Northwestern's season ends with narrow NIT loss at Tulsa

Northwestern vs Tulsa

 
Basketball fans in Evanston might have had their hearts broken one more time in 2009, but the people in and around the Northwestern hoops program need to realize that they've rarely been able to care about their team this late in a season.
 
The down-to-the-wire Wildcats might have lost at Tulsa, 68-59, in a first-round NIT game Wednesday in the Donald Reynolds Center, but coach Bill Carmody's kids retained the respect they worked hard to earn all season. The '09 Northwestern team suffered yet one more agonizing defeat to finish at 17-14, but it wasn't for lack of effort.
 
The second-best team in NU's snake-bitten basketball history (the best NU team won 18 games in 1983) proved to be inferior to the victorious Golden Hurricane, but only by the slightest of margins. As has been the case all season long, Northwestern would leave its backers paralyzed, unable to decide whether to admire the Wildcats' resilience or cringe at NU's inadequacies.
 
After a nip-and-tuck first half ended with the Cats taking a 30-28 lead to the locker room, the fourth-seeded Hurricane stormed past Northwestern before an enthusiastic Oklahoma crowd. In the first 12:33 of the second half, Tulsa exceeded its entire first-half output and rained down 32 points on a shellshocked bunch of Purple People. After Tulsa center Jerome Jordan dominated the first half and compensated for his teammates' 0-of-9 3-point shooting, the Hurricanes' wing players heated up after halftime. Ben Uzoh, Justin Hurtt and Glenn Andrews hit 7 of their first 11 threes in the second half to blitz their Big Ten foe and give Tulsa a 60-49 lead at the 7:27 mark. With the Hurricanes' shooters finding their touch, the home team didn't even need Jordan, its imposing 7-foot center from Jamaica. When Coach Doug Wojcik's backcourt finds the range, Tulsa is extremely hard to beat, and that's exactly what Northwestern discovered in the first 12-plus minutes of the second stanza. Any chance of victory seemed completely lost for the Wildcats, who wouldn't have been faulted for failing to get off the deck.

Ah, but this is when a gritty group of guys reminded their fans how they crafted such a special season. Just when it seemed logical to write off the Wildcats, they responded with bold basketball to turn a decisive setback into a near-miss, white-knuckle loss.
 
Over the next five and a half minutes, Northwestern's zone defense shut out the Hurricane, as the Cats reduced their deficit to 60-57 just inside the two-minute mark of regulation. The display of determined defense--and the late rally which accompanied it--made Northwestern competitive in a game where an opponent's quickness, length and athleticism proved to be superior. With Jordan erasing shots in the middle for Tulsa, Carmody and Co. lacked the dynamic kind of player who could finish near the rim and break down the Hurricanes' defense. At the other end, Tulsa's guards possessed the very quickness NU so noticeably lacked. The Wildcats were exceeded in terms of athleticism, a dynamic that has existed for most of the 2009 season. That hard-to-deny reality only made the Cats' late comeback all the more impressive.
 
The comeback very nearly found fulfillment and completion in the final half-minute of regulation, as senior Craig Moore--hoping to extend his career--found a wide-open 3-point look at the very end of the shot clock. A sloppy and uneven possession suddenly and surprisingly produced the exact shot every NU coach and player wanted, but the 22-footer just didn't drop. Tulsa hit just one field goal--a Jordan dunk--in the final 7:27 of regulation, but with six free throws in the final 21 seconds, the Hurricane held on for a nine-point win that--once on the verge of becoming a blowout--felt like a razor-close game at the finish.

The summation of this tear-jerker at Tulsa also serves as an accurate overview of Northwestern's winning season, the fourth in school history to deliver a postseason appearance: The Wildcats were very rarely good enough to deliver knockout punches, but the hardest-working team in the Big Ten always responded to adversity with considerable resolve and a supremely competitive spirit.
 
Their victories made you wonder what might have been in other close-shave setbacks. Their losses made you wonder how they could pull out so many victories in a cutthroat conference rated second in the RPI. All in all, Northwestern basketball created a year to remember in 2009. With just a pinch more athleticism and size in 2010, the Carmody Club could get the last laugh and make its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.

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