Men’s Basketball

It wasn’t pretty early on, but Northwestern caught fire in the second half and cruised to a 79-57 victory over Massachusetts Lowell in the 2015-16 season opener on Friday night.

NU was led by one of its oldest players and one of its youngest. Senior center Alex Olah led all scorers with 21 points and added 12 boards, his third career 20-10 game. Freshman forward Aaron Falzon was dynamite in his college debut, scoring 15 of his 20 points in the second half and connecting on four 3-pointers.

After the game, Wildcats coach Chris Collins praised Falzon’s outside shooting and his overall performance.

“I think he’s just a really good basketball player, who happens to have a skill of shooting the basketball that’s as good as anybody you’re going to find,” Collins said.

NU started slow, hitting just two of its first eight shots and committing six fouls in the first eight minutes. Collins attributed the slow start to the nervousness that comes with the first game of a season.

“Every year it (never) ceases to amaze me, no matter who I played for or coach for, in the first game, you just battle jitters,” Collins said.

Luckily for the Cats, UMass Lowell was even worse early on. The River Hawks made only one field goal for the first 7:34, falling behind 9-3.

That drought ended when UMass Lowell guard Isaac White connected on back to back 3s eight minutes into the half, igniting an 22-7 run that gave the Hawks a 25-16 lead.

NU started to show signs of life with just over three minutes left in the first half when Falzon hit the team’s first 3-point field goal after 11 misses. That began an 8-2 run for the Cats, who pulled within a point with 1:34 to go.

Sophomore point guard Bryant McIntosh gave the Wildcats some much-needed momentum heading into the break with a buzzer-beating jumper that made the score 34-32 Hawks.

Olah was the lone first-half bright spot. With NU shooting so poorly, the big center kept the team in the game with five rebounds and 8 points.

Despite making one of 13 threes and shooting just 34 percent in the half, Collins’ message in the locker room was to keep shooting.

“I told the guys, outside shooting is one of the best things this team does,” Collins said. “We’re gonna have stretches where we don’t shoot it well, but we can’t get away from that.”

The Cats caught fire in the second half.

Less than two minutes after the break, senior guard Tre Demps hit his first triple of the game, giving NU a lead it never relinquished.

The River Hawks hung around for a while in the second half, but with just over eight minutes left in the contest, NU started to pull away. Consecutive threes by McIntosh and junior forward Nathan Taphorn put NU ahead 61-50.

From there, it was the Falzon show, as the star recruit scored 10 of the Cats’ final 14 points.

Following a win in front of more than 6,000 fans in his first college game, Falzon was nearly at a loss for words.

“It’s hard to describe the experience,” Falzon said. “When it happened, I hit my first shot and was just like, ‘You’re here, it’s time to play.’”

Despite Falzon’s hot shooting, Olah was NU’s best player on Friday night. The 7-footer was matched up with much shorter defenders and was a dominant force in the paint.

The Cats as a team finished with a commanding 38-14 advantage on points in the paint.
McIntosh and Demps also scored in double figures for NU in the victory.

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Twitter: @WillRagatz