Just over seven minutes into Northwestern’s Wednesday clash with Indiana, senior guard Brooks Barnhizer air-balled a 3-pointer, but graduate student center Keenan Fitzmorris quickly retrieved the shot and kicked it back out to him.
Trapped by a defender, Barnhizer dribbled behind his back before finding graduate student guard Ty Berry, who calmly buried a three from the wing.
Then he did it again — and again.
In just three minutes, the Wildcats (12-7, 3-5 Big Ten) went on an 11-3 run, with Berry scoring all 11 points to give his team a 23-13 lead.
It was a huge shift for the Newton, Kansas, native, who had managed just five total points during the team’s three-game losing streak in early January. Coach Chris Collins decided it was time for a change.
In NU’s win over Maryland on Jan. 16, freshman guard Angelo Ciaravino made his first career start, becoming the first NU freshman to start in a Big Ten game since March 2022. In that game, Berry came off the bench at the five-minute mark and scored 15 points in 33 minutes — a significant jump from his mid-teen minutes of game time in the previous three games. Against Michigan on Sunday, Berry had 12 points.
But it was against Indiana Wednesday that Berry truly exploded. He finished with a team-high 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including a career-best seven made threes.
After the win, Collins said a big part of getting Berry back on track was helping him regain his “competitive spirit.”
“He’s got, what, 12 games left here at Northwestern?” Collins said postgame. “I said, man, let’s regain that scope, that fire, for these last games. And he’s responded.”
After his dominant first-half stretch, Berry didn’t attempt another shot until 38 seconds remained in the half as NU’s shooting went cold. The ’Cats missed 12 straight field goal attempts to close the period and didn’t hit a shot from the floor after the 9:35 mark.
Down by six at halftime, Berry said the message in the locker room was about focusing on what they could control: playing tight defense.
“When I play well, it’s usually because I’m playing good defense. So Coach really harps on that with me, just to make sure I’m locked into the game on the defensive end and everything else will take care of itself,” Berry said postgame.
Coming out of the break, Collins’s group bounced back immediately, posting 54 points in the second half — the team’s highest total in any half this season. With Berry still in rhythm, Collins set up plays to get him open looks beyond the arc, and the shots kept falling. Berry knocked down four of NU’s nine second-half threes, while graduate student guard Jalen Leach added three triples of his own.
Leach didn’t score in the first half but said that when he saw Berry’s shots falling, the momentum became contagious.
“When he’s playing that well, it gives not only me but everyone else on the team confidence,” Leach said.
Following the win, NU will head to Champaign to take on in-state foe No. 17 Illinois Sunday.
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