Men’s Basketball

Northwestern (4-1) rebounded from a tough loss to North Carolina with a 67-62 win over Missouri on Tuesday. But the Wildcats’ win also highlighted the team’s continuing problem with foul trouble.

Three of NU’s five starters — sophomore guard Bryant McIntosh, senior center Alex Olah and junior forward Sanjay Lumpkin — played much of the second half of the game with three or more fouls. McIntosh picked up his fourth foul of the game with just over ten minutes to play, and then Lumpkin immediately picked up his fourth foul afterwards.

“We were dealing with foul trouble the whole game — McIntosh is in foul trouble, Lumpkin is in foul trouble,” coach Chris Collins said. “Tre Demps right now is in the locker room — his whole body is cramping up. … Alex Olah is dead.”

McIntosh fouled out of the game with 4:26 remaining in the game — when the Cats were up by only 6 points. NU led Missouri by as many 20 points in the first half, but the team’s limited depth paired with foul trouble proved to be problematic for the Cats.

Because of the early accumulation of fouls — the Cats recorded 8 fouls in the first 11 minutes of the second half — sophomores Scottie Lindsey and Gavin Skelly played 25 and 17 minutes, respectively. But despite NU’s bench contributions, the Cats saw their lead dwindle in the second half.

“We’re playing a lineup tonight we’ve hardly ever played out there before — with Sanjay, and Scottie and Skelly and Olah,” Collins said. “And they’re just trapping Tre everywhere…We had a great first half, second half we just had to fight through it.”

With McIntosh fouling out, senior guard Demps took over as the primary ball handler, and Lindsey played alongside him on the wing. Lindsey did not provide the same scoring output as McIntosh did, shooting only one-of-six from the field. But he did total seven assists.

Skelly, who did not play in the team’s last game against UNC, provided seven points and shot five-of-five from the free throw line. Although Skelly did not put up the most prolific stat line, his free throw shooting was pivotal in NU’s victory.

“We had guys grab a lot of big rebounds, guys made shots they needed to, hit big free throws,” Lumpkin said. “Just be able to fight through that adversity with some of our leaders not out there on the court with us.”

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Twitter: @Dan_Waldman