Northwestern started off on the wrong foot and never got it right Sunday night against in-state foe Illinois.
The Wildcats gave up the first 7 points of the contest, and the Fighting Illini matched every single run the Cats threw at them in a dominating 62-41 victory at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
“If we’re not scoring, it really makes it tough on the defense,” coach Bill Carmody said. “We (have) got to make shots. We were unable to do that tonight, and their defense gets the credit.”
NU cut the deficit to 19-15 with just less than three minutes to play in the first half, but Illinois ended the half on a 10-0 run to take a 14-point lead into the break. It only got worse after halftime when Illinois scored the first 16 points to extend the lead out to 30 points. From there the Cats were able to whittle away at the deficit but could not get the game any closer than 21 points.
The big issue for NU was offense, which at times looked disjointed and dysfunctional. The Cats shot a pedestrian 21.7 percent from the field in the first half, including hitting on only two of 13 attempts from behind the arc. The second stanza was not much better, as NU hit 28 percent of its shots on the floor.
“Our offense was bad the entire night,” Carmody said. “It’s more than shooting. The whole flow wasn’t great either. We weren’t sure whether to shoot or not to shoot or how the offense was running.”
When the Cats did miss shots, they were missing quite a number of them short, which is usually a sign of fatigue. NU had four players play more than 30 minutes in Thursday’s loss to Ohio State, but senior guard Reggie Hearn said that cannot be an excuse for the poor offensive performance.
“The vets that are here are used to playing a lot of minutes,” Hearn said. “We’re definitely not going to use fatigue as an excuse … I don’t think fatigue played a huge role.”
The Cats had some more luck on defense, holding the fourth-best scoring offense in the Big Ten to 62 points, but the Fighting Illini still shot 43.6 percent from the field. NU forced 9 turnovers and converted them into 17 points, a major chunk of the Cats offense Sunday night.
However, the players said they were not happy with their defense, particularly in the second half, when Illinois shot better than 50 percent from the field. The Fighting Illini had particular success when NU was in a man-to-man defense, driving to the lane and either finishing at the basket or kicking it out for an open jumper. The Cats switched to a 1-3-1 defense that helped slow the bleeding, but Illinois was able to stay patient and pick the zone apart.
NU also turned the ball over an unusually large amount, leading to a lot of points in transition. The Fighting Illini had 18 points off the Cats’ 14 turnovers but also scored 10 fastbreak points in the victory. Senior guard Alex Marcotullio said NU was trying to key in on limiting Illinois in transition and that it was one of many parts of the game plan the Cats failed to execute.
“We just really control the game with the way we played,” he said. “They had in double digit transition baskets, and one of our keys was to limit them in transition. They definitely get going and get more confidence when they’re making shots and getting out in transition and getting easy looks.”
