Illinois rallies late to stun Northwestern

If basketball games were decided by the first 35 "normal" minutes and not the final 5 "endgame" minutes, the Northwestern Wildcats would have had a good chance of making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. As it stands, coach Bill Carmody will have to wait another year for the biggest of breakthroughs; his team is still likely to reach the NIT, but Thursday's gut-wrenching 60-59 loss to Illinois is the kind of late-game collapse that is keeping the Purple People from reaching the highest heights in college basketball.

Leading 57-43 with roughly 5 minutes remaining in regulation time, the homestanding Wildcats panicked against Illinois' full-court pressure. A series of turnovers and shortened possessions, combined with a desperate flurry from the Fighting Illini, led to a 17-2 Illinois run in those final and fateful five minutes. When Illini guard Demetri McCamey banked in a 10-foot jumper with 2.9 seconds remaining in the game, the orange-shirted visitors gained their only lead of the night. Sure enough, it was the only lead they ever needed. Yes, on yet another heartbreaking evening in Welsh-Ryan Arena, Northwestern played hard, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As was the case in an early-January loss to Purdue, the Wildcats--so strong and sure of themselves for the first 35 minutes of a Big Ten battle--lost their edge and their nerve in the oddly-paced and unevenly structured world known as endgame basketball. When the junk defenses emerge and normal halfcourt possessions disappear, a Northwestern team that is so solid in terms of bread-and butter execution loses its feel for the game. No statistic, no numerical reality, can account for this; it's simply the demon that continues to haunt the Big Ten's most impoverished basketball program.
 
One fundamental reality explains how Northwestern lost its 14-point stranglehold at the five-minute mark (and later, a 59-53 lead at the 1:05 mark of regulation time). It centers around the Wildcats' center-forward, Luka Mirkovic.
 
The 6-11 standout from Belgrade, Serbia, snatched 12 rebounds on this night against Illinois, five rebounds more than anyone else on the court. In many ways, Mirkovic was the toughest man on the floor. Yet, in a cruel piece of irony, the Wildcats would lose because Mirkovic turned soft in the final, frantic minutes of a second half that stomach-punched the home team.

On a pair of occasions during the late Illinois rally, Mirkovic--following a rebound or an impressive catch of a pass in backcourt--covered up the ball to fend off Illinois defenders. The reaction to the Illini's full-court press was a sign of nerves, because the act of protecting the ball in something akin to a fetal position actually allows defenders to create a jump-ball situation or at least force a timeout to be called. When Mirkovic covered up the ball in his overly-protective display, the Illini were able to force two separate Northwestern timeouts, a reality that killed the Wildcats in the final minute, when an inbounds pass went awry and led to a Trent Meacham bucket that enabled Illinois to slice a 59-56 deficit to 59-58. 
 
In addition to Mirkovic's inability to be strong with the ball, Wildcat guard Craig Moore displayed the same weakness just before the one-minute mark of regulation. By protecting the ball just past the midcourt line, Moore paradoxically didn't protect a crucial possession. Two Illini defenders used the midcourt line as a third defender and tied up Moore. The possession arrow pointed Illinois' way, and a few seconds later, a Meachem triple cut a six-point Wildcat advantage to three, at 59-56. One can see how one event led to another, as the dominoes decked Northwestern and sent spirits plummeting once again in Evanston.
 
For Illinois fans, the late rally had to evoke sweet memories of an equally stunning surge in the 2005 NCAA Tournament Regional Final against Arizona. While this win over Northwestern wasn't nearly as significant as that Final Four ticket-puncher, the ability to beat an in-state rival for the tenth consecutive time will give Bruce Weber's bunch added encouragement in the pursuit of Michigan State.

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