After beating No. 6 Purdue, Northwestern looked like a team ready to take the next step. On Tuesday, the Wildcats took a couple steps back.
NU fell way behind in the early going against No. 21 Ohio State and never recovered, sputtering to a 76-56 loss.
‘It’s just frustrating,’ sophomore forward John Shurna said. ‘We came out with so much energy the other day, and today we didn’t.’
The Cats were outscored 40-17 in the first half and trailed by as much as 26 against the Buckeyes.
‘It was one of those games,’ coach Bill Carmody said. ‘As good as some of our guys played the other night, they played pretty poorly tonight.’
The game slipped away from NU (13-5, 2-4 Big Ten) in the opening minutes. Ohio State (14-5, 4-3)jumped out to a 9-0 lead, scoring on its first four possessions before NU could put any points on the board. The Buckeyes went ahead by double-digits at the 11:14 mark and never led by less than 10 points after that.
‘They were hitting on all cylinders,’ Carmody said. ‘They passed the ball extremely well in the beginning, they were making shots, and they guarded us.’
The stat sheet emphasized how badly the Cats were outplayed. NU entered intermission down by 23, shooting 4-for-22 from the field. On the other hand, Ohio State shot 56 percent in the first half and recorded 11 assists on its 14 field goals.
‘We didn’t come out with any intensity,’ Shurna said. ‘They were making good plays offensively and making shots.’
The second half was a major improvement for the Cats, as they outscored the Buckeyes 39-36, but it was too late to affect the outcome. Three Ohio State players finished the night in double figures, and junior Evan Turner nearly pulled off a triple-double with 20 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists.
In an outing reminiscient of his 29-point outburst against Michigan State earlier this season, Shurna was the Cats’ only offensive force. The sophomore forward had 22 points and shot 7-for-10 from the floor, while none of the other rotation players connected on more than half of their attempts. The rest of NU’s starting lineup made less than 25 percent of its shots.
The offensive woes were just half of the Cats’ struggles. Neither the 1-3-1 nor matchup zone defenses could stop Turner and the Buckeyes’ offense.
‘We tried a few different things,’ Carmody said.’ ‘But we got down early and were never able to get any kind of run going where we were making them feel uncomfortable.’
Sophomore centers Luka Mirkovic and Kyle Rowley didn’t build on their strong performances against Purdue. They were mostly ineffective in 30 combined minutes of play, registering four points, four turnovers and five fouls. Mirkovic struggled early, and Carmody benched him in favor of reserve forward Ivan Peljusic less than two minutes into the game. The tandem had no answer defensively for Ohio State junior Dallas Lauderdale, who shot 6-for-6 from the field with five dunks and an alley-oop.
Carmody tried multiple combinations in search of a cohesive lineup, even giving sophomore Nick Fruendt and junior Mike Capocci some rare playing time. But Carmody couldn’t find anything that worked.
‘It didn’t matter who we played tonight,’ he said. ‘Our defense was not good, and (neither was) our offense. It was not a very good game overall.’
