Maybe it was just in too much of a hurry to beat the weekend’s weather out of town, but Northwestern forgot to pack some essentials for its visit to Penn State.
Essentials like rebounds and hustle.
The Wildcats also didn’t bring center Mike Thompson, their top rebounder and No. 2 scorer, whom coach Bill Carmody has suspended for an undisclosed amount of time for failing to attend classes.
The result was a 65-62 loss that was the fourth straight conference defeat for Northwestern (8-9, 1-4 Big Ten) and kept the Wildcats winless on the road. A season that began with dreams of an NCAA tournament berth is dangerously close to slipping completely away, and nothing Saturday suggested Northwestern is tournament material.
“I saw Penn State guys hustling their tails off,” Carmody said. “I didn’t see that from our guys.”
Without Thompson, Penn State (7-11, 1-4) used its strength to build a 42-17 rebounding edge that included forward Aaron Johnson outrebounding all the Wildcats by himself with 21.
Northwestern fell from a 34-34 tie early in second half to trail by as much as 11 and then by nine with 1:45 remaining before a dizzying finish nearly rescued a game that appeared to be in its control most of the first half. The Wildcats cut their deficit to 60-58 with 47 seconds left when Davor Duvancic made consecutive breakaway layups.
Penn State then ran the clock down to 13 seconds before freshman Mike Walker put in his fifth three-pointer of the game. Mohamed Hachad scored off the inbound pass from Duvancic, and Michael Jenkins stole the ball on Penn State’s inbounds pass. Instead of trying a game-tying three, Jenkins drove and missed the layup but Duvancic tipped in the miss with 3.2 seconds on the clock. Travis Parker’s two free throws provided the final margin. “We started to get the ball at the end, bringing it back and scoring. That’s how we should have played the whole game,” guard T.J. Parker said.
“But we didn’t. We did [get outhustled]. They started making shots when we left them wide open, and we got killed on rebounds.”
The rebounding disaster contributed to Penn State getting 17 second-chance points to Northwestern’s four.
Penn State also converted 14 of 26 three-pointers and was led in scoring by Walker (15 points) and Danny Morrissey (16). Northwestern put four players in double figures, topped by 17 from Vedran Vukusic, who was forced out of the game with a shoulder injury in the closing minutes.
It was in that stretch that Penn State paid for going with three freshmen on the floor. A succession of bad shots and decisions let Northwestern make its run.
“We did get kind of sideways in the last 1 1/2 minutes and let them back in the game,” Nittany Lions coach Ed DeChellis said.
Northwestern missed Thompson underneath, but the Wildcats were 1-3 with him in the lineup, indicating that at this point they can’t beat good teams with him and bad ones without him. Thompson ranks 17th in the Big Ten with 13.2 points per game and a team-high 5.3 rebounds per game. His absence was a critical factor against Johnson, the Big Ten’s leading rebounder.
Thompson’s brief Northwestern “career” has been bumpy. The junior from Joliet transferred from Duke last year. He sat out last season and the first six games this season but was dropped from the starting lineup against Arizona State on Dec. 20 for missing the team bus to the arena.
Thompson becomes the second Wildcat Carmody has suspended this season. Guard Brandon Lee was out last week for undisclosed reasons but is practicing with the team and is expected to return to the bench this week.
“You can’t say Penn State is a bad team,” Parker said. “But this is a game we should have won.”
