Halftime: Take the lead when you can get it
It was a good half of basketball, if you enjoy building houses. The teams combined to shoot 17 for 50, or 34 percent, as neither could gain any offensive consistency. That is what happens when you have a guy like UC Riverside’s Jesse LoBue trying to bank every shot he takes.
Northwestern built a comfortable lead with an 11-0 run that began with about 10 minutes left. The Wildcats have secured a XX-XX lead thanks to a swarming press defense that has forced some turnovers.
But overall, no one can be happy with the effort NU had in the first half. It is clear by the 18-point margin that the team can (and probably will) easily defeat this team. But the play on the court has shown there is still plenty of work to do.
The Cats shot decently going 11 for 25 from the field. But most of that came at the end of the game.
When was NU successful? The team built its lead when it started driving to the basket and forcing some action. The team struggled when it settled for quick 3-pointers and did not work through the offense. The Cats are three for 12 from beyond the arc.
I would expect this to be corrected in the second half and for NU to learn from its previous mistakes — blowing first half leads against Butler and Brown in the last two games — and finish UC Riverside early tonight.
Junior guard Craig Moore leads the team with 10 points and sophomore guard Michael Thompson has eight.
