Men’s Hoops: NU learns to play with lead
By Philip Rossman-Reich
Northwestern has not been in this position often in recent years. Holding a double-digit lead throughout the second half, coach Bill Carmody was able to empty his bench for the third time in five games with about a minute to play Monday night against UC Riverside.
In three of the Wildcats’ four wins this season, they have held a substantial lead and had to hold on to it in the second half to pull out the victory. The results with these leads have been a bit mixed.
“We’ve had leads at halftime this year, some pretty sizeable leads and lost them,” Carmody said. “That’s what we talked about at halftime. You can’t just try to maintain and coast out and finish the game. You have to a killer instinct there and have an edge and go after guys. We haven’t gotten to that point.”
NU eventually pulled out the win Monday night, but lost the second half 29-27 to UC Riverside. It was not the first time the Cats struggled to hold a large lead after 20 minutes.
NU (4-1) clamped down on Central Arkansas in an 81-39 opening game win, but faced some struggles in closing out Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Brown in its next two games.
The Cats defeated the Islanders by a 66-48 score, but let an 18-point lead dwindle to 10 points before scoring 11 of the final 14. NU grabbed a 22-point halftime lead against Brown, but led by only six at one point the second half before pulling away for a 73-64 win.
The Cats held a 12-point first half lead against Butler last week. But the Bulldogs erased the deficit – and a nine-point halftime margin – and snuck out a victory.
Learning how to hold on to a lead is something NU is learning on the fly.
“It’s something we try to improve on every game,” said freshman center Kyle Rowley who scored 10 points against UC Riverside. “So far the games we have played, teams have started to make runs. I think the biggest thing for us to do right now, looking forward especially to Florida State, is to stop that run, be able to play a 40-minute game and keep that intensity up all game long.”
The Cats took an 18-point lead to the half Monday and gave up little ground to the Highlanders before putting the game out of reach. UC Riverside scored five quick points at the beginning of the half to close the lead to 13 and did it again about midway through the second half with a 10-3 run.
The Highlanders trimmed the lead down to 11 with about four minutes to play after Aaron Scott made a fast break layup (he missed a chance to cut the lead to 10 after sophomore guard Michael Thompson fouled him on the shot).
But each time NU responded and extended the lead back out, preventing UC Riverside from closing the gap any further and threatening a pretty safe NU lead.
“Teams are going to make runs – whether it be in the first half, second half. Basketball is a game of runs,” senior guard Craig Moore said. “It’s about minimizing those runs. If they make a run, we have to keep scoring and not let them get an 8-0 run. It’s all about winning the battle of runs basically.”
prossmanreich@u.northwestern.edu
