Northwestern just played its best half of basketball since that fateful night in Iowa. Despite their shooting woes (the 'Cats are 13/34 from the field and 3/12 from 3), Northwestern played fast-paced and efficient basketball, while doing a great job on Ethan Happ. If the Wildcats can do it again in the second half, they'll find their first win in eight games.
Second-half thread for NU-Wisconsin
- Thread starter azimmerman_1
- Start date
Wisconsin is shooting the lights out, the Badgers are 7/15 from deep right now. Impressive fight from NU, though.
Screwed by the refs. That was a blocking foul; there was clear contact. Initial call is Northwestern ball, but the ball goes out of bounds because of a block that wasn't called. Then the refs overturn and give it to Wisconsin.
And I can't believe that horrible shot by Wisconsin that bounced thrice and dropped in. That shot was so off-target; I can't believe the luck.
DAMMIT, FOUL HIM! You just wasted 5 seconds. A tie-up keeps the ball with Wisconsin, so there's no reason to go for a tie-up.
Good strategy. 14 seconds left, Wisconsin has timeouts, let's go for a 10-SECOND violation. I think maybe you mean a 5-second violation. But as we saw, Wisconsin had a timeout. So they got to run about 5 seconds off the clock and still had the ball. The correct thing to do, sans a steal, is to foul.
Missing the front end of two free throws didn’t help, but Cats played well tonight. And we’re really good playing without fouling for much of the game. We got away with a few non-calls, but generally played cleaner ball than I’ve seen in conference this year.
The thing I really notice is Wisc had four players with 10+ points, whereas 2/3 of our points came from Law and Pardon.
The thing I really notice is Wisc had four players with 10+ points, whereas 2/3 of our points came from Law and Pardon.
I mean it was a one point game and they had the chance to force a turnover violation without fouling and get the ball back down one instead of fouling and bring down three.
Yep.
Something that has haunted NU in the close loses that hasn’t been discussed here. Way too many squandered front ends of the 1&1 (or splits in the bonus).
Then go for the strip. If you strip the ball, then great. If not, it's a foul that saves precious seconds. Obviously, the "turnover violation" isn't a good bet when Wisconsin has timeouts.