Northwestern University Athletics
Wildcats Ready to Battle Badgers
1/28/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 28, 2003
Wisconsin Game Notes in PDF Format
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EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody knows that if you are going to succeed in this conference, probably the first things you need to do is defend your home court. He has made it the focal point of his building process with the Wildcats, and the returns were positive last year when they went 5-1 vs. Big Ten opponents down the stretch.
When Carmody saw this year's schedule, however, he must have felt like NU drew the short straw with the schedule-makers. The Wildcats have a brutal first half to the conference schedule, playing five of their first seven contests on the road. Tonight's game is the second of three straight road games that closes out this opening stretch; this jaunt to Madison is sandwiched between weekend trips to Minnesota and Ohio State.
"It is always tough to go out on the road in the conference, because everyone knows how important it is to defend your court," said Carmody. "In fact, the thing that has disappointed me the most so far is that we did not defend ours in the two chances we had (Iowa and Michigan)."
NU has become a better road team in the last two years, and it looked like that would be the case again this season when the 'Cats won their first road game of the season, a nonconference win at Kansas State where they played without senior Winston Blake. Since then, however, four trips have yielded four double-digit losses; and the Kohl Center has historically been a place that has not served as the cure for what ailed previous NU teams.
GAME 17 -- Northwestern (8-8, 0-5) at Wisconsin (13-4, 3-2)
Date/Time: Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2003/7 p.m. CST
Site: Kohl Center (Madison, Wis.)
Capacity: 17,142
Television: ESPN Plus (Craig Coshun, PBP; Shon Morris, analyst)
(WYIN in Chicago)
Radio: WGN 720 AM (Dave Eanet, PBP; Bob Hildebrand, analyst)
(also on wgnradio.com)
