In the 2011 portion of this season, Northwestern was 4-0 when the game was decided by two possessions or fewer. In 2012, the Wildcats are 0-3 when the contest is within 6 points.
When the games have been close in Big Ten play, NU (12-8, 2-6 Big Ten) has not found that last bit of magic to pull out the victory. In all three losses by 2 points or fewer this season, the Cats have missed the little things. Against Illinois on Jan. 4, it was shooting 24 percent in the second half. A week later against Michigan, it was blowing a 10-point halftime lead. On Saturday against Purdue, NU turned the ball over 16 times, leading to 21 Boilermakers points.
As things have gone astray with the start of a new calendar year, the Cats have been disappointed, senior center Davide Curletti said. He said the coaching staff and the team will rely on video to figure out where NU needs to improve.
“We’ll have a long film session or talk with the coaching staff and rewatch what happened (Saturday),” Curletti said, “to see what we’re missing, what we need to get back that we had at the beginning of the season when we were closing out games.”
By rewatching the game footage, the Cats will be constantly reminded of what they did wrong. This is something Curletti said will be beneficial for NU as crunch time approaches in the future.
“(These close losses are) not creeping (back into our head) because they’re always there,” Curletti said. “We can’t forget what happened and we need to use that to our advantage and remember that this stuff happened. It needs to give us encouragement and positivity going into our next games.”
While many fans see these close losses as detrimental to the Cats’ NCAA Tournament hopes, Reggie Hearn said these close games prove NU is able to compete at a high level. The junior guard said the close games show just how close NU is to the upper echelon of the Big Ten, which in turn gives the team confidence.
One of NU’s biggest issues this season has been free throw shooting. The Cats are shooting five percentage points worse from the charity stripe than last season. The missed chances at free points haunted the Cats against the Boilermakers when NU shot 57 percent from the line.
The Cats delegate the last 15 minutes of each practice to foul shooting, but that has not seemed to help. John Shurna said besides putting up extra shots outside of practice there is very little NU can do to get better from the stripe.
“I feel like all you can do is practice,” the senior forward said. “If you want to get better at something you practice and you work at it.”
One of the reasons NU shot such a low percentage from the free throw line has been its lack of opportunities. The Cats went to the line only 14 times Saturday, with Shurna getting only two shots. One of the ways Hearn suggests NU could get more free throws is to attack the basket more and take fewer 3 pointers.
“We can shoot the 3 and it’s working for us,” Hearn said, “but we have guys that are capable of (getting to the basket) and if we can do that and knock down our free throws that will help us a lot.”
NU will look to end its three-game skid against Nebraska on Thursday. The Cornhuskers (11-9, 3-6) have won three of their last five games and took the last meeting between the two teams in 1999.
With only five home games left, Shurna realizes how important Thursday’s contest is.
“It’s always important to defend your home court,” Shurna said. “Nebraska’s had a couple of big wins as of late so they’re playing pretty well.”
