Northwestern vs Minnesota Basketball Recap

Northwestern 77, Minnesota 74 (OT)

In mid-February, college basketball begins to provide desperate duels like the one staged Sunday afternoon in Evanston, Ill. On a day when two teams were fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives, only the Northwestern Wildcats managed to survive.

They did so by the thinnest of margins.

This tilt inside Welsh-Ryan Arena was a true, point-of-no-return, win-or-else bubble-busting battle between two Big Ten teams who had run out of any appreciable margin for error. Northwestern hosted the Minnesota Golden Gophers in what amounted to an NCAA elimination game, with the loser assuring itself of a slot in the NIT. After the Wildcats lost to Iowa on Wednesday, and the Gophers gagged the following night against Michigan, both squads stood on the wrong side of the dreaded bubble. Victory was not an option if visions of March Madness were to remain realistic in the coming weeks.

Northwestern - for the first 32 minutes of this contest - looked dead in the water, but in the face of more March mortality, coach Bill Carmody's Cats decided to launch a furious February charge.

For the moment, it saved their season.

It's amazing how clearly one could identify the turning point of this game. In the first 32 minutes, Minnesota shut down Northwestern. John Shurna led the Wildcats in scoring during that period of time (14 points in those first 32 minutes), and yet he hit only five of his first 14 shots in the process. No one in a white home jersey felt comfortable against the length and energy of the Golden Gophers' defense, which similarly bottled up Carmody's kids in the first meeting between these two teams back on Jan. 26. As a result, coach Tubby Smith's team owned a 48-35 advantage with eight minutes left against a struggling opponent that couldn't even crack 50 points in its train-wreck loss at Iowa on Feb. 10. A life force was being sucked out of the stands in Evanston, just as it was being surgically removed from the paralyzed players in Northwestern jerseys.

But then, everything changed. Don't ask Carmody or the rest of his coaching staff how it happened.

After the eight-minute mark of regulation, Northwestern became a team transformed. Possessions produced a tidal wave of scores, as Shurna (who finished with a team-high 22 points) hit a pair of threes which unleashed a domino effect. The long balls opened up the paint for slashing forward Drew Crawford, who scored three separate layups as the second half continued. Crawford's newfound success inspired NU big man Luka Mirkovic, who mixed threes with a low-post game to provide potency and balance for the Wildcats. All told, Northwestern - which scored just 24 points in the first half and was averaging barely more than one point per minute through the first 32 minutes - cranked out 22 points in the final eight minutes of regulation. The Gophers - down 57-54 - were able to send the game into overtime on a 3-pointer by sniper Blake Hoffarber, but Northwestern had managed to earn a fresh start in the extra stanza.

The Cats acted as though they had gained a reprieve.

A 9-0 run powered by four different scorers enabled NU to claim a 68-62 lead with one minute left, and when the Cats hit each of their last eight foul shots in the final 33 seconds of overtime, the Gophers - even with Hoffarber downing two more threes in the five-minute period - didn't have enough ammunition to catch up.

Minnesota is NIT-bound, and Northwestern might very well join the Gophers in college basketball's consolation tournament. But for at least another week, the Wildcats have a puncher's chance at a bigger postseason destination.

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