Thursday, February 26, 2009

Northwestern 75, Indiana 53.

Here's the box score. IU looked good in the first 10 minutes, but NU dominated the last 30 minutes of the game and won for the first time at Assembly Hall, and the first time in Bloomington since 1968. Lake the Posts has an understandably joyful post on the significance of the win. Among the tidbits I could have lived without knowing: this was Northwestern's most lopsided Big Ten road win since a win over the University of Chicago in 1944. It's also IU's most lopsided loss to Northwestern since a 40-16 loss in 1914, also in Bloomington. It's also only the fourth time that NU has won in Bloomington by a double digit margin (1914, 1916, 1963). As for the game itself, maybe I will check back in when I have more time, but probably not. NU simply dominated that game. IU had difficulty finding good looks and missed some that were open. Devan Dumes and Matt Roth were badly off from three point range. Northwestern converted on nearly all of its opportunities: 6-7 from behind the arc in the second half and 65 percent from the field. IU's 17 turnovers in a 61 possession game weren't the worst output of this season by far (27.8 percent), but NU turned the ball over only 11 times.
Before the Big Ten season, I said that I wanted IU to win two games: the home games against Penn State and Northwestern, because neither team had ever won in Bloomington and I didn't want those streaks to end under these circumstances. Mission not accomplished, but thank god for Iowa.

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