Men’s Basketball

A hot-shooting Chicago State team pushed Northwestern to the brink of a shocking loss Wednesday night, but the Wildcats made just enough plays in the final minutes to emerge with a 68-64 win.

Trailing by as many as 14 points early in the second half, the Cougars (3-7) unleashed a barrage of 3-pointers to briefly take the lead with eight minutes to go.

“(Chicago State) had great energy, I thought their kids played with a great spirit, and when you do that, shots start going in, and that’s what happened in the second half there,” coach Chris Collins said. “They made some incredible shots.”

But a 7-0 run, punctuated by a 3-pointer from sophomore forward Vic Law, put NU (8-2) back in front with five minutes left, and crucial layups down the stretch by junior forward Gavin Skelly and senior forward Sanjay Lumpkin allowed it to nurse that lead to the final horn.

“To my guys’ credit, I thought the last four minutes we really dug down and made a lot of plays when we needed to,” Collins said. “We got some stops, we found the right guys, we … had the courage to make some big shots, and we did enough to win.”

Law led the Cats with 18 points, junior guards Scottie Lindsey and Bryant McIntosh both reached double-digits in scoring and Lumpkin set a new season high with 11 rebounds.

But many of NU’s team stats weren’t as pretty. The Cats were out-rebounded, 40-33, and out-shot 50 to 29.6 percent from deep by their cross-town foe.

NU played a largely mistake-free first half and produced more looks at the basket than Chicago State, but the hosts couldn’t get their shots to fall. Despite forcing 12 turnovers, and committing none themselves, the Cats shot under 30 percent from the floor and led just 29-21 at the break.

That inefficiency cost NU in the second frame, when Chicago State guards Fred Sims (22 points) and Trayvon Palmer (18 points) sparked a 15-2 Cougars run that temporarily silenced an announced crowd of 5,723 at Welsh-Ryan Arena — most of whom likely expected an easy home team victory, given the Cats’ 10-0 all-time record against Chicago State entering the contest.

“We came out real slow and sluggish, and Chicago State came out firing on all cylinders, and they knocked us back,” Law said. “I’m happy we won, but this was a real ugly win.”

Clean defending continued to be an issue for NU, which entered the day ranked 234th in the nation with 20.1 fouls per game. Skelly and Lindsey both played the last nine minutes with four fouls.

Both players were able to avoid fouling out, however, partially due to Chicago State switching to playing “five perimeter players,” per Collins, and focusing its offense on the 3-point shot almost exclusively down the stretch. That strategy helped result in 13 converted 3-pointers on the night — four more than any other opponent had hit against NU this season.

“I don’t want to say we disrespected them, because we didn’t. … But was our energy the same that it’s been maybe in some other games, was our attention to detail the same?” Collins asked rhetorically after the game. “I think we had some critical breakdowns that we haven’t had in other games that hurt us.”

Nevertheless, the Cats captured their 19th straight non-conference home victory and their fifth straight this season, keeping their momentum going as Saturday’s big matchup against Dayton approaches.

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