Crawford, Shurna lead Northwestern to 67-52 win
There's more than one reason why Northwestern finds itself in the midst of the school's most legitimate sprint toward an NCAA Tournament bid.
Sometimes, though, the primary evidence becomes as obvious as a flurry of punches to the head.
Or a few words on the Northwestern students' purple T-shirts: MAKE SHOTS.
During a two-minute, 13-second span of the first half Tuesday night, the Wildcats drilled five 3-pointers in a row against Michigan.
Drew Crawford, Jeremy Nash, John Shurna, Crawford again and Michael Thompson carved up the Wolverines' defense on those five consecutive possessions - center Luka Mirkovic earning assists on 3 of those bombs - to set the tone for a 67-52 Big Ten trouncing before 5,127 at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Northwestern (15-7, 4-6) blew it open with a 17-2 run during the second half.
"Shooting's what we work on every day in practice, so it's not really a surprise when our shots go in," said Crawford, who led four double-figure scorers with 17 points.
"We kind of feed off each other. When one person hits a shot, the next possession somebody else will come down and hit them. It's a team momentum kind of thing."
In addition to earning their biggest victory margin over Michigan in 11 years, the Wildcats wrapped up their first sweep of the Wolverines (11-11, 4-6) since 1966-67.
"Now they have four guys that can shoot," Michigan coach John Beilein said. "The center (Mirkovic) is a brilliant passer. Find another center that has that assist-to-turnover ratio. The point guard (Thompson) is outstanding. Really runs this team.
"All they want to do is win. They've got a goal of getting into the NCAA Tournament. They really play together, and they enjoy it. Bill (Carmody) has got to love coaching this group."
The Wildcats set a season high for field-goal accuracy (54.2 percent), tied their best 3-point marksmanship (10 of 20) and hit all 7 free throws. NU also set subjective season bests for balance and unselfishness.
Shurna (15 points, 8 rebounds), Mirkovic (12 points) and Thompson (12 points) joined Crawford in double figures - Nash settled for contributing a career-high 11 rebounds - while all five starters dished out either 3, 4 or 5 assists.
One last impressive anecdote? Northwestern earned all but 2 of its points on 3-pointers, layups and free throws. Crawford's shot-clock-beating, 12-foot floater with 7:39 to go served as the only anomaly to a perfect attack.
In other words, it's best to "Make Shots" either short or long.
"We take a lot of 3s," Carmody said. "We have guys who can knock down shots. And, again, we threw the ball inside.
"We threw it into Johnny (Shurna). We threw it down to Luka. We threw it down to Kyle (Rowley) in the first half. I think that's really important, that inside-out stuff."