Northwestern
Minnesota
Wildcats Edged by Minnesota in Hard-Fought Contest
3/12/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 12, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -
Kevin Coble scored a game-high 21 points and Northwestern rallied back from a 12-point second-half deficit to take a two-point lead, but it wasn't enough as the Wildcats fell to Minnesota 66-53 in the opening game of the 2009 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Thursday afternoon.
NU (17-13) now awaits its postseason fate which will be determined Sunday.
Eerily similar to its regular-season finale at Ohio State this past Sunday, the Wildcats dug themselves an early double-digit deficit. Leading 8-6 just over six minutes into the contest, Northwestern saw the Golden Gophers go on a 16-0 run to take a 14-point lead with eight minutes remaining in the opening period.
Coble single-handedly kept NU in the game as his 3-pointer just prior to the first-half buzzer got the 'Cats to within 31-25 at the break. The junior forward lit up Minnesota for 19 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the floor over the opening 20 minutes of play while the rest of the team managed just six points. Meanwhile, the Gophers got 27 of their 31 points from their bench, led by 11 from Devron Bostick.
Consecutive triples by Lawrence Westbrook and Damian Johnson increased Minnesota's lead back up to 12 four and half minutes into the second stanza before Northwestern made its move.
A 19-5 run was capped by a Michael Thompson runner in the lane that put the Wildcats ahead 49-47 with 7:46 to go. Thompson scored the final six points of the surge that put the ninth-seed 'Cats in front.
Despite all the momentum that was in Northwestern's corner, the offense suddenly stalled as it was held without a field goal for the next seven minutes and four seconds. A 14-point run by the eight-seeded Gophers helped them survive to advance to a quarterfinal round matchup against top-seeded Michigan State on Friday.
The Wildcats held a 34-32 rebounding advantage but could not overcome 32.7 percent shooting from the field. Westbrook scored all 14 of his game-high point total following the intermission for Minnesota.
