Purdue knocked off No. 1-ranked Arizona on Saturday. Michigan State blew the doors off No. 6 Baylor. Ohio State beat UCLA, and Indiana hung tough in a four-point loss to No. 2 Kansas.
That’s the high-level basketball played by Big Ten teams on one particular day of the college basketball calendar.
Oh, and what about Northwestern? Well, the Wildcats outscored DePaul 56-46 at Wintrust Arena. And that’s using “outscore” very loosely.
Wildcats coach Chris Collins called it a “rock fight.” That’s probably an insult to rocks, unless he was referring to the shots heaved up by two teams that looked like they were giving the whole shooting thing a whirl for the first time.
Let’s not belabor the hideous stats, but here goes: Northwestern (8-2) shot 8-for-32 from three-point range. Where we come from, that’s a puny success rate of 25%. And then — cover your eyes, plug your ears — there were the Blue Demons (2-8), who went 4-for-22 (11.1%) from deep.
We only wish we were as clever as the follower on social media who called this game — hilariously — “bowling-shoe ugly.”
Come to think of it, that’s definitely an insult to bowling shoes.
“I thought our guys were really locked in defensively against a very good Northwestern team, a very well-coached team, a very experienced team, and I thought our guys competed tonight,” DePaul coach Tony Stubblefield said. “It’s just one of those nights when we couldn’t buy a basket.”
There have been far too many of those on Stubblefield’s watch, his record at the school now 27-47. Not that being so far under .500 sets him apart from many of his predecessors. It’s going to be another long season for the Blue Demons in an underrated-as-ever Big East.
The Wildcats, on the other hand, are merely a few games removed from a highlight of highlights, a second upset in as many seasons over a No. 1-ranked Purdue team. But as college basketball fans have been puzzling over the last few days, the same NU squad that was good enough to spill the Boilermakers was also awful enough to lose Wednesday at home to Chicago State.
Was an ugly win against DePaul really that much better? Sure. Winning always is.
“The difference between tonight and the game with Chicago State was we just played defense,” said Brooks Barnhizer, who scored all 11 of his points in the second half.
Star Boo Buie called the Wildcats “unconnected and not ready to play” against Chicago State. This time, they weren’t markedly better as they slogged to a 25-25 halftime tie. But they did have Barnhizer in the second half and did have sixth man Nick Martinelli in the first. Martinelli scored 12 in the first half, a beacon in a storm of sloppy offense.
“I thought he was fantastic,” Collins said of Martinelli.
Well, he wasn’t bad at all. One or two guys had to rise at least to that description or else it could have been another really bad loss to another really down-and-out city team.
“We got what we deserved Wednesday night,” Collins said, “and then we bounced back and got what we deserved today.”
The Wildcats came in as the nation’s 25th-ranked team — and got their first road win as a ranked team since Jan. 4, 1969 — but there is zero chance of them being in the Top 25 when the new poll comes out Monday. They could’ve beaten DePaul by a 100 without changing that.
And they shouldn’t be ranked, not yet — clearly.
