Destruction in Champaign
It looked like the JV against the varsity.
It was over quickly as Illinois raced to a 23-point halftime lead in an 84-48 victory over Northwestern. (Audio: Bill Carmody's postgame comments)
The story of the first half can be summed up from the three-point line. Illinois hit 8-of-12 and Northwestern missed all seven attempts. On the game, NU made only one of 17 three-point attempts while the Illini made 14-of-24 (58 percent).
Illinois used superior ball movement to score easily on offense and tremendous defensive pressure to disrupt NU's offense. On the multiple occasions that Illinois had an open three-pointer, the Illini drained it. On the rare occasion that the Wildcats had an open shot, it resulted in a Tim Doyle airball or a clanked three by Mohammed Hachad.
A game against a superior opponent can clearly define the weaknesses of a team and nothing was more evident Wednesday night. T.J. Parker's game is clearly useless against quicker opponents. Without Mike Thompson, Northwestern's front-line of Davor Duvancic, Vedran Vukusic and Vince Scott was overmatched on the boards. Scott, who had shown tremendous strides in recent games, looked like a deer in headlights. Doyle is woefully unathletic and shoots a set-shot, possibly the only set-shot in Division I.
The only players who showed any offensive ability against Illinois were Vukusic, who scored 14, and Hachad who had 15 points and created his own shot even if he made only 7-of-17 shots.
"We've been looking for it all year," Carmody said of Hachad's play. "He continued his good play in the second half, but he still has to knock down his shots, though. When he takes it to the rim, he's making three out of four or four out of five, but he wasn't able to make his (outside) shot."
Northwestern faces Michigan, losers of 10 straight before Wednesday's win over Penn State, on Saturday at 7 p.m. CT at Welsh-Ryan. The Cats need to win two of their final three games to be over .500 heading into the Big Ten tournament for NIT eligibility.