Northwestern looked like a team that had a little too much egg nog during the Christmas break for much of its matinee matchup with Brown on Wednesday at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
But the Cats got 24 points from Chase Audige and shook off the rust to rally in the second half and post a 63-58 win over their feisty Ivy League opponents.
It was the fifth straight win for the Wildcats, who will now open the heart of Big Ten play on Sunday with a New Year's Day contest against Ohio State.
Audige scored 14 points in the second half as the Wildcats overcame a 31-30 halftime deficit. Northwestern didn't really take control until the midpoint of the second half, building their largest lead of the game, 48-37, with 9:23 left.
But even then, Brown, which was led by Kino Lilly Jr.'s 17 points, managed to hang around, and the Wildcats were never really able to breathe easily.
Coming off of a pair of 38-point wins, the Wildcats looked sluggish offensively against Brown. They shot 34% for the game and made just 4 of 21 3-pointers. Audige, Boo Buie (15 points) and Ty Berry (12) were the only Cats who scored in double-figures.
Here are our takeaways from the victory that upped Northwestern's record to 10-2 on the season:
Northwestern's offense was stagnant: The Wildcats struggled making shots throughout the game, but particularly in the first half, when they went 2-for-12 from deep and had just four assists on 11 baskets.
Things didn't improve much in the second half, either, as Northwestern hit 2-of-9 from long distance and 32.1% overall, despite several wide-open looks at the basket.
The Wildcats' offense -- rarely a thing of beauty -- was downright ugly for a lot of this one. They spent a lot of time passing the ball around the perimeter before launching 3-pointers that missed far more often than they hit.
Despite a significant height advantage, Northwestern's three primary frontcourt players -- Robbie Beran, Matt Nicholson and Tydus VerHoeven -- combined for just two baskets and eight total points.
Defense bailed out the Cats: With the offense stuck in neutral, Northwestern's defense is what pulled the team out of the muck and avoided what would have been an embarrassing home loss in the final game of 2022.
Northwestern finished with nine steals and 19 points off of turnovers to spark the offense. Berry led the way with three thefts.
In the first half alone the Wildcats had seven steals, which helped offset Brown's hot shooting. The Bears hit 6-of-9 3-pointers in the first half, including three from Lilly.
Lilly finished with 17 points to lead Brown, but he had just six of them in the second half, when he was held to 1-for-6 shooting as the Wildcats put the clamps on him.
Northwestern’s backcourt carried them: Audige (24 points), Buie and Berry together scored all but 12 of the Wildcats' points on Wednesday.
With no post scorer and very little ball movement, the Wildcats relied on Audige and Buie to create and hit shots against a Brown team that forced Northwestern into an uncharacteristic 14 turnovers.
Audige and Buie dominated the game in the second half, combining for 23 points and scoring all but two of Northwestern's buckets.
Neither one had a particularly efficient game -- Buie made just 1-of-7 3-pointers, while Audige turned the ball over four times in the second half alone. But they did enough to get the win in a game where little else was going right.
Red-hot Audige hit a milestone: Audige scored the 1,000th point of his Wildcat career against Brown. ,The fifth-year senior, who transferred to Northwestern after one year at William & Mary, has been on a scoring tear over the last couple weeks.
Audige scored a career-high 28 points against DePaul on Dec. 17, and followed that up with 19 against UIC on Dec. 20. With 24 against Brown, Audige is averaging 23.6 points per game in the last three contests. He has now scored in double figures in eight straight games.
Audige leads Northwestern in scoring with a 15.3-point average per game, and is also No. 1 on the team in steals, with 31.
