It was business as usual Wednesday night for Northwestern in its bid to end a 35-year drought at Indiana.
But some changes will be made.
Wildcats coach Bill Carmody said there will be at least one lineup switch in light of the 71-57 pasting in front of 17,086 red-and-white-clad Indiana fans at Assembly Hall.
Struggling senior guard Winston Blake, the Wildcats’ leading scorer from last season, went scoreless (0-for-4) with a turnover and two assists in 14 minutes of action.
“I’m going to change. Hold me to do it too,” said Carmody, whose team slipped to 8-6 overall, 0-3 in the Big Ten.
Carmody had threatened to bench Blake before the Purdue game Saturday, but he changed his mind just beforehand.
“Coach is going to bench me, the way it’s going,” Blake said. “I’m not playing well. I have to come up with other ways to really help out the team.”
The Hoosiers (12-3, 2-1) played without star freshman guard Bracey Wright, out with a recurring back injury, but shot a sizzling 63 percent.
Kyle Hornsby, who had gone 0-of-9 in Indiana’s loss Saturday at Ohio State, hit 5-of-6 three-point shots on the way to 19 points.
“We have a way of breaking guys out of their slumps,” Carmody said.
Tom Coverdale, also chipped in with 19 points, pushing him over the 1,000-point mark for his career with 1,015.
“We have a choice of [covering] Jeff Newton at 27 feet and Coverdale,” Carmody said. “And we’re picking Newton. That happened like four different times. And they knock ’em down.”
Indiana, beating Northwestern for the 26th straight time and 29th in a row at home, stormed to an 11-0 lead to open the game.
Four NU players finished in double figures, led by senior Jason Burke with 14.
“After that 11-0 start, we played them pretty even the rest of the game,” the Wildcats’ Jitim Young said. “But it’s hard to come back on a team that is shooting like that.”
Indiana outrebounded Northwestern 22-10 and connected on 6-of-12 three-point shots. Newton led Indiana with 10 rebounds to become the 19th player in school history to have 600 career rebounds.
“We played with some passion for the first time since the Maryland game,” Indiana coach Mike Davis said.
Davis said his team has to pick up its intensity.
“We should have extended the lead,” Davis said. “I have to stay on these guys and keep driving.”
