Shurna-nuff; ‘Cats Survive Penn State
By Lake The Posts on
A questionable call finally goes the way of NU and they manage to pull a rabbit out of the Bryce Jordan Center to keep the Tournament dream alive.
Raise your hand if you thought in the final minute we were going to win that game. OK, family members, players and coaches put your hands down. OK, see what I mean? The weight of history was readily apparent in the final moments in our road hell also known as the Bryce Jordan Center. Yet, down 66-65 with :20 to go and the shot clock differential in our favor, the electrifying Tim Frazier broke Reggie Hearn down at the point and penetrated. Northwestern’s help defense came to Hearn’s rescue, but the slick Frazier slid a pass to Jon Graham in the post and he got hit by Drew Crawford with 14.1 to go. Crawford was irate at the call, but it seemed to be the right one. Graham, a 43% FT shooter stepped to the line.
At this moment I once again had succumbed to history. “Why can we not win in this building?” I said outloud. I was certain Graham would make at least one of two and I was banking on the fact we would lose. I told my wife that I hate being so pessimistic, but the graphic on our NCAA Tournament infertility every two minutes just compounds how much weight is on us to break this streak. Graham clangs the first one. My wife said “there is plenty of time and worst case they’re down by two.” As I was about to say “no, worse case, they get the rebound”, Graham missed the second FT and Shurna grabbed the rebound. This was it. Everyone watching – from Northwestern fans to ESPN bracket experts knew – a loss and we were done for the season.
Sobolewski got the outlet pass and raced up court. He passed to the right wing where Hearn got the rock with :09 to go. John Shurna, double-teamed, came across the paint and pleaded for the ball. Hearn obliged. As John took the pass he got raked across the arm and was clearly fouled, but there was no call. No, John was too busy turning in one motion to get a shot off and then, well, something that happens to teams that go the Big Dance every year happened – he caught a lucky break. Penn State’s #25 hit Shurna – according to the refs – and the whistle blew. Two shots for John Shurna with just over :02 to go. Did we really just get that call? ESPNU analyst and WGN regular Dave Kaplan seemed to think he got hit on the right arm. The awful trajectory of the shot led you to believe something happened. Tim Frazier went nuts as did head coach Patrick Chambers and the half-full arena. John Shurna would be stepping to the line for two shots with a chance to save our season. The school’s all-time leading scorer and potential program savior was about to experience pressure like I can’t remember. This was setting up to crush my soul.
John had missed two FTs badly early in the game and there was zero pressure then. Northwestern had blown a 9-point second half lead and was not only facing the history of losing in this building, I swear the ghosts of the NCAA Tournament past were coming out of the floor. If we needed any more reminders, ESPNU would have put up the “close game losses” graphic for the 42nd time. No matter how you sliced it, the NCAA Tournament chances came down to these FTs. Shurna hits them and we hold on, we’re very much alive. He misses both and we are done for the year. The first one goes in with a ton of confidence. 66-66. Phew.
I eye the 2.6 seconds left and realize a 30-foot buzzer beater is still potentially in the cards. Carmody wisely puts the defensive-minded Cobb in to replace Alex Marcotullio, who was a huge part of NU’s 15 3-point barrage on the night. Penn State calls a timeout to ice Shurna and Chambers is going nuts. Oh yeah, there is the ESPNU graphic for the 43rd time on our close losses – Illinois, Michigan, Purdue and Indiana – as if to compound the history factor a little bit more. John Shurna steps to the line with the crowd going nuts and Penn State players jumping up and down in the lane to distract him. He calmly drains the FT. 67-66. Are you kidding? Did we just…
Wait. Inbounds pass of the 50-foot variety to Tim Frazier. JerShon Cobb narrowly missed the steal and there is Frazier letting it go from 35-feet and it looks on the mark. SHORT! ‘CATS WIN! ‘CATS WIN!!! And there goes Patrick Chambers chasing the ref…I don’t blame him, but..wait…oh my God is he going to punch him? Forget Paternoville, we just escaped bizzaroville.
Northwestern keeps the NCAA dream alive, barely, and we win for only the third time in Happy Valley in 18 tries. John Shurna just defied the odds and we pulled it out. This game was not a resume builder. It was a season saver. The “no bad losses”, meaning no losses to a team with 100 RPI or worse, stayed in tact. It’s the best line on our resume. P-H-E-W.
Our defense was simply awful tonight. Penn State shot over 60% in the second half and that is because they had lay-up after dunk after lay-up as our ball pressure dissolved just like our lead did. Thank God, we came to shoot the three tonight. Patrick Chambers did what I would do if I ever coached against us – he played zone. I can talk about it now, but it’s the running joke among NU fans that know hoops on why other B1G coaches don’t do the same. We look downright silly out there against a zone as we have five guys pass the ball back and forth around the perimeter for 90% of the shot clock before we launch a three. We finally figured out the need to penetrate and kick to create open looks and man did we convert.
