Better late than never.
Eight games in, and Northwestern men’s basketball finally has its first win in Big Ten play.
As Wednesday night turned into Thursday morning in Evanston, the ‘Cats found themselves in an all-too-familiar situation: in the driver’s seat, with the fate of the game in their hands. All they had to do was finish the job, and finish the job they did.
Atop the scoring once again was Nick Martinelli, who overcame first-half struggles to post 22 points on 40% shooting. Tyler Kropp was the only
other Wildcat in double-digits, with 11 in his first collegiate start.
Jordan Marsh led the USC Trojans with 19 points, shooting 50% from the field and a perfect 9-for-9 from the line. Ezra Ausar followed with 17, and Chad Baker-Mazara contributed 14 in the losing effort.
After winning the tip, Baker-Mazara drilled a trey for the Trojans to open the late-night marquee. Northwestern turned to its own sharpshooting transfer guard in Max Green to even the score before Baker-Mazara hit again from the left wing to keep USC ahead through the first two minutes.
Tre Singleton got active down low and gave the ‘Cats their first lead of the game with back-to-back layups. Alijah Arenas cut Northwestern’s momentum out from under its knees with a pull-up jumper from the right baseline. Jacob Cofie followed up with a layup at the cup, and then Green found himself wide open under the rim for two. Singleton picked up an early second foul before the game’s first media timeout with USC leading 10-9.
After two free throws from Baker-Mazara, Arenas put together a highlight for the ages in his debut, crossing over in transition and then performing a crafty 360 finish to drop, working up and underneath a fresh Arrinten Page. Nick Martinelli made his presence felt at the 14-minute mark with a hook shot in the post. Cofie sank a jumper on the other end, growing USC’s lead to 16-11 at the second media timeout.
Cofie knocked down a second consecutive jumper following the break and Jayden Reid found the net on one of his own for his first score of the contest. Then, following a Martinelli miss, Kam Woods dished to Ezra Ausar for an alley-oop dunk on USC’s subsequent fastbreak, pushing the score to 20-13 with 10 minutes to go.
Tyler Kropp nabbed four quick points in the paint for NU to reduce the Trojan lead to one score. Jake West then found himself as the beneficiary of a USC miss, getting a transition layup to cut the deficit to one. USC head coach Eric Musselman called a timeout in hopes of stifling the Northwestern 6-0 run.
From there, the squads traded buckets for the next two minutes: Arenas and Page both went 2-for-2 from the line, Cofie banked home a layup, Reid cashed from mid-range, and West slammed one home to give NU its first lead in nearly 12 minutes. Cofie split his next two free throws the ‘Cats and Trojans drew level at 25 with four minutes to go.
The teams went a combined 0-for-11 from the field for the next two minutes of the first half, but West hit a right-wing three to end the scoring drought. Asuar’s layup kept USC within striking distance, and a free throw from Jerry Easter II knotted things up again. Just before halftime, Martinelli reached into his expansive toolkit for his newfound three-point shot with a second left on the clock. Despite the nation’s second-leading scorer being held to five points on 2-of-8 shooting, Northwestern ended the first half with a 31-28 lead.
Leading the charge then was West, who had a NU-high seven points, going 3-for-5 from the field. Max Green had five halfway through his first Northwestern start, while Kropp scored four in his debut with NU’s first unit. Singleton and Reid also had four apiece.
Jacob Cofie and Chad Baker-Mazara were the focal points for USC, with both ending the first 20 minutes with nine and eight, respectively. The Achilles’ heel for the Trojans was their dismal free-throw shooting – just 35.3% in the first half.
Green and Arenas kicked off second-half play with scores in succession: Green hitting a 15-foot floater, and Arenas stopping on a dime to make a long two. Martinelli’s first field goal attempt of the second half, a turnaround jumper, was successful. Ausar threw down his second jam of the contest for USC while Singleton muscled in his third layup.
Two free throws from Jordan Marsh proved ineffective for the Trojans. Next, Kropp scored inside the restricted area, and Martinelli followed with his signature floater to draw an and-one and erase a Baker-Mazara score. Northwestern led 42-36 with 15:32 left.
Page checked back in for an injured Kropp and immediately settled back into the flow of the game with dominant paint presence, guiding a lob from Martinelli into the basket with some help from a friendly bounce. The Northwestern captain scored on his team’s next possession, but Marsh got physical against the Glenview native to spark a three-point play of his own. Page got in on the physicality for his fifth and sixth points of the game, before a Jayden Reid foul brought the game to another media timeout.
With 11:49 left, both teams found themselves in deep trouble of losing some of its key players: Reid picked up his fourth with his most recent offense, while Martinelli and Singleton were flirting with fire with three fouls each. On the other end, Trojan leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara was a foul away from his night coming to a premature end. The USC forward was the first to sink a field goal after the short intermission.
After a layup from Green and two charity stripe shots from USC, NU’s advantage was only three, 50-47, as the clock crossed the 10-minute mark. Baker-Mazara exited after picking up his fifth foul with 9:26 left in regulation. USC’s second option, averaging over 18 points a game heading into Wednesday night, left after posting a team-leading 14.
Page continued to bully his way to buckets down low, but Marsh responded to a layup from the former Trojan with one of his own before Northwestern head coach Chris Collins elected to stop play with a timeout.
Martinelli’s 1-of-2 effort left the door open for the Trojans to chop the four-point Northwestern lead in half, and so they did with Ausar’s two shots from the line. On the next possession, Martinelli made up for the miss with another physical, but athletic and crafty, and-one finish. Marsh next hit two free throws and found a transition layup to draw USC within one, but another three-point play, this one coming from Kropp, left USC down by two possessions once again.
A four-point lead became six with another trademark Martinelli post move, making Wednesday night his 10th straight contest with at least 20 points.
The Trojans came creeping back and threatened to overtake the Wildcats again with two minutes to go, but this time, Northwestern put its Big Ten foes to bed. Martinelli found the basket on a catch-and-shoot mid-range shot with the shot clock running out, and Kropp ran the floor and put one down from inside the paint on a fastbreak.
Two made free throws from Reid seemed to put the game away, but a quick dunk from Ausar and a jump ball that went USC’s way said otherwise. Kropp sealed the deal with a great contest on Marsh’s subsequent layup, forcing a strong miss and a Jake West rebound. The Wildcats concluded the evening with a 74-68 victory.
Northwestern stays in Los Angeles awaiting its Saturday evening matchup against UCLA. The ‘Cats and Bruins are set for a 5 p.m. CT tip on FS1.
