Road Warriors

Very solid win for the 'Cats against Western Michigan on the road, 65-63. Definitely the best win of the young season. The Broncos had already beaten a tough Davidson team at home, and the 'Cats were facing a hostile crowd in an arena similar to Welsh-Ryan. And somehow, after being down by 15 after 12 minutes in the first half, they tied the game at halftime and finished it down the stretch.

Craig Moore has been on fire this year. He scored 24 points, and hit 5-6 free throws in the last 17 seconds to preserve the win. The overmatched Wildcats are going to need Moore to play with this sort of consistency during Big Ten season if they want to have a chance.

Props also to Jason Okrzesik and Nikola Baran. J.O. has never really performed well at Northwestern except for short spurts, and in his senior year he is really stepping up.

Baran has been criticized by fans early in his career at NU, and has been benched many times by Bill Carmody, but he was able to put together a decent game.

Nice to see the 'Cats hit free throws. They were 7-9, all coming in the second half. It is a little discouraging that they don't get to the line very often, but that is probably a product of their lack of rebounding, particularly on the offensive end, and the fact that they don't take it to the hole very often. It doesn't really matter if they continue to shoot over 40% from beyond the arc.
Now Northwestern will take a break for finals, and play one more home game before the start of the conference season vs. Howard. I think most people wish the 'Cats had another few games before they host Penn St. on Jan. 2 to see this team continue to mesh and grow before the grueling start of Big Ten play, but the Wildcats will just have to do it in practice.

Hopefully Kevin Coble will start practicing with the team in the next couple of weeks. Northwestern had two players play all 40 minutes vs. Western Michigan, and another play 38. Coble will, at the very least, add another viable player for Carmody to put in the rotation. These guys are going to need it.