Northwestern
Wisconsin
Northwestern Bests Wisconsin in 66-63 Thriller
1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 31, 2009
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EVANSTON, Ill. -- Senior guard Craig Moore scored 26 points, including six straight free throws in the final 15.6 seconds Saturday night, as Northwestern beat Wisconsin 66-63 and sent the Badgers to their sixth straight loss.
Northwestern (12-7, 4-5) has won four of its last five, turning its season around after a lopsided loss at Wisconsin earlier this month. The Wildcats also improved to 10-2 at home this season, winning their third straight game at Welsh-Ryan Arena versus a Big Ten team.
Both teams shot better than 50 percent from the field for the game, paced by red-hot shooting in the contest's opening minutes. With 10:30 to play, Moore, the Wildcats' all-time 3-point field goal leader, nailed his second trey of the game to give Northwestern a 21-19 lead, despite the fact that Wisconsin had yet to miss a field goal or free throw attempt.
Fortunately for the Wildcats, their active 1-3-1 zone defense started giving the Badgers some trouble and Wisconsin was held without a field goal for the final nine minutes of the half. The Wildcats and Badgers went to their respective locker rooms tied at 27-27.
Wisconsin used an early 7-0 second-half spurt to move ahead of the 'Cats 34-29 following a 3-pointer from Jason Bohannon. Northwestern would not regain the lead again, 54-53, until 3:34 was left following a pair of free throws from Michael Thompson. Marcus Landry put Wisconsin back in front by one 39 seconds later on a layin before a pretty back-door layup from Kevin Coble, which was set up by a nifty bounce pass from Moore, gave NU a lead it would not relinquish the rest of the way.
A 10-foot left-handed hook shot from Luka Mirkovic and a dazzling up-and-under layup from Jeremy Nash kept the pressure on the Badgers before Moore drilled his six straight free throws to seal the win.
Wisconsin defeated Northwestern 74-45 on Jan. 7 and hasn't won since, dropping a pair of overtime games during its longest skid since the 1997-98 season.
Trevon Hughes scored 15 points for the Badgers (12-9, 3-6), who fell short during the wild finish over the final four minutes.
Moore's last two free throws came with 4.2 seconds left to make it a three-point margin before Nash intercepted a last-second Badger pass to ice the win. Nash finished with 9 points, the second-leading Northwestern scorer.
Northwestern remains at home for one more game, playing its final non-conference contest of the year at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 4 against Chicago State.
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
