NU's 13-for-17 start paves way for easy win
Ten minutes before tipoff, John Shurna stood in front of Northwestern's bench and nailed at least 10 3-pointers in a row.
"I made my fair share," Shurna said almost apologetically.
When Thursday's game against Iowa began, Shurna stayed virtually as hot and his mates shared the heat wave.
Northwestern drilled 13 of its first 17 shots and dominated the Hawkeyes for a 74-57 Big Ten win before 5,265 at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Not only did the Wildcats (18-10, 7-9) avenge their lethargic 13-point loss on Feb. 10 at Iowa, they set the school record for single-season wins.
Rich Falk's 1982-83 squad shows an official record of 18-12 next to its name, but that includes a clerical victory as Wisconsin forfeited a game years after the fact due to an NCAA infraction.
"Once we look back on the season, it might be nice," said Shurna, who hit 10 of 14 shots for a game-high 29 points. "But I think, right now, we're just taking it one game at a time and we're going to continue to focus and finish out a strong season."
In that vein, these Wildcats can become the second group in 42 seasons to finish .500 in Big Ten play.
That'll require road wins over Penn State and Indiana, but anything seems possible after Thursday's effort.
In addition to shooting a season-high 58.3 percent from the field, the Wildcats stuck with their matchup zone the entire night and held Iowa to 40 percent shooting overall and 14 percent (3 of 21) on 3-pointers.
When Iowa likely crushed NU's NCAA hopes on Feb. 10, the Hawkeyes hit 12 of 24 from 3-point range - much of that against the 1-3-1 zone trap.
"I just said, 'We're not going to play any 1-3-1 tonight,' " said Northwestern coach Bill Carmody. "We're going to stay in the matchup, guard 'em, move your feet. Just real basic stuff and worked on it for a couple days and I thought we did a real nice job defensively tonight.
"When you guard, that helps your offense. It's combined, those two things."
While Iowa's offense struggled, Northwestern pounded the ball inside to Luka Mirkovic (12 points, 6 rebounds) early. Then the Wildcats switched to finding Shurna wherever he roamed.
The Glenbard West product started his spree by converting back-to-back backdoor layups - one from Michael Thompson and the other from Jeremy Nash.
Then Shurna drove baseline for an 8-foot pull-up jumper and drilled consecutive 3-pointers.
After shooting 5-for-5 over five straight NU possessions, Shurna's 12 points in a row gave the Wildcats a 23-9 lead with 9:25 to go in the half.
"If you deny anything out at the 3-point line, you're getting backdoored," said Iowa coach Todd Lickliter. "It's better to stay in position and guard on the catch, but we weren't able to do that."
By halftime, Iowa regained a 19-18 lead over Shurna but trailed the Wildcats by 20. Northwestern led by 23 points with 11:26 to go before letting Iowa get as close as 12 late.
Matt Gatens led the Hawks (9-19, 3-12) with 15 points while Schaumburg High School grad Cully Payne added 10.