Northwestern converted a grand total of seven 2-point FGs and won a Big Ten game. Wait, it’s worse. We were 7-21 (33%) inside the arc – and won. NU was a remarkable 15-29 from 3-pointland and there was plenty of love to throw around. Alex Marcotullio was 4-6 from deep. Drew Crawford, silent for much of the second half, was huge early going 4-5 for the game from beyond the arc. John Shurna was in “give me the rock” mode and went just 3-9 from deep, but hit two huge ones. Reggie Hearn hit 2-4 and Sobo had a big one along with JerShon.
The audio on the telecast made the rims feel tight as anything that hit any iron clanged loudly. Good thing for NU was the fact from deep there was simply a lot of net. This game featured the two leading scorers in the Big Ten with Shurna and Tim Frazier and down the stretch it became a point, counter-point duel. NU gets low marks for help defense on Frazier, who continually burned NU, but in fairness, his explosiveness has burned most teams this season. Frazier and Shurna would end up in a scoring draw, both netting out with 23 points on the night. Northwestern was crushed on the boards once again 37-22, yet managed to do just enough to escape with their seventh Big Ten win of the season.
Purdue all but clinched a Tournament bid with a major upset of Michigan in Ann Arbor, earlier tonight. Now, Northwestern lived another day to host Ohio State on Wednesday night which may still not be a must win game based on bubble activity, but could be a clincher should we pull out the upset and then beat Iowa. However, it looked as though those games were going to be formalities after Penn State seized control of this game down the stretch after we had them on the ropes.
This was a game of contrasting styles. Penn State’s gameplan was to pound it inside. Well, mission accomplished as they outscored us 40-10 in the paint. Their defense dictated that we’d have to beat them deep. Well, mission accomplished as we outscored them 45-9 from three. What an odd, odd game.
JerShon Cobb continues to improve his game with more minutes and he hit some very clutch shots tonight as his total points seem to need a multiplier effect (he had 5 points). David Sobolewski went MIA after an incredible first half. Alex stepped up and hit four threes evenly spread throughout the game. As mentioned, Drew was huge early but then went silent. John Shurna, as Bill Carmody mentioned in the postgame, simply answered the call to be “the man” and put us on his back. He was a beast down the stretch simply taking key shot after key shot – missing several, but muscling his way to get points when we needed them most. As a result, Northwestern’s dream is very much alive.
Wednesday matters. Next Saturday matters. ESPN is calling it Judgment Week and the verdict is very much up in the air on our NCAA Tournament status, but we just took a step in the right direction and will reamain on the inside of the bubble until further notice (btw, Seton Hall lost to Rutgers today in OT). We could make it much easier by upsetting Ohio State on senior night in Evanston on Wednesday. However, you know better. Nothing is easy when it comes to NU hoops. As the final shots of the game on ESPNU were telecast you could see Bill Carmody lining up for a postgame interview with his hand trembling while he grabbed a drink of water. Wildcat Nation was with him as the postgame stress syndrome is taking its toll on all of us. However, when it is in the form of victory, it makes it much easier to deal with.
Rest up folks, Wednesday will be here before you know it.
I was cheering on the Cats at my neighborhood bar with a few other NU faithful…and what a night it was!
I will SEE YOU AT WELSH-RYAN ARENA ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT!!!!
GO CATS!
Excellent wrap up LTP. Reading your post was like you were speaking out loud my thoughts as the game unfolded. And I’m sure you were echoing all all of LTP Nation as well.
We finally finished a close one. Like the color announcer said early in the broadcast, NU will be dangerous in the BIG Tourney, and watch out if we make the Dance. Go Cats!
Carmody has adapted the Moneyball Model
The nice thing about this win is that Shurna was not really carrying the team on his back until the very end. His 3 point shooting was 33% while the team average was over 50% – and that is even including Shurna’s pulling the team average down.
When we can pull out a win with Shurna having a bad day coming off a not so great personal performance against Michigan either, says a lot about where the rest of the team is at this point. If Shurna gets back to what he is capable of doing by Wednesday and the team in-the-paint scoring improves (it can’t get any worse than it was tonight) we can win against Ohio State in our own house.
I’m not a very religious man, but I burned a few favors with the big guy upstairs last night.
I watched the whole game thinking how bad we really are. And how bad the bubble must be. in previous years this is an nit bubble team.
Wrong board, dude.
