Pete Nance, Boo Buie and Chase Audige combined for 47 points as Northwestern gutted out a 67-61 road win at Maryland in the Big Ten opener for both teams.
The Wildcats saw their lead trimmed to one point at 55-54 with 4:32 left, but they went on an 8-0 run to take control of the game down the stretch and bounce back from an overtime defeat at Wake Forest on Tuesday night.
Nance led Northwestern with 17 points, while Buie contributed 16. Audige, making his first appearance of the season after missing the first seven games with a hip injury, scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half.
Maryland, playing its first game without head coach Mark Turgeon, who stepped down on Friday, was paced by Hakim Hart’s 18 points. Interim coach Danny Manning led the team on the bench.
Northwestern used a 9-0 run to take an early 11-5 lead, as Maryland went almost five minutes without a point. But the Terps used three-pointers to get back into the game. They tied it at 18 on a Hart three-pointer, and then took a 21-18 advantage on a triple by Eric Ayala.
Northwestern regained the lead at 28-27 on an Elyjah Williams steal and coast-to-coast layup. The Cats scored the last six points of the half, including an alley-oop dunk from Buie to Nance, to take a 30-27 edge at halftime.
The teams went back-and-forth early in the second half before Northwestern went on a 7-0 scoring streak, punctuated by a 3-pointer by Williams, to make it 47-39 with 12:03 left.
Maryland, however, kept coming back, and after Fatts Russell was fouled on a 3-pointer and hit all three free throws, Northwestern’s lead was down to 55-54.
That’s when Nance and Audige took over. The two combined for eight straight points to give the Cats their largest lead at 63-54 with 1:45 left. Maryland got the lead down to four, but Ryan Greer and Buie hit two free throws each to clinch the win for the Wildcats.
Here are our takeaways from the win that raised Northwestern’s record to 6-2 overall and 1-0 in Big Ten play:
Audige provided a big boost: The much anticipated arrival of last year’s leading scorer couldn’t have gone much better for the Wildcats. After shaking off a slow start, Audige was one of the players who carried the team in the second half.
Audige wasted no time getting involved in his season debut. He took the first shot of the game, missing a 3-pointer from the wing. He was a little ragged at the outset, missing his first two shots and getting called or an offensive foul. He got his first basket on a backdoor dunk halfway through the opening period, but he picked up three fouls in the half and was limited to four points.
But Audige made a couple big plays when the Wildcats needed him in the second half. After Maryland cut the lead to one, Audige answered with a jumper in the lane to give the Cats a 57-54 lead. He then came up with a steal off of Ayala and hit a tough, driving layup to give the Cats their biggest lead of the half.
Audige finished with 14 points on 7-of-17 shooting, with four rebounds, three assists, one block, one steal and one turnover.
Maryland made their 3s: The Terrapins came into this game ranked 343rd in the nation in three-point shooting, making just 26.8%. But they found their stroke against the Wildcats, hitting 10 of 23 for a 43% clip.
Hart was the primary marksman for Maryland, hitting 4-of-6 from beyond the arc for 12 of his game-high 18 points. But Northwestern did a better job finding him on the perimeter in the second half, as he made just one of two from long distance.
Russell, Ayala and Scott each hit two triples for Maryland, which was coming off of a loss to Virginia Tech where they made just one three-pointer in the entire game.
The Cats had their way inside: The Wildcats were outscored 30-18 from beyond the arc, but where they did most of their damage against the Terps was inside. Northwestern held a dominant 32-12 advantage in points in the paint.
Of the 47 points scored by the big three of Nance, Buie and Audige, just six came on three-pointers. Buie and Audige were able to get into the lane off the dribble, and 21 of the Cats’ 27 baskets were two-pointers.
Northwestern also held a rare rebounding advantage over a Big Ten team, pulling down 43, one more than Maryland.
The Cats bucked some trends: Northwestern has had a tendency to lose leads in crunch time over the last couple of seasons, but the Wildcats made crucial plays down the stretch to beat Maryland.
Nance went 4-for-5 from the floor in the second half and had two critical baskets with the game on the line in the last three minutes. With Northwestern protecting a 57-54 lead, Nance pulled down an offensive rebound of an Audige miss in traffic, and then muscled his way up to hit a layup in the lane. He followed that up with a pullup jumper to give the Cats a seven-point lead.
Coupled with Audige’s late-game big plays mentioned above, they proved to be the difference in the game.
The Wildcats have also repeatedly fallen victim to prolonged scoring droughts this season, even in their wins. But it was Maryland who went through two scoreless streaks of more than four minutes in this contest – one in the first half and one in the second. Both of them enabled the Wildcats to take control of the game.
