Northwestern storms back in the second half for gritty win at Penn State
The Wildcats bounced back from a 40-32 halftime deficit to pick up their first Big Ten win of the season on the road, 76-72 over Penn State.
With inclement weather and a streaky start, the crowd at the Bryce Jordan Center was far from fearsome. But the Nittany Lions on the court certainly were, especially on defense. They scratched and clawed, forcing 18 Wildcat turnovers, but the play from Northwestern's backcourt was just too strong.
Brooks Barnhizer led the way with a career-high 23 points, Boo Buie supplied 17 points, five rebounds and eight assists, and Ty Berry was the last leg of the stool with 16 points.
The Wildcats absolutely shot the lights out with a 61% mark from the field and 58% from three, but this game was still a slugfest down the stretch. Penn State seemed to have the game firmly in hand through the first frame, stretching their lead to 10 at one point, but could never quite put the Wildcats away.
Then, with 13:23 left in the second half, it all fell into place. Northwestern rattled off a 15-0 run with four different scorers to flip Penn State's eight-point lead into a seven-point deficit by the 9:18 mark. Once the Wildcats took the lead on a tried-and-true hook shot from Nick Martinelli with 11:25 left, they never relinquished it.
Here are our takeaways from the win that lifted the Wildcats' record to 12-3 overall and 3-1 in Big Ten play:
Barnhizer's star shone brightest: Even as Martinelli provided valuable buckets, and Buie and Berry both turned in exceptional games, the virtuoso performance from Barnhizer deserves the shine.
After having his hand encased in a bulky wrap to protect ligament damage suffered in practice in December, and two single-digit scoring performances against Purdue and Illinois, the wrap is down to some minimal tape and Barnhizer is back in business.
After combining for 17 points in those first two conference games, Barnhizer poured in 17 in the second half tonight alone. He's scored 38 combined points in their last two wins over Michigan State and Penn State.
Barnhizer swiftly snuffed out the bubbling concern about his ability to score as a second option in the Big Ten, bullying his way to shots around the rim, creating space for his signature fallaway and utilizing his resurgent shooting touch to knock down a three and six of his seven free throws.
The backcourt is this team's backbone: Berry's table is ready. After three seasons of streaky play, the senior is putting it all together and it's marvelous to watch.
Since a rocky, scoreless performance against DePaul, Berry has put together a five-game stretch where he has scored 10 or more points while hitting 50% or more of his 3s in each game. He cracked 20 points in two of those game.
Tonight, it was merely 16 points on 5-for-8 shooting from the field and 4-for-5 from beyond the arc. He's shooting 45.6% from 3 this season, the best mark of his career and one that has him ranked among the conference's best.
Buie has been absolutely sensational; you can set your clock to the potential All-American. Even in the past two games, when teams have sent the house to guard him, he's shifted from dominant scorer to facilitator, finishing with 18 assists to just three turnovers against the Spartans and Nittany Lions.
It was a colder night for Ryan Langborg with just five points and a 1-for-3 performance at the line. But he weathered a battering from a physical Penn State press and still delivered key passes on time and on target in the game's final minutes. Plus, setting aside tonight's struggles, he's still shooting 39.3% on 3-pointers.
That's not one, but two Northwestern shooters reaching or hovering around the elite threshold of 40% through 15 games. All four guards average 10 or more points per game, and it's clear that this team isn't a one-man show.
Plot thickens at center: Luke Hunger got his second start of the season at center but finished with just 11 minutes played, only two of them in the second half. In the second frame, head coach Chris Collins opted to go back to the well of Matt Nicholson, who finished with a +4 plus/minus rating in 22 minutes, with five points, two boards and a block.
Nicholson's numbers didn't fly off the stat sheet, but it was one of his better performances of the season defensively, and a step back in the right direction for the senior big man who came into the year with big expectations.
To add yet another layer to who plays the 5 for the Wildcats, Collins turned another step down the bench and went to Martinelli in the middle for the final 2:30. Martinelli's scoring and free-throw shooting give the Wildcats another facet offensively they don't have with Nicholson or Blake Preston, who played just two minutes. We may not ever see Martinelli leave his super sixth-man role and start games but, similar to Barnhizer last season, we might be seeing him finish them out.
To parrot Gregg Popovich about Manu Ginobili back in the day, it doesn't matter who starts, it matters who closes and who wins. Right now, that's Martinelli.
No quit in this team: Time and time again, the Wildcats get up off the mat to fight again. Whether it was rallying from a bitterly disappointing Chicago State loss, or a bitterly disappointing Illinois loss or a bitterly disappointing first half at Penn State, each time this team takes a breath, resets and delivers at the next opportunity.
There were plenty of opportunities to pack it in when they trailed 40-32 at half on the road, and in the Big Ten no less. They didn't. There's a dogged relentlessness to this year's team that, again, has the makings of something special.
Out-rebounded, outscored in second-chance points and, in a true rarity, turned over more often than their opponents, it didn't matter to these Wildcats. They found a way to win a gritty game.
Two 75-plus point performances and the astonishing efficiency against the Lions might mean a regression to the mean in Saturday's matinee at No. 15 Wisconsin. But even if they come up short, it's clear that, based on their last two wins, this team is once again in the NCAA Tournament hunt.