Northwestern Drops Minnesota, Will Face Buckeyes Tomorrow

In the inaugural contest of the 2011 Big Ten Tournament, the Wildcats pulled away and secured a 75-65 victory, despite the Gophers keeping pace for the majority of the game.  Northwestern’s Michael Thompson set a new Big Ten Tournament record with 35 points hitting 11-26 from the floor and all eight of his free throws.  Meanwhile, Northwestern’s leading scorer John Shurna was virtually absent, putting up only two.

Thompson’s performance is especially troubling for Ohio State, as he led the Wildcats with 16 points (including 13 in the second half) in Shurna’s actual absence when the two teams played in January.  On top of that, Ohio State’s two losses have been almost entirely due to huge nights from individual players.  Wisconsin’s Jordan Taylor put up 27 (9 more than his average) in their win, while Purdue’s E’Twaun Moore dropped 38 (20 above average) a couple of games later.

Can Thompson duplicate his feat tomorrow?  The Buckeyes have been on fire lately, playing their best ball of the year in a dominating season-ending win over 3-seed Wisconsin.  You know who I’ve got my (completely hypothetical) money on, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this tourney gets weird quick.

Comments

  1. We need to do a better job playing our tempo of bball unlike what we did when we played them at NW earlier this year. A nice 20 point win tomorrow would be nice 🙂

  2. Agreed. I think OSU’s talent takes over. I need to see OSU get out to an early lead to hopefully force NW into a more uptempo game to catch up; plays into our hands.. A slow start means a damn deathmarch game, which is too risky for us.

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