It’s no secret that year 2 for Danny Sprinkle has been a struggle in Big Ten play. The last 2 road games (against #7 Nebraska and #9 Illinois) have brought that struggle into sharp relief. Fresh off that loss to Illinois, the Huskies continued their sojourn through the state, heading to Evanston to take on Chris Collins’ Northwestern Wildcats. It was clear early on that the Huskies were going to lean on their best players, on both ends of the floor. Nowhere was that more apparent than in Franck Kepnang’s 5 first half blocks. Though he cooled down defensively, Kepnang was surely in the minds of the Wildcats players on the offensive end. Kepnang’s defensive showing gave way to Wesley Yates’ hot shooting, with Yates knocking down 3 straight threes to end the first half, and adding a 4th to extend the lead to 15 with 18:42 to go. Yates ultimately finished with 21 points on 7-13 from the field.
Then it was Hannes Steinbach’s turn to step up. Steinbach built off his 8 points and 8 rebounds in the first half, adding 14 more in the second (making 3 threes to boot), and grabbing 6 rebounds in the half, bringing his total to 22 points and 14 boards, recording his 14th double double on the season (tying Isaiah Stewart’s Husky Freshman record), and basically getting his shots in spite of Northwestern queuing in on him. But, the Wildcats battled back, weathering the onslaught of points, getting to within 9 of the Huskies at one point. That was when Zoom Diallo was called upon to close it out. Diallo added 15 in the second half, mostly off of pull up jumpers and layups, but that was his shot and he was feeling it.
There was almost bedlam as Diallo was assessed a technical foul for verbally accosting the Northwestern bench, including Chris Collins. There was no visible hard feelings in the handshake line, and it was a great game otherwise from Diallo, but one has to wonder what was said.
Nevertheless, despite the late comeback attempt by Northwestern, this was a great team defensive effort for Sprinkle’s Huskies, as they held Northwestern to 76 points after they scored 94 on Penn State on Thursday. Not only that, they held the nation’s leading scorer (Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli, averaging 24 points per game) under 20 points for the first time in 12 games.
It remains to be seen whether the Huskies can round into form down the stretch, but they are hopefully through the worst of what’s been a brutal conference schedule. And if they play like they did tonight, maybe they can go on a run. With talent like this, there is still time to make a late push. One hopes that they can rely on guys like Steinbach, Yates, Kepnang and Diallo in order to make that push. There is still time, sure. But it is short. These kinds of wins can galvanize a team for a late run, and these next few games will show just how big this win truly was.
The Huskies next play Iowa at home on Wednesday, while the Wildcats go on the road to face Illinois, also on Wednesday.