Phew indeed. We deserve a win like this. I think this team IS NCAA tournament material, and we WILL be tough to prepare for in the tourney. BTW, why couldn’t Michigan be as cold shooting against us as they were against Purdue??
I was very cool to see how quickly and cold bloodedly Shurna drained those free throws. Carmody said e wanted the ball. And he knew what to do with it.
Why couldn’t michigan be as cold shooting? Because our defense is terrible. Michigan shot terribly against us in two games actually, despite wide open looks. Purdue is not a great team, but they are well coached and do things needed to win. This Nu team can’t defend a good team and can’t rebound. Why anyone thinks this team is any more dangerous than nu in previous years is beyond me. Same talent, same problems. We are an easy team to beat in a tournament, just like last year and the year before and the year before that because we can’t rebound and can’t defend.
Do you anything about basketball? Any idea why certain sets work againoaks one vs man? Take your grouchy, empty “contributions” to a board of whiners…..
I’m sure I know more than you about bball. The 1-3-1 is a gimmick defense good for forcing a team out of sync for a bit until they figure it out. Bad teams don’t figure it out so it works pretty well. Against teams that have shooters and good passers from the pg it can only work for so long until they start getting the hang of dribbling to the middle or quick passes to the corner where they can drain wide open 3 pointers. Novak, a 3 point shooter, missed 4 wide open 3s in regulation before finally hitting one in ot. Same with Hardaway Jr. If they hit a few of those earlier (which are probably 50-70% shots for most “shooters”) in the game (instead they shot about 15 percentage points below their season average in regulation), we lose in regulation and before that we probably have to come out of the 1-3-1 defense and switch back to man. In our man we have trouble guarding a guy like burke or hardaway and a big man like morgan and would probably have been beaten in a different way. Dont criticize if you dont know what you are talking about.
From EXPN: “David Kaplan and Jim Barbar break down Northwestern’s 67-66 win over Penn State.” They say they watched the replay six or seven times and it was clearly a foul that sent Shurna to the line. I’m glad they could see that,,,,,,and I believe them.
I must admit to wussing out. I watched most of the first half, but the six point half time lead was too reminiscent of recent horrors. So I came back for the last minute. I thought the Cardiac ‘Cats were the football team!
I was in Columbus for the first game against dOSU. It was an embarassment. The Buckeyes destroyed the ‘Cats. Shurna was a non-factor. It is highly unlikely that we can upset the Buckeyes, even at home, on Senior night. We were lucky to walk away from last night’s game with a ‘W’. The defense was terrible in the paint. Rebounding, forget about it. Do you think Sullinger et al. will be easier to defend against? If Carmody is as good a coach as Dave Kaplan of ESPN said last night, he better come up with a coaching miracle against dOSU.
I know I should be happy for the win, and I am, but I’m also honestly battling the glass half full/glass half empty thing.
Half full is easy: A road win. In a place we have hardly ever won. With the weight of the world on the team’s shoulders to win a game they’re supposed to win. In a game where a loss could mean the end of their NCAA dreams. By hitting 2 free throws trailing with 2 seconds left.
Half empty is also pretty easy, though: We struggled mightily (again) at the start of both the 1st and 2nd halves. We gave up layups and dunks all night. And could not seem to make layups of our own. And it seemed like the weight of the world was more noticeable tonight. And thank goodness we were hitting our 3s. But the worst is that if members of the selection committee were watching, I fear that performance did not pass the eye test.
That said, this next week should be fun. I still believe we need to at least win the 1st game in Indy regardless of opponent, but being “in” with 1 week to go in the regular season is awesome.
For any of you in the Evanston area, I hope you’ll all go to WRA on Wednesday night. Need the place to rock.
Amazing how winning a game like this changes perceptions. Same team same crappy coach. Considering what people imagine a big 6 ncaa team to be, does anyone really think nu is legit?
Hmmm….it seems the trolls are out today.
Absolutely.
Imagine the glee they’d have if we’d lost.
There’s no doubt that the ‘Cats are flawed. But so are the supermajority of teams in D1. Yeesh.
No doubt. Being very neutral in the whole Carmody hating/loving thing, I can only say that it is weird to watch this years version of the cats get closer than any other to the dance. This years team is clearly more flawed than the past few years versions, because we haven’t replaced thompson’s consistency, and the defense is still bad. But this is how things fall in college bball.
Good call. Will be fun when NU sweeps this week. Go Cats!
I will say one thing about the Carmody thing. The whole “I’m never gonna call a timeout with the game on the line thing” is really really dumb. Evidence: It has never ever worked this season, or in previous seasons. The only reason it “worked” last night is because Shurna got lucky on a foul call. Carmody is decent at drawing up plays. Why not utilize that in an end of game situation?? Makes very little sense.