Northwestern's deep shooting buries IU

Northwestern didn’t surprise anyone in its 78-61 win against IU.

The Wildcats were methodical, calculative and good from the outside.

IU knew the Wildcats were shooting 36 percent from 3-point range as a team going into its Sunday contest in Evanston, Ill. The Hoosiers had also been prepped on the movement of their offense, based largely on back cuts resulting in easy layups.

The scouting report didn’t matter Sunday.

IU coach Tom Crean said no defense is a magic cure-all. He said his team has to have it within them to stop an opponent once they are equipped with a strategy. 

“It really didn’t come down to what defense we were in – it’s the pressure,” Crean said. “It’s the pressure on the ball, and it’s the pressure on the shooters as much as anything else.”

The Wildcats roamed around the arc for the entire game and rode their start from the outside to a 21-6 opening run. They hit four 3-pointers in that streak.

Sophomore guard Verdell Jones said before Sunday’s game that IU needed a good start to compete. The Hoosiers opened the game with a turnover, a foul and a missed layup.

A tough time on defense and early mistakes did nothing to shorten the separation. Northwestern tallied 6-of-9 shooting from deep in the first half, good for 66 percent. IU was 2-of-10 and would end the game with an 11 percent average from outside.
It was a struggle for IU to defend deep shots, Jones said.

The Wildcats used their patented backscreens to catch defenders off guard and got easy layups, and they snuck behind IU players when Crean switched his team to a zone defense.

“They can shoot one through five, so we had to play honest,” he said. “They were always moving and setting screens and going back door. We weren’t disciplined enough.”

Jones had a career-high 28 points, and he was followed by freshman Christian Watford with 16 points. No other IU player had more than five points.

“I started feeling it a little bit, but bottom line we still lost,” Jones said. “My performance is null right now.”

Crean said the early lead put together on the strength of Northwestern’s 3-pointers was too much to recover from.

“We put ourselves in a hole at the very beginning of the game without getting enough pressure on the ball, without getting enough pressure on the 3-point shooters,” Crean said.