Men’s Basketball

With matchups against two of Big Ten’s three worst teams from a season ago to start the 2018 calendar year, Northwestern seemingly had a golden opportunity to jump out to a 3-1 start in conference play.

But the Wildcats (10-7, 1-3) were instead manhandled on the interior all week long and suffered a pair of double-digit losses — first to Nebraska on Tuesday, then again Friday at Penn State in a 78-63 defeat.

The Nittany Lions (12-5, 2-2) physically dominated NU, racking up a 48-18 differential in points in the paint. For every missed layup, bricked Scottie Lindsey shot or turnover (of which the Cats committed 15) on the offensive end, there was a wide-open dunk or layup for Penn State on the opposite end of the court.

“I knew that they were going to come out with a lot of energy and play very determined,” coach Chris Collins said. “We did anticipate that, and I still thought it knocked us back a little bit. Give them credit. They out-played us tonight, out-fought us, and that is why they deserve to win.”

Senior guard Bryant McIntosh scored a team-high 18 points for the Cats in his return from a brief injury absence, but his efforts were easily overshadowed by Penn State’s Lamar Stevens, who set a career high with 30 points on an absurd 14-of-18 shooting line.

The matchup between the two starting centers — junior Dererk Pardon for NU versus Mike Watkins for Penn State — quickly devolved into a mismatch as well. Watkins scored 18 points, hauled in 17 rebounds for the second consecutive game and committed just two fouls; Pardon tallied only 6 points, brought down just four rebounds and fouled out in the closing minutes.

“I’d say that’s a pretty dominant performance,” Collins said. “They beat us up in the paint on drives and post-ups. It was just too much for us to overcome tonight.”

McIntosh, who injured his knee in an ugly-looking collision last weekend against Brown, said afterwards that he felt fine health-wise.

With the Cats trailing 30-15 slightly past midway through the first half, television cameras captured Collins imploring his team during a commercial break to fight harder for loose balls and put more effort into the game.

The pep talk seemed to work to an extent, and by halftime, a banked-in 3-pointer by McIntosh had cut the deficit to 41-34. NU continued to show flashes of a potential comeback early in the second frame, and back-to-back treys by McIntosh and junior guard Jordan Ash pulled the visitors within 3 points with 15 minutes to play.

Then the bottom fell out. The Nittany Lions erupted on a 9-0 run — composed exclusively of dunks and layups, plus one free throw — to restore control, and the Cats never again seriously threatened.

For the second consecutive outing, NU shot extremely poorly from the field, following up a 29 percent performance against the Cornhuskers with a 37 percent rate in State College. And leading scorer Lindsey, with his 3-for-17 mark Friday, remained the poster child of those woes.

“It was just disappointing — I thought we’d come out fighting and have a lot of energy, be really passionate, and we weren’t,” McIntosh said. “(I’m) just kind of questioning what was going through everybody else’s head.”

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @benpope111