How do you follow up arguably the biggest win in school history? By nipping No. 14 Indiana 64-62 on Wednesday night at Welsh-Ryan Arena on a Boo Buie basket with two seconds remaining that all but sewed up an NCAA Tournament berth and gave the Wildcats four wins over ranked teams in a season for the first time ever.
Northwestern and Indiana are two teams with eerily similar resumes, and they played an eerily similar game to their first matchup in Bloomington. The Wildcats once again raced out to a monster first-half lead, and once again were left holding on for dear life down the stretch.
This was the capstone on an incredible pair of games between two strong teams. Northwestern swept the season series over the Hoosiers for the first time since 2011 by an absurdly narrow margin of total victory: three points.
In the first game, Trey Galloway's three-quarter-court buzzer-beater left Indiana a point short in an 84-83 Wildcat win. In this matchup, a miscommunication on an inbounds pass gave Trayce Jackson-Davis an open layup that enabled IU to erase a 19-point halftime deficit and tie the game up at 62 with 28 seconds left.
But Buie put on the superhero cape yet again, and delivered a win yet again. Head coach Chris Collins let Buie get the inbounds. He calmly set up in space, blew past his defender and lofted in a floater over the outstretched arms of Jackson-Davis with just two seconds remaining.
And just like that, all the anxiety over watching a seemingly insurmountable lead disappear was gone.
Collins remarked on this team's special ability to close out games this season.
"In the past, it was almost like let's invent a way to lose tonight," he said. "Now, guys are finding ways to win because they believe in each other. We have a couple elite guards playing at a high level."
When those elite guards, Buie and Chase Audige, were asked if they thought they were the best backcourt in the Big Ten, the normally soft-spoken duo made a correction.
"I think we're the best backcourt in the country," Audige said. "It's simple," Buie added.
Here are our takeaways from Northwestern's win over IU to raise their record to 19-7 overall and 10-5 in the Big Ten:
Northwestern is authoritatively a tournament team: It's unofficially official: Northwestern is going back to March Madness.
Northwestern was a bubble team, then it beat the No. 1 and No. 14 teams in the country to take sole possession of second place in the Big Ten conference. With this win, Northwestern has a resume that will be hard to polish further.
"I'm glad for the guys because it's always tourney talk, tourney talk, tourney talk," Collins said. "They're going to the tournament."
They've beaten a No. 1 team. They swept Indiana, ranked 14th and 15th at the time, and have the only win at IU's Assembly Hall this year. They have a 12-4 record at home and have transformed a dormant Welsh-Ryan Arena into a hostile environment via a raucous student section. They have a 6-2 road record with the aforementioned win at Indiana, a win over Michigan State at the Breslin Center and a win over Wisconsin at the Kohl Center.
This team isn't a bubble team that will need to sweat out Selection Sunday. This is a team that will keep their minds sharp and the plane fueled to find out who is up next.
Northwestern delivered after beating Purdue: One of the main worries heading into this one was that the Wildcats would be physically and emotionally drained after their upset win over then-No. 1 Purdue on Sunday. Northwestern dismissed those worries quickly by taking Indiana to task, almost doubling up the Hoosiers in the first half.
Then, the other shoe dropped.
The Wildcats seemed to tire and Indiana pounced on them to the tune of a 42-25 advantage in the second half, led by 66.7% shooting from the floor. Jackson-Davis scored 18 of his 24 in the second stanza as the Hoosiers outrebounded Northwestern 21-6 after halftime. But the Cardiac Cats pulled it out anyways.
"There were mistakes made," Collins said. "We had turnovers, we had bad shots. We still found a way and that's the mark of a really tough, gritty team."
A team that was picked by many to be a cellar dweller in the Big Ten has now beaten two Top-15 teams back-to-back, both times scoring 64 points. The sun didn't shine just right, the stars didn't perfectly align, there was no divine intervention. Northwestern hosted two of the country's best teams, went right at them and ground out wins. It's what they do.
Audige sparked the hot start, and double-technicals cemented it: Audige came out firing, scoring 11 of Northwestern's first 17 points, including a heat check three that was a good five feet beyond the arc.
Audige was critical to Northwestern's win over Purdue by coming through late, and his defensive excellence has never faltered. Tonight, it was the same story, but reversed, as the offensive excellence came early, rather than late.
Audige got Northwestern off to a five-point lead, but what really got the ball rolling was a pair of technical fouls called on Indiana's coaching staff: one on an assistant and another on head coach Mike Woodson. Buie sunk all four resulting free throws, the lead was all of a sudden nine points, and the Wildcats went on a 22-8 run to close out the first half.
The "best backcourt in the country" poured in 22 points, 11 each, in the first half to build a 19-point halftime lead.
Ty Berry stayed patient and stayed confident: In a two-point win, Berry was +13 in 32 minutes. The next best Wildcats were a trio of Brooks Barnhizer, Robbie Beran and Matt Nicholson, each at +2. Plus-minus can have a lot of different factors play into it, but there's no doubt that Berry was absolutely huge in this one.
Since his 26-point outburst against Nebraska, Berry has struggled to find his shot. He entered this game 3-for-21 over his past four games. But after missing his first five shots from long distance, he showed no hesitation when he drilled a three-pointer to extend Northwestern's lead to nine with 7:47 to play and temporarily staunch an Indiana run.
"I have got to get back in the lab with him over the next couple of days," Collins said with a smile about getting Berry back on track with his shot. "But for him to step up and make that big one after he missed his first five or six threes [was huge]."
Berry's commitment to defending and rebounding, even when his shot isn't falling, and his commitment to challenging the defense despite recent results, have been crucial for Northwestern all season. They helped deliver a win tonight.
"I thought his defense was terrific," Collins said. "We put him on [Jalen] Hood-Schifino most of the second half. We felt confident putting Ty on him."
Hood-Schfino has three inches and 30 pounds on Berry and had torched Northwestern for a game-high 33 points in their first matchup. But he scored just 13 points in this one, missing 10 of his 16 shots.
Robbie Beran snapped his cold streak: Beran came into the game riding a rocky five-game stretch that may have hit its low point against Purdue, when he played 18 minutes and failed to score (even if he will take the tradeoff of a bad game for a win every time).
Against Indiana, the senior forward was back in form. He spaced the floor on offense, swarmed and trapped on defense, and took his rightful place as Northwestern's third-leading scorer. And when the Wildcats have a third scorer step up in addition to Audige and Buie, the Big Ten is finding out that they are a difficult team to beat.
Beran's efforts got a little less aesthetically pleasing as the game wore on, and he missed his last three shots, but he still provided a much needed 12 points in a game that was decided by just a pair.
Northwestern is in a great place going forward: The Wildcats have three days to rest before they host Iowa on Sunday at 5:30 p.m.. The team should be salivating for some payback after the Hawkeyes ripped them 86-70 last month in Iowa City.
Northwestern has champagne problems at this stage of their regular season. With their tournament resume secured, they can start thinking about earning a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament by finishing in the top four.
Northwestern has the chance to press their advantage, and even in a truly bizarre world, compete for a Big Ten title should Purdue collapse down the home stretch. The Boilermakers have a two-game lead, but the Wildcats hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.
But the tension and pressure to secure Collins' future and make it back to the tournament has evaporated under the brilliance of a remarkable season.
