds to the Buckeyes’ nine. But most of it doesn’t, and it was summed up by two plays.

First, Coble sprinted out to halfcourt to save a loose ball, throwing the ball off the Buckeyes’ P.J. Hill as he fell out of bounds to retain possession for the Cats. A few minutes later, Thompson did him one better. After missing a 3-pointer, the 5-foot-10 sophomore outjumped Mullens to tap the rebound into the open court, chased after the ball and fired a pass to Moore as he careened out of bounds.

Those kind of plays are easily forgotten – everyone will be talking about Shurna’s game-winning shot at the water cooler tomorrow. But they define a team in the best way.

And it’s plays like that