Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Men's Basketball Notches Win Over Wisconsin, 69-60
1/30/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan 30, 2002
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EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern, the worst free throw shooting team in the Big Ten, finally found the range from the line Wednesday night.
Just in time.
"Coach Carmody told us to be aggressive and go to the basket and get to the line and that's what we did," Winston Blake said after matching a career high with 23 points to lead Northwestern past Wisconsin 69-60.
Shooting just 60 percent from the line on the season, the Wildcats were 22-of-27 Wednesday night, including 18-of-21 in the second half.
"We made our foul shots. The 22-of-27 may be a little inflated because they fouled at lot at the end," Wildcats coach Bill Carmody said. "We hit ours and they didn't always hit theirs."
Northwestern (12-7, 3-4 Big Ten) won for the fourth time in five games and ended a five-game losing streak to the Badgers (12-10, 5-4). In addition, it marked the first time since the 1995-96 season the Wildcats have broken the 50-point barrier against the Badgers, a string of eight games.
With 12 wins, Northwestern has already won more games than it did all of last season. It has also matched its Big Ten win total of a year ago with nine conference games still to play.
The Badgers, just 6-of-14 from the line, got a great second-half performance from Freddie Owens, who scored 16 straight Wisconsin points at one juncture, singlehandedly keeping his team in the game.
"I was just trying to give the team what we needed and that was scoring," said Owens, who was 7-of-8 from the field. "I had a good rhythm."
Tavaras Hardy added 15 points for Northwestern. That included the 1,000th points of his career, which he hit with 16:49 left in the second half on his career-best third 3-pointer of the game. Hardy is the 23rd Wildcat player to achieve the mark, and the first since Evan Eschmeyer did it during the 1997-98 season.
For Wisconsin, Travon Davis had 11 for Wisconsin, while leading scorer Kirk Penney was held to 10, four below his average.
Blake hit a 3-pointer and also drove for a left-handed layup, was fouled and converted a three-point play to put the Wildcats up eight. Minutes later, Jitim Young came sailing down the lane for a slam dunk follow as Northwestern went up by 10 with a little more than 10 minutes left.
But then Owens took over for the Badgers. His 16-point outburst included a three-point play, three 3-pointers and wild half-hook from the lane, as the Badgers rallied to within 55-53.
"We had no answer to the lefty (Owens). He just went off on us," Carmody said.
But in the final five minutes, Owens didn't score as the Wildcats made him give up the ball.
"He didn't force things. He could have taken a couple of more shots," Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. "The reason he shot such a high percentage was because those were his shots. Later they helped out on him, so he gave it up and others had to hit some shots."
Northwestern's Vedran Vukusic dropped in 3-pointer with five minutes remaining, but the Badgers got a steal and drive from Devin Harris to get within four.
After a free-throw miss by the Badgers' Mike Wilkinson, Blake hit four free throws and Jason Burke made two down the stretch as the Wildcats held on.
Young's three-point play with five seconds left gave the Wildcats a 25-22 lead at the end of a low-scoring, cold-shooting first half.
The Badgers missed 10 of their first 14 from the field, finishing 9-of-23, and Wildcats misfired on 10 of their first 12, finishing the half 9-of-25.
Northwestern is back in action Saturday, meeting Ohio State in Columbus at 12:15 p.m. CST. The Buckeyes, who are in first place in the Big Ten at 7-1, defeated the Wildcats 55-48 on Jan. 12 in Evanston.
Portions of this story were taken from the Associated Press account of the game
