Basketball

Entering overtime, Northwestern’s situation looked bleak.

With backup center Joey van Zegeren missing the game with an injury, the Wildcats had used just eight players substantially. Five entered the extra frame with four fouls each, leaving NU unable to match DePaul’s physicality inside despite its size advantage.

That left the perimeter as the Cats’ only option, but primary 3-point shooter Aaron Falzon — who led the team with 22 beyond-the-arc baskets entering Saturday — had been ice cold all afternoon, going 0-for-6 from downtown before the extra period.

Falzon’s last 3-point attempt in regulation came with 11:21 still remaining in the second half, when he missed a shot that would’ve tied the score at 47-47. He was subbed out 14 seconds later and rode the bench for all but 63 seconds for the rest of the half.

Then, at the perfect moment, the freshman caught fire.

Thirteen seconds after being subbed into overtime, Falzon at long last drained a 3-pointer to give NU its first lead of OT – 66-65 with 3:33 to play.

Two minutes later, Falzon delivered the dagger to the Blue Demons’ hopes, connecting with 38 seconds left to extend the lead to 73-65.

“The thing I love is the fearlessness of … Aaron Falzon,” coach Chris Collins said. “He’s (zero) for his first six, struggling to find his shot, he’s a freshman, and he comes in in overtime and hits the two biggest shots of the game.”

The 6-8 forward’s 6 points won’t show up as anything special in the box score; after all, it tied his lowest offensive output since Nov. 24 against Missouri. The man who had shot 39.3 percent from 3-point range this season shot just 25 percent Saturday, well below his typical efficiency.

Yet Falzon may have taken a critical step forward this weekend in his development as NU’s youngest impact player, overcoming a costly poor performance in a back-and-forth rivalry game to make a huge difference at the very end.

“If he’s open and he doesn’t shoot the ball with great confidence, he’s hurting us. I don’t care if he misses six in a row or makes six in a row, he has to shoot the seventh one,” Collins said. “It just shows how explosive he can be.”

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