No, the Northwestern men aren`t going to the NCAA tournament.
It only seemed that way Saturday night in Welsh-Ryan Arena after the Wildcats ended their season with a 76-65 victory over Wisconsin in an emotional and physical struggle between the bottom two teams in the Big 10.
Northwestern (9-19, 2-16) won by scoring 15 of the last 18 points. Eight of the points came from freshman forward Cedric Neloms, who was able to soar in the stretch after spraining his ankle at the start.
Wisconsin (13-18, 4-14) rallied after trailing by nine points with 7 minutes 20 seconds to play.
The Badgers took a 62-61 lead with 3:34 to go when Jeff Petersen made the second of two fouls shots. Producing the free throws was the fifth personal foul for 6-foot-11-inch sophomore Kevin Rankin, who scored a career-high 24 points.
”It didn`t look real good at that point,” said Northwestern coach Bill Foster. ”Kevin has fouled out; Todd Leslie has four fouls; and Tracy Webster is free-wheeling for them.
”We were fortunate. We had three minutes at the end that were perfect.” It was the biggest margin of victory in a conference contest in the six seasons Foster has coached Northwestern.
It also was the farewell appearance for Wisconsin coach Steve Yoder, forced out by Athletic Director Pat Richter with six games remaining in his 10th season at the school.
”He`s a class guy,” said Foster. ”His teams have come as well prepared as any teams we`ve played since I`ve been at Northwestern. I hope he finds something as good or better.”
In taking a 35-33 first-half lead, Yoder`s team made 60 percent of its shots, and was 5 for 6 from three-point land.
The second half saw Wisconsin`s accuracy drop to 25 percent.
Another vital statistic was turnovers. Wisconsin had 14 and the Wildcats had 12. But nine of NU`s came from the three big men-Rankin, 6-10 junior Charles Howell and 6-7 freshman T.J. Rayford.
The NU guards protected the ball on offense and on defense restrained sophomore sensation Webster and Wisconsin`s other backcourt whiz kid, 6-6 freshman Michael Finley.
They also generated offense.
Leslie made three of four shots from three-point distance in scoring 14 points. The 6-5 junior`s third trifecta early in the second half was the 126th of his career, breaking the school record set by Jeff Grose from 1986-89.
With relief help from fellow sophomore Eric Simpson, Kirkpatrick limited Webster to 16 points and a single assist. Kirkpatrick scored eight of his 10 points in the second half and four of those were free throws in the final 80 seconds.
In the frontcourt, Rankin and Neloms were the most dominant players in a very physical game.
Neloms twisted his right ankle in the second minute of play and had to go to the dressing room to have a protective aircast put on. ”It bothered me a lot on my lateral movement,” said Neloms, who nevertheless was able to tally 20 points and take over the scoring leadership after Rankin fouled out.
”I thought Neloms was good and I thought their whole team was very good,” said Yoder. ”They just don`t have enough numbers, the same as us. In this league you need seven or eight real good guys.
”Rankin gets away with an awful lot in the low post but that`s okay. In this league there`s no defending the low post unless you have a shot blocker like Acie Earl at Iowa. They don`t let the low-post defender do anything. Nobody talks about it but all the coaches know it. That`s why everybody pounds the ball inside.”
While Yoder was looking back wistfully, the Wildcats already were looking ahead in anticipation of better things next season.
”We`re returning everybody; we`ll have Pat Baldwin, Deon Lee and Dewey Williams, who weren`t with us for the Big 10 season; and some very good recruits are looking at us for next year,” said Rankin. ”Several of us are going to stay here for the summer. I`m going to take a couple of classes and lift a lot of weights.”
”We have to go out with our heads high,” said Neloms.
