By Adam Fusfeld

For the second straight game, a major-conference opponent entered Welsh-Ryan Arena with high hopes, only to leave with their heads hanging in defeat.

Northwestern (6-1) started Saturday’s game with a 7-0 run, and did not look back on its way to a 63-36 victory over local rival DePaul. A Craig Moore 3-pointer sandwiched between two Kevin Coble jumpers ignited this early lead. On the other end, the Blue Demons (4-2) turned the ball over twice, and converted on only one of their first 12 attempts from the floor to facilitate the Wildcats’ early advantage.

“We came out really aggressively and we stopped what they wanted to do,” junior forward Kevin Coble said. “We stuck with our stuff, we ran through so much in such a short period of time that we made them play 25-30 seconds of defense. As the possession goes on, it’s hard to guard it for that long. Teams don’t usually like to play that much defense.”

The offense was not the only thing slowing DePaul’s usually frenetic pace to a crawl. Entering the game DePaul had been averaging 71.0 points per contest. But coming off a west coast trip, and missing the Big East’s leading rebounder Mac Koshwal hurt even more.

In the first half they were held to 15 points on 21 percent shooting.

“I didn’t think our problems were defensively,” DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright said. “I thought obviously our problems were offensively. You put such strain on your defense when you don’t score.”

Meanwhile the Cats didn’t face any problems offensively. The team shot 46.4 percent from the field including 40 percent from beyond the arc. Coble led NU with 25 points, and senior guard Craig Moore chipped in 14.

After the game, Coble won the Waldo Fisher-Frank McGrath Award as the game’s most valuable player. Coble, who also won it in 2006, became the first player from either team to win the award twice since the Cats’ Bill McKinney did it in 1975 and 1976.

“Him and Craig are our main scorers,” sophomore guard Michael Thompson said. “And Kevin was really hot today. So every time I came down the court he was my first option –- as he is in practice. Even on our out-of-bounds plays, sometimes the play is not for him, but I look for him because I know he’s going to make that basket.”

Lost among Coble and Moore’s scoring outputs, was Thompson’s good game. Though the point guard finished with just seven points, he finished with eight assists against only one turnover, and “orchestrated everything flawlessly” according to coach Bill Carmody.

Defensively, the Cats were able to stop the Blue Demons’ leading scorer, forward Dar Tucker. Though the sophomore finished with 17 points, he shot just 6-of-20 thanks in part to NU’s defensive gameplanning.

“He’s a very, very good player,” Carmody said. “They were trying to isolate him on the low post there, and I thought we defended him fairly well and doubled him when we could. You can see what he did starting the second half, it wasn’t like we were far away from the guy, but he pulled twice on the wing for threes. But when he got to the basket, I thought our defense was actually pretty good.”

The Cats can take the momentum from this game into the finals week break. The blowout win over DePaul was another sign that this year’s team is different from one’s years past.

“I think they (the Cats) are a little bit different this year, I think they are a little more aggressive,” Wainwright said. “My hat’s off to Bill (Carmody), I think that he has enough guys now where they’re subbing and they’re playing a little faster.”

adamfusfeld2007@u.northwestern.edu

The defense has kept up its intensity early in the second half. DePaul has found some more holes and is starting to score a little, but Northwestern has answered offensively too. It is no longer just Kevin Coble scoring — although he is still producing, scoring seven already in the half — as the Wildcats hold a 45-27 lead with 11:59 to play.

The Blue Demons’ Dar Tucker is not letting his team fall away completely. He came out hot early, making a few 3-pointers. The sophomore now has 12 points, inching closer to his 20-point average. But the Cats have had an answer.

Craig Moore and John Shurna have started to take and hit more shots as the ball is moving around nicely and picking apart the DePaul defense. NU is still struggling when Coble is not in the game, but the team is still relying heavily on its defense to hold the lead.

The Blue Demons have been unable to mount any serious run so far as they continue to struggle from the field, still shooting below 30 percent. The defense has found a nice groove after an impressive performance against Florida State on Wednesday and into today’s game. It does not even feel like DePaul is getting any good looks at the basket and the team has had few offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities.

Northwestern is once again putting a defensive number on its opponents. DePaul came into the game averaging 71.0 points per game, led by Dar Tucker’s 20.8 points per game. Neither have played well as far as putting points on the scoreboard.

The Blue Demons are shooting only six of 29 from the field and have scored just 15 as the Wildcats lead 31-15 at the half. Tucker has only four points.

Give all the credit to the defense. DePaul has not had good looks at the basket in this game. NU’s 2-3 matchup zone defense is preventing any player from getting an open look at the basket. No one on the Blue Demons has more than four points and no one is shooting better than 33.3 percent in the game. Turnovers are not DePaul’s issue. The team is just not hitting shots. The Cats’ strong defense deserves all the credit.

What might be more surprising is that NU is not leading by more.

The Cats are not doing too great from the field either (although not as bad). They are shooting 44.4 percent. But most of that offense is coming from junior forward Kevin Coble. He has 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting — the rest of the team has made only five shots.

DePaul has not closed the gap to less than 10 points for long in this game since NU took a commanding 7-0 lead early in the game. But the Blue Demons can put pu points and will make adjustments at halftime. While the Cats are playing fantastic on defense, they cannot rely on Coble to provide all of their offense. If the DePaul offensive juggernaut (OK, that might be hyperbole) awakens and starts scoring in bunches, NU will find itself in trouble and losing another halftime lead.

The Blue Demons will make a run of some sort in this game. The Cats have to be ready to respond at the beginning of the second half and put this game away early in the period.