A four-hour drive from Bloomington, Chicago is home to the largest IU alumni base outside of the state of Indiana. Throw in Northwestern’s usually low attendance figures and quiet crowd, and the Wildcats’ gym in the Chicago suburbs is suddenly more red than purple.
“One of the best IU alums,” junior guard Yogi Ferrell said of Chicago. “I always feel like we get a lot of good fans going out there, so that’ll definitely help us out.”
Evanston, Ill., is the next closest thing to home IU has in the Big Ten. That could be a boost for a Hoosier squad that hasn’t found much success outside of Assembly Hall this season. But IU Coach Tom Crean isn’t thinking that way.
“Northwestern is very hard to play,” Crean said. “They’re extremely hard to play in their building.”
IU has played 11 games away from Bloomington, winning just four. In true road games, the Hoosiers are 3-5, but those three wins came at Nebraska, Illinois and Rutgers — the Big Ten’s No. 8, No. 11 and No. 14 teams, respectively.
It will finish that road slate against Northwestern, which sits in 12th place in the conference. At this point in the season, IU (19-9, 9-6) is all but assured a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but a win in Evanston could seal it.
“It would be our fourth road win game and 10th win in the conference,” Ferrell said. “To get this win — it would be win No. 20 — would be great for our team. It would be a great push for us heading into the last part of the season.”
The Wildcats are all but out of the running for a program-first NCAA Tournament berth but have put together three consecutive Big Ten wins.
It’s that surging Northwestern team, not the one that lost 10 consecutive games to open 2015, that IU’s preparing for. Crean said the Wildcats were recipients of a few results that didn’t reflect their performance early in the season.
“We’re locked in for Northwestern,” Crean said. “They’ve been in so many games that came down to one or two possessions.”
If Wednesday’s game feels like a homecoming for the Hoosiers, it’s a literal one for Nick Zeisloft. The junior guard grew up in the Chicago suburb of La Grange, Ill., less than an hour’s drive from Evanston.
Zeisloft said he expects to see family and friends in the stands but that his focus will remain on the court.
“It’ll be familiar for me,” he said. “I’ve played there before, so that’ll be a good thing.
“But the main thing on my focus level right now is getting (win) No. 20 for us and getting a last road win for the regular season.”
