Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
La.-Lafayette
Men's Basketball Squeezes By Louisiana-Lafayette, 52-51
12/28/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec 28, 2001
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) -- Drew Long hit a 12-foot shot with 9.5 seconds left Friday night to give Northwestern a 52-51 victory over Louisiana-Lafayette in the opening game of the azcentral.com Hoops Classic.
The Wildcats (8-2) advance to face the host school, Arizona State (6-4), a 77-54 winner over Canisius in Saturday night's championship game. Tipoff is scheduled for 9 p.m. CST and the game will not be televised, as was originally scheduled.
The Ragin' Cajuns failed to get a shot off before the ball went out of bounds with 3.3 seconds left, and then Northwestern's Jitim Young secured the loose ball as time expired.
Winston Blake led all scorers with 17 points, hitting five 3-pointers, for the Wildcats (8-2). However, the most notable performance came from junior Aaron Jennings, who made his first start since the opening game of the 2000-01 season and had a season-high 14 points and six rebounds.
Louisiana-Lafayette (5-5) was led by Anthony Johnson's 14 points.
After trailing the entire first half, Northwestern scored the first eight points of the second half -- including two 20-footers by Blake -- to take a 32-26 lead with 15:24 to play.
Louisiana-Lafayette answered by going on a 13-0 run, capped by a pair of long shots by Brad Boyd, to go back ahead 39-35.
The lead see-sawed from that point until Long hit his game-winning shot against a double-team defense.
