Wildcats flip the script with big win over Sparty
EVANSTON-It was a night-and-day difference between Tuesday night in Champaign and Sunday night in Evanston for Northwestern.
Five days after a brutal 99-66 loss to Illinois, the Wildcats lit up the scoreboard in front of a sold-out crowd and crushed a red-hot Michigan State team, 88-74.
The Wildcats set the tone by closing out the first half with a 20-5 run, drawing on a seemingly limitless well of energy supplied by the raucous student sections and fans who once again went toe-to-toe with a healthy dose of invading visiting fans.
Once they established their 15-point halftime lead, the Wildcats never looked back. No matter how many "Go Green! Go White!" chants rained down from the upper deck, the Spartans never cracked single-digits in the second frame as Northwestern coasted to a victory.
Ty Berry was lights out, leading the Wildcats with 22 points on 7-for-11 shooting, including 4-for-7 on 3s. He was joined by Boo Buie, who logged his first career double-double with 19 points and 10 assists.
More than an outlier shooting night, the Wildcats' defense was back to its swarming ways. They turned over the Spartans 13 times while committing just five themselves, and absolutely overran Michigan State lines with a 21-2 advantage in points off of those turnovers.
Here are our takeaways from the win that lifted Northwestern's record to 11-3 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten:
Career nights all around: It was the Hunger Game, so to speak. Luke Hunger, making his first career start, tied the career highs he set against Illinois with 10 points in 19 minutes, but this time with a very different result.
His back-to-the-basket scoring gave Northwestern's offense another weapon and helped break 70 points against a Power Six opponent for the first time since they dropped 92 on Purdue last month.
"I thought he had some pop to him, brought some life to the game," Collins said about Hunger. "I just didn't like the way we were starting games...I didn't know he was going to get the first basket and score 10 points, but I knew his energy."
The other two big men in the rotation, Blake Preston and Matt Nicholson, split the remaining 21 minutes almost evenly. Neither scored, and cumulatively they grabbed just four rebounds, so expect Hunger to get more and more run as the season progresses.
Berry was four points shy of his career-high, and his 22 points were his third game of 20+ points in his last eight, and his second in his last four. His increased dependability swung the game as he put together one of his best wire-to-wire games as a Wildcat.
Buie impresses Izzo with his growth: Buie's double-double flew under the radar, if you can say that for a potential All-American who finished second in scoring with 19 points and topped all players in assists with 10.
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, as part of his, shall we say, extensive postgame remarks paid Buie a bit of a back-handed compliment.
"He went from a selfish, out-of-control player to one of the best players in this league," Izzo said. "He runs their team and I don't know if he took a bad shot all night... He's going to be getting some big votes from me."
Buie and Collins both opted to focus on the second half of Izzo's remark, rather than the first.
"That's awesome to hear from a legendary coach that I've gotten better now," Buie said. "To receive that compliment from such a good coach, that's really cool."
Collins also took Izzo's qualifier in stride, choosing to focus on how far he and his star guard have come together.
"I think it's a testament to someone who has come in as a freshman and learned and gotten better," he said. "That's a novel idea in today's day and age...
"Now, you look at a finished product of someone who has been here for five years and has earned the full trust of coaches. He's someone that I'm indebted to forever."
Izzo's flair for the dramatic unchanged by age: "I just took a nap," Collins quipped as he came into the media room after Izzo took questions and waxed philosophic for more than 15 minutes. At one point, Izzo asked Northwestern media members for more questions, even after a Spartans media staffer tried to wrap up the session.
In his 29th year in East Lansing, Izzo hasn't lost his fastball and still knows how to send a message to his team.
"I am embarrassed as a Michigan State Spartan with the way we played," Izzo said. "First and foremost, I'm a big Chris Collins fan and even a bigger one after tonight.
"He got his team ready to play and I didn't get my team ready... They deserved to win. We deserved to get our ass kicked."
Izzo spoke like a coach who has been in charge for a long time and couldn't care less about what anyone thinks about him. He bemoaned analytics, the transfer portal and the fragile nature of today's players that coaches can't criticize anymore, among other things.
Still, it was impressive to see the future Hall of Famer's clear respect for the Wildcats, who have now beaten the Spartans three straight times.
"I've watched 10 tapes on Northwestern and I thought that was the best they've played all year," he said, adding that he'd take any Wildcat player on his team, any day.