NU students and Evanston residents watch the game at The Globe Cafe at the Orrington Hotel on Wednesday night. Hallie Liang/The Daily Northwestern
Updated March 19, 1:25 a.m. Trailing by three points with less than a minute remaining in its first National Invitational Tournament in ten years, Northwestern called a timeout and drew up a play for its senior leader.
Minutes earlier he connected on two consecutive 3-pointers as part of an 8-0 run by the visiting Wildcats that cut the Tulsa lead from 11 down to three. This time, Craig Moore came off of a screen and quickly launched from beyond the arc, before the defender could get a hand in his face.
It was the shot Carmody wanted, but the ball rimmed out.
“I wish Craig (Moore) would have banged that one,” Carmody said. “For him, and for us, just to see what would have happened.”
Instead, NU (17-14) was forced to foul their opponents to stop the clock. The Golden Hurricane (24-10) converted their attempts from the charity stripe and sealed a 68-59 victory.
By that point, the free throw line was a familiar spot for Tulsa. The home team marched to the line for 29 attempts and sunk all but four of them. Seven-footer Jerome Jordan attempted 11 of those shots, controlling the paint on both ends of the floor for the Golden Hurricane. The center collected a team high 16 points and blocked three NU shots.
“He blocked a couple of shots, and he got fouls called for him because he went to the foul line like 35 times,” Moore said. “He wasn’t making any shots, he didn’t do anything, but the refs put him on the line and he knocked down his free throws.”
As Tulsa kept drawing the calls, two of the Cats most dependable scorers fell into foul trouble. With 16 minutes left in the game, sophomore guard Michael Thompson picked up his third and fourth fouls – in a span of less than a minute. Moore picked up two fouls in the first 10 minutes of the game and sat until the intermission.
Meanwhile, NU attempted just nine foul shots as a team.
“With a disparity like that, there’s an underlying cause, some stuff going on in the game that’s out of our control,” junior forward Kevin Coble said. “Having those two guys out at the same time, and it was really a significant amount of time, is tough on everyone.”
In the absence of the starting backcourt, freshman center Luka Mirkovic picked up the slack, scoring all six of his points. Fellow freshman John Shurna chipped in a 3-pointer in that time frame as well. Despite the foul problems, the Cats went into the locker room with a 30-28 lead, after a first half that saw neither team extend an advantage beyond four points.
Meanwhile, Moore took over late in the game. He nailed three shots from beyond the arc and scored 11 of his 17 points in the game’s final 11 minutes. But it wasn’t enough to counter Tulsa’s balanced attack that featured four players in double figures.
“We couldn’t get any closer than three,” Coble said. “It was just frustrating. It seemed like that was the theme of the end of the year, or at least the last couple of games.”
It was also a microcosm of the season, which saw NU in NCAA tournament contention down to the wire.
“I hope they’re disappointed,” Carmody said. “First not getting the NCAA bid and then losing here, because this was a winnable game.”
While both Moore and Coble said they were disappointed because the Cats played better than their 17-14 final record indicates, the season was a success by some standards.
“If you would have asked me if I would have been disappointed with the NIT last year at this time, I would have said, ‘Of course not,'” Coble said. That was almost a goal, but this year we really did sit back and say, ‘This isn’t where we want to be.’ And for a team that hasn’t been making the postseason to be able to say that, and for it to be a legitimate claim, is pretty big for us.”
Follow the game with the Daily’s live-blog, Cats’ Corner.
