Indiana basketball limped into Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall off of an embarrassing 93-64 loss to Purdue on Friday. Awaiting the Cream and Crimson on Branch McCracken court was Northwestern, a team sporting a 3-13 conference record and slotted tied for 16th in the Big Ten, tied with Oregon.
Even with the tumultuous state of the Wildcat program, it owned a five game win streak over Indiana. After a good opening half, Indiana crumbled down the stretch en route to a 72-68 loss.
This matchup featured the two best scorers in the conference, Wildcat big Nick Martinelli and Hoosier guard Lamar Wilkerson, sporting averages of 22.3 and 21.1 respectively. One wasted no time impacting the game, as Wilkerson did his thing, hitting his first four 3-pointers and five field goals. He went onto score 18 on five field goal conversions.
Martinelli’s first half was about half as good as Wilkerson’s, he had seven first half points, rivaled by Wilkerson’s 14.
It wasn’t just Wilkerson that was productive for IU in the first half, the Hoosiers as a team shot 50% from three with eight makes on 16 attempts. Including two from Nick Dorn who entered the matchup 2-of-his-last-18 dating back to the Wisconsin victory on Feb. 7. Wilkerson and friends got the Hoosiers to a 42-33 halftime lead.
The Cats woke up out of the locker room, with an 8-0 run sparked by Martinelli who had all eight. A Tucker DeVries 3-pointer stopped that run, and Indiana still led at the under-16 timeout, 47-41. Northwestern got the deficit back to four at the under-12 timeout, capitalizing on an IU scoring drought at 52-48.
After a tremendous opening frame, Indiana was letting Northwestern hang around and the purple and white would not go away, and they would keep coming. After the under-8 media timeout, Northwestern would go on a 12-3 run and take a 60-59 lead with just under five minutes to go. Indiana would retake the lead with two Wilkerson free throws, his first points since 11:37 of the first half. Still, Indiana went without a field goal for over seven minutes.
Northwestern got out to its biggest lead of the game, four, at 65-61. Then, Indiana’s field goal drought ended with a Tayton Conerway lay-in. A Northwestern turnover gave Indiana life with less than a minute to play, and Sam Alexis got to the line, but only made one of his two attempts.
Northwestern converted its free throws on the next possession with two makes from Jake West. Indiana needed all kinds of luck but it was Northwestern that got the luck as Tucker DeVries got hit on the wrist on a 3-point shot with no call.
After a tremendous opening half, Indiana had one of its worst home halves all season, resulting in a Quad 3 home loss, potentially detrimental to its tournament hopes. Indiana let the 14th ranked Big Ten offense just hang around and when it needed a burial, Northwestern had every answer. Indiana didn’t get a field goal on KenPom’s 87th ranked defense for almost a quarter of the game.
Indiana will look to get out of it’s current three-game skid when its hosts No. 13 Michigan State, Sunday with tip-off scheduled for 3:45 p.m.
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