A sagging Northestern wake up just in time

Northwestern equaled its fastest starts of the last 79 seasons, but not before Bill Carmody trotted out a time-honored motivator he hoped to avoid.

The Wildcats owned a 10-point lead over Stanford with five minutes left Saturday afternoon at Welsh-Ryan Arena, but they turned passive and watched it dwindle to 1 with 1:49 to go.

During a subsequent timeout, Carmody zinged his Wildcats with a reference to two dreadful come-from-ahead home losses last year.

"I told them, 'Fellas, this looks a lot like our Purdue and Illinois last year,' " Carmody said. " 'And this is a different team, so let's not let this stuff happen again.' I wanted to put it right there to them."

Northwestern came out of the timeout, ran its cleanest offensive set in several minutes and junior point guard Michael Thompson swished an open 3-pointer to snap a 9-0 Cardinal run.

Stanford never recovered as Northwestern went on to a 70-62 non-conference victory before 5,098 in Evanston.

Sophomore forward John Shurna piled up 22 points and 8 rebounds to offset Stanford senior stud Landry Fields' 24 points and 8 rebounds.

Thompson shrugged off a tough day driving to the hoop by scoring 5 of his 15 points in the final 1:24. He added 4 assists and 2 steals.

"We just didn't want to resemble last year's team," Thompson said, "where we would have a nice, comfortable lead and just let the game slip away."

If the Wildcats win their final Big Ten tuneup on Tuesday against Central Connecticut State, they'll have earned the program's second 10-1 start since 1931.

Along the way, Northwestern has picked up credible wins over teams from the ACC, Big East, Big 12 and Pac-10.

Stanford (5-5) provided the toughest test since Iowa State on Nov. 28.

The lead changed hands 12 times in the opening 24 minutes as the Wildcats lost starters Drew Crawford and Jeremy Nash for more than 10 minutes of the first half with 2 fouls.

Luka Mirkovic's 3-point play with 14:42 left gave the Wildcats the lead for good, but they nearly squandered their 10-point lead by running the clock and settling for less-than-perfect shots.

Stanford sophomore guard Jeremy Green went on a personal 9-point run that cut NU's margin to 60-59 with 1:49 left.

Then came Carmody's psychological dagger, followed by Thompson's swished 3-pointer and the closeout of NU's eighth straight win.

"I don't want to have to say that any more this year," Carmody said. "This team is different. It's shown it's been different - I think we're better."