And Brandon Lee was the first guy off the bench, as Bill Carmody played a slightly different rotation to try to beat
the UVa Cavaliers Wednesday night.
Yes, it was great to see the "kids" under the basket and to hear the NU Pep Band playing Hey Baby, and Go U Northwestern. It was great to see the Cats stay close, and run off some longer scoring runs.
Senior Center Davor Duvancic [10 pts], Junior Forward Vedran Vukusic [16] and Junior Guard T.J. Parker [6] all played the entire game. They combined for 32 of NU's 44 points, but the Wildcats couldn't find an answer for UVa Center Elton Brown who shot 7 of 13 for 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to pace the Cavs.
Brandon
Lee and Timmy Doyle both hit for 5 points each, and Evan Seacat missed his one shot as NU shot 17 of 46 [37%] from the floor
and 7 of 21 [33%] from the arc. The Cats did make 3 of 4 free throws.
NU was rebounding a little better tonight - they finished with
25 compared to UVa's 33, but most of the Cav's boards came late
in the game. Another weak spot in the NU game were the 16 turnovers
vs 6 steals.
Early in the game, it looked like NU was getting their back door cuts
going, but UVa kept making adjustments and forcing the Cats out
of their game and it seemed that NU just couldn't make the important shot
when it counted.
After the game, NU Coach Bill Carmody was asked where he thought
the Cats came up short in the game.
BC: You know how they were playing the zone and they're
not pressing - it was at our tempo, its a man-to-man team and I think we
had 16 or 17 turnovers so how are you going to turn the ball over that
many times and win a game on your home court and a team that's playing
a pretty passive zone?
That's discouraging, you [we] just did not play well. You had to
make some plays at the end there and we didn't make them. We got the ball
inside nicely, and missed a shot.
I just didn't think we made plays we had to make.
What about Hachad's 3 pointer towards the end of the game?
BC: Well, it wasn't really in the offense - he moved
around pretty nice and all and I didn't think that was a bad shot.
I didn't think we played well the whole game - it was a sloppy game
both sides and but its - [pause]
They're coming on our court and to get a win, its difficult in college
basketball and they did it, so you give them the credit but we just didn't
control the game - we looked out of synch on our offense there and - its
hard to explain.
Shon Morris talked about the increased intensity at the defensive end
for the Wildcats - something you stressed the last week of practice...
BC: Yeah, I think the effort was there, but I told
them, you're playing - there is an effort and you're doing stuff
with your body. You're moving around pretty decently but you're not using
your heads.
There's some carelessness out there, it wasn't precise at all, so
that's disappointing.
This is a veteran team. They should be precise. If you miss shots,
that's one thing but they should go about their business in a way that
is just - they have to pay more attention to detail, that's all I can tell
you.
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