Coach Bill Carmody warned things might change after Northwestern’s two near-disasters against supposed soft opponents on the schedule. Friday he made good on his threat, with mixed success.
The Wildcats changed both their starting lineup and their player rotation in a shaky 56-48 victory over Texas-Pan American at Welsh-Ryan Arena. It was Northwestern’s last game before Wednesday’s Big Ten opener against Indiana, and the question now is whether the Wildcats are ready.
“I thought this was a little bit better than our last couple of games,” Carmody said.
Northwestern almost imploded in its last two games, nearly blowing leads of 28 and 17 points, and it threatened to do the same against a team that lost by 20 to UNLV on Wednesday. The Wildcats twice led by 13 in the second half but let the second big advantage evaporate to four with 11 minutes left and again to four at 50-46 with less than a minute left.
NU’s failure to build or at least hold the lead was more glaring because Texas-Pan American (7-5) went nearly eight minutes without scoring and the Wildcats did nothing to put the game away. They were a dismal 9 of 20 from the free-throw line and 3 of 14 on three-pointers.
“It’s shooting,” Carmody said. “You have to make a shot. Maybe they just can’t make a shot.
“When you’re not scoring, you put an awful lot of pressure on your defense.”
Looking for something to kick-start the offense, Carmody upsized the lineup with 6-8 Davor Duvancic replacing 6-5 Tim Doyle in the starting five, putting Northwestern’s five top scorers on the floor from the outset.
Michael Jenkins, at 5 feet 9 inches the smallest player on the roster, was inserted for a ballhandling spark midway through the first half and ignited a run of seven straight points that put the Wildcats up 23-10.
Doyle responded to his first game as a reserve by putting up more than twice his season average in the first half, a team-high nine points that led Northwestern to a 34-23 halftime lead that was helped by eight different Wildcats scoring. Doyle’s eventual game-high 13 points also was his career high.
“Coming off the bench is a new role for me,” said Doyle, who played 28 minutes and also had six rebounds. “I made my first shot, and that kind of got me going.”
