Buie trumps Young in battle of the Big Ten's best guards
EVANSTON-Northwestern staved off red-hot Maryland and Jahmir Young to capture a 72-69 win at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Wednesday night.
Buie led Northwestern with 20 points and seven assists, scoring the crucial go-ahead layup with 22 seconds left and thwarting Young's pull-up defensively.
Head coach Chris Collins lauded Buie's efforts on the side of the ball he's far less known for.
"Boo is our best perimeter defender with his experience, his quickness," Collins said. "You just have to be careful. I can't have on Young the whole game because we're expecting him to make a lot of plays for us on offense, especially in a game like this.
"When it came down to it, we knew Young was going to get the ball in isolation and Boo wanted to guard him. We wanted him on there so it was a natural thing."
Setting aside Buie's late-game, two-way heroics, Young was magnificent. He scored 36 points on 12-for-19 shooting, outscoring the rest of his roster which compiled only 33.
The Wildcats pulled off the home win by turning Maryland over 13 times and getting double-digits from Brooks Barnhizer, Ty Berry and Matt Nicholson.
Here are our takeaways from the battle from two of the nation's best guards:
Buie and Young delivered a barn burner: Young scored the last 10 points for the Terrapins, Buie scored six straight to match Young's outburst and retake the lead for good with 20 seconds left.
It wasn't just two of the Big Ten's best guards playing, it was two of America's.
"I remember D'Angelo Russell doing something similar to us my first or second year," Collins said, comparing Young to the No. 2 pick of the 2015 NBA Draft. "You have to tip your hat to him, we were trying everything...
"I think you saw two of the better guards, forget about the Big Ten, in the country, make a lot of plays."
The Wildcats knew Young was getting the ball every time down and still barely staunched the flow of points in time. It all came down to Buie on defense in the closing seconds, a responsibility he relished.
"I was thinking we got to get a stop, we're up one point, he was getting downhill all game," he said. "I took a lot of pride in getting a stop, I was able to get him to take a tough one and he missed."
Wildcats were ready for the bright lights: Collins talked at length about how far the program has come in moments like these. Young hit a difficult, step-back, late-game 3-pointer just before the shot-clock buzzer to give Maryland a 68-67 lead with 29 seconds to go.
Northwestern was unfazed.
"It's never about trying to lose, but I think when you're emerging as a program, the one thing about the winning programs is there's a cockiness, an arrogance that we're supposed to win," Collins said about the Wildcats' late-game performance compared to previous seasons. "I think as we've been building and tried to get over the hump and be a consistent winner, I think at times instead of 'We're going to win' it was 'I hope we win.'
"Now, when we're in huddles, the way guys are talking in the last four minutes, and you don't always win, but the way we're talking now is, 'This is what we do'. It's a close game, this is where we get a stop, this is where we score. We're going to win this game."
And win they did, picking up their 13th win of the season and their fourth in Big Ten play. The Wildcats moved to 4-2 for the sole possession of third in the conference, a half-game behind Purdue and a full game behind Wisconsin.
Big night for Big Matt: Nicholson had his best game of the year weighted for the opponent, bringing 10 points and seven rebounds to the table in 31 minutes. Nicholson had been moved to the bench in favor of Luke Hunger in recent games, while keeping a sizeable chunk of his minutes.
Collins hoped to jolt the big man back to life. Four games in, it worked.
Nicholson threw down multiple dunks off of lobs or feeds past Maryland's zone and was absolutely critical to Northwestern's success.
"I'm really proud of Matt," Collins said. "Coming off the bench has been his best three games of the season, his energy, his fight...
"I've seen that start to come back out, which is huge for us. We need Matt, he knows it. He gives us 31 minutes tonight, 10 points, seven rebounds, protects our basket, big blocked shot late, and his ability to be a lob threat is huge."
Collins hinted that at this rate, Nicholson may soon be back in the starting lineup. He's often only had to wait two or three minutes into the game to sub in for Hunger anyways.
Buie reflected on his and the program's past: Buie is normally to the point and professional in his postgame responses, but after going toe-to-toe with Young and coming out a winner, he opened up a bit more than usual talking about the experiences that built the player he is today.
He lofted in two long floaters, one to beat the first-half buzzer and another late in the second half from about 17 feet away. He talked about the necessity of learning that shot on outdoor courts in his youth, playing with his older brothers and larger players.
"I grew up shooting the floater my whole life because I always played at the park," he said. "No one can shoot outside. Those double rims? With the wind? I was also small, super skinny and weak, not that I'm big and strong right now.
"But I used to always play against the older guys. I have a lot of older brothers and a bunch of them played Division I, so they were bigger, older and stronger, and I had to find ways to get my shot off or it would be blocked. There was no letting me score, stuff like that. It was just find a way to get a shot off."
He also reflected on how far the team has come since he came into the program as a freshman five years ago.
"When I first arrived here, we didn't really have any leadership from a team standpoint," he said. "We had great coaches but the group wasn't connected.
"That's something we focused on last season, being connected and on the same page. Also our toughness. We're just a lot more tough than my first couple years here... That's the difference, our toughness and relentlessness."