An outstanding season for the Northwestern University basketball Wildcats ended Sunday night with a painful 75-58 loss to defending national champions and overall #1 seed Connecticut in Brooklyn, New York.
The ‘Cats ended the season 22-12, with their second consecutive NCAA men’s playoff appearance. They won first round contests both times. (On Friday, NU, the #9 seed, beat #8 Florida Atlantic in overtime).
But Sunday, with center Matthew Nicholson still on the bench with a foot injury, NU had no answer for UConn’s 7’2″, 280-pound Donovan Clingan, who finished with 14 points, 14 rebounds, and eight blocked shots.
Those impressive stats came even though Clingan spent part of the second half on the bench, as his team had a comfortable lead.
Injury-depleted Northwestern was also without three-point sharpshooter Ty Berry, who’s been out for several weeks following an injury that required surgery.
Brooks Barnhizer led the ‘Cats with 18 points.
Northwestern actually outscored the Huskies in the second half, 40-35, but found themselves down in a 40-18 hole at halftime.
Boo Buie, NU’s all-time scoring leader, was held to nine points. Buie, who was only 2-15 in field goal attempts, was sometimes double-or-even-triple teamed.
With about 1:30 left in the game, Coach Chris Collins removed Buie from the game so that the fans could cheer Boo and thank him for an outstanding career. Collins gave Buie a hug, as did the rest of the players on the bench along with the assistant coaches. Buie’s brother Talor Battle is one of those assistants.
This was the final game for Buie, Ryan Langborg, and Blake Preston, all of whom are graduate students.
While losing was clearly a disappointment, it was really no surprise.
According to CBS Sports, the Huskies had 16 games this season where they won by 20 points or more, the most in the nation. They did not break the 20-point margin against the ‘Cats, however.
As commentator Bill Raftery noted about NU, “This is a good team that [UConn] is playing against, but they got them on the heels from the get-go.”
For the Huskies, it’s on to the Sweet 16.
For the Wildcats, it’s back to Evanston.
Classes start on Monday.