12 of 19 from the Arc / IU 75 - NU 55

The Northwestern Wildcats, hoping to make the NIT, painted themselves into a difficult corner today, as they needed a win to enter the Big 10 Tournament over .500. It didn't happen. The Cats were going to finish 8th in the Big 10 regardless of the outcome, but Indiana was playing for a shot at NCAA March Madness and came out making whatever shot the Cats gave them from beyond the arc...

The Story of the game is simple...

Indiana's Roderick Wilmont came out on fire from the arc in the first half, winding up with 5 treys and 20 points. The Hoosiers celebrated Senior day with the underclassmen hitting 54% from the floor, 63.2% from the arc and playing a defense that held Northwestern [14-15/6-10] to 9 of 26 from outside/22 of 50 from the floor.

NU's Vedran Vukusic finished his regular season with 22 points, Mohamed Hachad chipped in 10 along with 4 rebounds, T.J. Parker added 9 on 3 of 6 shooting from the arc, and Vince Scott hit one 3 early, but finished with only 7. And that was the scoring for the Wildcats - altho Evan Seacat was 1 of 2 from the arc. Tim Doyle and Scott also had 6 rebounds each.

But the Cats had no answer for the Hoosiers' outside game, they wound up 12 of 19 from the arc, and in the first half were shooting fromoutside at will. Northwestern, even with a 3-5 record over Indiana in the last 2 years, is still winless at Assembly Hall.

The challenge for the Cats now is to win 2 in the Big 10 Tournament - they draw Michigan, who they've split with, in the first game, but would then have to get past the #1 seed, #1 ranked Illinois to finish over .500, and be eligible for post season play in the NIT.

After the game, Dave Eanet noted that the game started pretty well for the Cats - with Vince Scott's 3 but then Davor Duvancic got his 2nd foul early and the game turned over to Indiana's favor...

BC: well, I thought we were doing OK at the start there and all, and T.J. missed a couple of shots there early and then we just didn't get out. You know that Wilmont's made 9 3-s for the whole year and he made 5 in the first half so I don't know what we do to guys, but we've been doing it all year - we make good shooters out of pretty average shooters.

Were they open looks? Was he making good shots?

BC: I think that they were open looks, but I guess we were con..., I don't know. I'm not sure, it seemed like we were spread out in that first half and they hit a couple and it spread us out even more. It was 4 around one and you have Wright and Wilmont's hitting and you know Ratliff can hit them, Strickland knocked one down - it seemed as though we were playing man-to-man but not aggressively because you're in a zone.

It seemed like the early fouls on Duvancic and Hachad slowed the game down for the Cats. It hurts when NU has to have Mo off the floor.

BC: and it was 18-16 and they missed and he came down and Mike Jenkins was dribbling between 3 or 4 guys and turned it over and they came down and banged a 3 - it seemed like we were making poor judgements during that.

You know Vince has the ball at the top, so he takes it over to Timmy Doyle instead of taking over to Vedran. You know, all night long it seemed we were not making the decisions that I thought should have been made.

The frustrating part had to be in the 2nd half when we got back close, then turned it over back to back...

BC: I told Mohamed at the time out, Mo, watch that guy, you're throwing those left handed passes, he's getting his hand close to all of them, and sure enought, he stole the ball and went in - I don't know if they got a two point play or  something.

Then they turned the heat up a little bit and we did not handle it, right then.

You could tell they were getting close to those steals [Indy finished with 9] and as soon as they got the steals, momentum switched back to their favor. You had said that you wanted to compete, and it looked like the kids played pretty hard today...

BC: I think that Vedran played well tonight and I don't think that he got much help.

At the center position I thought it was not good. I thought that Vince [Left- Trying to block Indy's Robert Vaden]  and Davor, I didn't thing there was enought energy there and Davor's passing up shots - you've got to take that.

You're in college, you're wide open at the top of the key, when White was guarding him, he was standing under the basket - there's no offense that's going to keep that defense unless you make a shot.

Davor would get an open look, pass up the shot and we'd never see that good a look again.

BC: Exactly, we told him that a halftime, and still the same thing, so when you're not feeling good about yourself, its difficult, but somehow by Thursday he's going to have to come around, we need the guy.

Then the Cats only shot 3 freethrows during the game. Does that tell you what Indiana did on defense?

BC:  Well, you know, in the first half we took 16 3-s. More than half our shots were 3-s  and its very tough to do that on the road and I thought we got the ball down a little bit in the first half, but nothing seemed to come out of it. Send the guys down there a few times, and we got blocked, and they were doubling, as we said, the center was down on Vedran, doubling him before he got the ball, so Vince had open looks and really didn't make - you have to make almost all of those to spread teams out.

Now its on to Chicago and the first round of the Big 10 Tournement against Michigan - any thoughts?

BC: Well, we were successful pressing them and so that their big guys didn't get lots of touches and they had a close game today against Iowa and lost, but their big guys looked good to me so I think we have to take the same strategy - play the full court, just don't let their height take over because I think we're in trouble if its half court all the time.

So there it is, the regular season ends on a 2 game down note, with a win over Michigan, then Illinois needed to qualify for the NIT, if we're even selected.

NU Plays Michigan Thursday at 11:30 AM, Wildcat time...

---

Coach Bill Carmody's Post Game comments [in italics] are taken from
the WGN Post Game Show
with Dave Eanet & Bob Hildebrand
and may have been edited for clarity

---

Go Cats
Beat 'em All!

Talk about it on the Purple Boards
[Click Here]

Copyright 2005 by PurpleWildcats.com/Purple Reign
and WGN Radio