Northwestern takes huge step toward postseason with win at Indiana

In their previous two Big Ten seasons, the Northwestern Wildcats won just three conference games in 36 tries. Wednesday night in the heart of Hoosier Country, Bill Carmody's club decided to double the fun.
 
By shooting well from distance (9-of-16 from three-point range) and capitalizing at the foul line (14-of-16), Northwestern produced five double-figure scorers to cruise past Indiana, 75-53, in Assembly Hall. One particularly impressive performance did much to rewrite the way the 2009 Wildcats will be remembered. 
 
Northwestern basketball seasons don't usually acquire a happy trajectory, and it is indeed true that--barring a miracle in the Big Ten Tournament--NU's aversion to the NCAA Tournament will continue for yet another year. With that said, however, this humbling of the Hoosiers enabled the league's longtime doormat to claim its sixth conference victory of 2009. A 3-33 record in Big Ten games in 2007 and 2008 (including tournament play) has given way to a respectable 6-9 mark for Northwestern in 2009, with three games remaining on the slate. 

After producing a 22-point pounding of Tom Crean's roster, it can be proclaimed that this latest winter of basketball in Evanston, while not free of discontent, will likely produce an NIT bid. (A win Saturday at home against Iowa would make the Cats a stone-cold lock for the 32-team event.) That's no small feat for a school that has never made the Big Dance. A smaller dance--one that could lead to New York's Madison Square Garden in late March--offers cause for rejoicing on the NU campus. Even more important, a postseason berth will allow the Wildcats to play extra games against intersectional components, a key step in the growing process for any program that wants to climb the college basketball ladder.
 
Just why is an NIT bid a near-certainty for Northwestern at this point? For one thing, the Big Ten's strong power numbers (as the second-rated conference in the country, according to the RPI) should enable a .500 team in the conference to receive an invitation. Second, as long as a team doesn't have a losing record after the end of the conference tournaments, it is eligible for the NIT field. This win over Indiana gives Northwestern a 15-11 overall record, which ensures that the Cats cannot leave the Big Ten tourney with anything worse than a 15-15 mark (assuming they lose their remaining regular season games and then bow out in the first round in Indianapolis).
 

Third, wins over Florida State and Michigan State will give Northwestern's resume the heft that will make a barely-above-even record (or even a .500 record, if the worst-case scenario unfolds) much more attractive than an 18-10 mark posed by a less tested mid-major. Carmody's kids will want to take care of business against Iowa, but even if they don't, the smart money still suggests that some NIT brackets will be dissected by the brilliant minds of the Big Ten's premier academic institution.
 
The NCAA Tournament has eluded Northwestern for 70 years now. No one in and around the program wants to think that NIT bids represent the ultimate standard of achievement for Wildcat basketball. Nevertheless, the rock-bottom seasons of 2007 and 2008 could not have been expected to give way to an NCAA season in 2009. All things considered, a campaign graced with a likely NIT ticket represents substantial progress for Bill Carmody and company.

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