MORE GAME COVERAGE: Cats outlast Indiana for third straight win l Post-game press conference
EVANSTON-Here are our takeaways from the Wildcats' third straight win, over Indiana, that lifted their record to 12-10 overall and 5-8 in Big Ten play:
Three in a row: After starting the conference season 2-8, Northwestern players and coaches vowed that the second half would be different. So far, it has been. Dramatically.
Northwestern is only three games into the second half of the conference season and they already have more wins than they did in the first half. Northwestern has two tough games coming up against Illinois and Purdue, but if they can find a way to win one, all of a sudden the Cats have an interesting tournament résumé. And even if they don't, they should have a shot at .500 in the league if they sweep their last five winnable games.
These last three games have been dubbed "must-wins" for the Cats, and they've delivered every time. Head coach Chris Collins has been under fire this year, but it's a testament to his leadership that his team is still giving it their all night in and night out despite how gloomy the outlook was a few weeks ago.
An old friend returns: At one point, it looked like Miller Kopp would be a key piece of helping Northwestern basketball get big wins. That ended up not being the case, as Kopp entered the transfer portal after three years at NU and ended up at Indiana.
It's safe to say that his return didn't go as planned. Kopp was booed by the Wildcat faithful every time he touched the ball and finished 1-for-7 from the field and only scored three points.
His former coach was less harsh than Wildcat fans, though.
"There's not anyone I've recruited harder since I've been here," said Collins. "He'll always have a home here."
The cherry on top was Kopp airballing a three-pointer with 28 seconds left to essentially seal the Northwestern win. It sent the crowd, including Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald, into hysterics.
All in all, it probably went about as well as Northwestern could have hoped. Kopp didn't make a big impact on the game, and the Wildcats walked out of Welsh-Ryan Arena with a win.
Cats win a close one: Collins came into his postgame media session and joked that he wouldn't get asked any questions about close games after this one. It wasn't always easy, but for one of the first times this season, Northwestern made key plays down the stretch.
Boo Buie hit a clutch floater, Northwestern got key stops and both Pete Nance and Ryan Greer hit clutch pairs of free throws in crunch time with the game in the balance. After Indiana cut Northwestern's lead to four points in the last three minutes, everything was setting up for this to be a game Northwestern lets slip in away in the closing moments, like they had against Maryland, Penn State and Michigan.
The Cats didn't back down in this one, though. Collins said that, in a way, needing overtime to beat Rutgers despite leading by as many as 24 last week was actually a good thing because it gave Northwestern confidence that they can win close games.
Shorthanded Hoosiers: The Wildcats can feel good about their victory, but it was against a depleted Hoosiers squad.
Indiana was without five players on Tuesday night due to suspension. They were starting guards Xavier Johnson and Parker Stewart, along with bench pieces Tamar Bates, Michael Durr and Christian Lander. Together, those five players average 27.1 points per game.
With Johnson and Stewart suspended and Rob Phinisee out with an injury, Indiana was left without a point guard and a very short bench that contributed just three points,
