The Welsh-Ryan Jinx Continues for Iowa

Vedran Vukusic stepped up his shooting and rebounding to lead Northwestern Wildcats over the Big 10 lead Iowa Hawkeyes in Evanston Wednesday night. The Cats shut down Iowa's long range game, and as you can see above, tied up their leading scorer, Greg Brunner...

"Its about time"

Was NU coach Bill Carmody's postgame comment about the Northwestern Wildcats shooting against Iowa Wednesday night.

But all in all It was a wild and wooly end to the game;

..to tell you the truth, I didn't even know, I lost track of the score there and didn't even know we went up one there.

Vedran Vukusic [left] had put the cats up by three with 6 seconds left with a pair of free throws, then Tim Doyle fouled Iowa's Jeff Horner with 3 seconds left. Horner missed both freethrows and Vukusic grabbed the rebound to ice the game.

Fouling with the lead is something the Bill Carmody likes to do at the end of a game, but it seems to violate all the rules of basketball

Every night you turn on ESPN and someone bangs a 3 and it goes to overtime so I think its harder to make ... but don't tell anybody, I want them to keep doing it.

A quartet of additional "shooters" had stepped up for NU: Bernard Cote`, Craig Moore, Michael Jenkins and Evan Seacat all hit 3 pointers in the 2nd half to keep Northwestern close, and Vedran Vukusic hit 2 of 3 from the arc in the last 3 minutes, then grabbed the final rebound at the end of the game to seal the win for the Cats.

I was just happy - you know Vedran was just extraordinary tonight because he got rebounds. He got some rebounds. I don't know what he got. [Told it was 8 off the boards]

When he gets 8 rebounds that means a lot.

And it was good to see Evan do that because the guy's been snakebit, been injured, this and that so I was very happy to him do that, it was great.

...Evan's had two full weeks of practice...gets some minutes today.

Outside of the improved shooting, the Cats' defense really stood out
.

Tough defensive play, against Greg Brunner [guarded by Tim Doyle and Bernard Cote` above] and Jeff Horner, particularly in the 1st half, kept the Hawkeye's top scorers from dominating the game. Brunner and Horner both had only 4 points each in the 1st half.

Horner, I think he's slowed down a bit with knee problems, 'cause he's a heck of a player, and I think we were lucky in the first half, and they were lucky because the first half was turnovers, missed layups, but I thought they had a lot of easy ones that they missed ... so I was glad we were only down 4 at the half.

David Kaplan asked about how you defend a physical team like Iowa, even though they're not as athletic as Illinois or MSU.

You just try to keep the ball away from that kid... Coach Henderson had the scout [he said] Keep the ball away from that guy Brunner. He can turn into one of the more productive guys in our league

You also block a few shots - to the right is Vince Scott and Vedran Vukusic making one of their 5 blocks in the first half. Agressive play by the Cats held Brunner to 13 points, 11 rebounds - still a double double, but not his normal output.

It was a sloppy game, 17 total turnovers in each half, and the Cats had 9 steals, but the difference was 3 point shooting in the 2nd half - the cats took 7, made 6 to Iowa's one 3 pointer. For the game, Iowa outshot the Cats, making half their threes, but only took 6 all game - NU shot 20 from the arc, making 9.

Leading all scorers was Vedran Vukusic with 26. Tim Doyle hit for 8, Bernard Cote` and Mohamed Hachad added 4 each. Craig Moore, Evan Seacat and Michael Jenkins each had 3 points.

Off the Boards, Iowa's Brunner led everyone with 11. Vukusic was 2nd on the list with 8, the Cats had 6 offensive boards but only had one 2nd chance shot fall.

Next up is a non-conference game, Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. The Cats return to conference play next Wednesday down in Champaign against Illinois.

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Bill Carmody's Post Game comments [in italics] are taken from the WGN Post Game Show with Dave Eanet & David Kaplan and may have been edited for clarity.
Official Statistics from nusports.com

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Story (c) 2006 by PurpleWildcats.com/Purple Reign
Interview comments (c) 2006 by WGN Radio