Sobolewski’s 25 leads Northwestern past UIC 93-58
CHICAGO — For one half, Dave Sobolewski was nearly on pace to match his former teammate’s historic night.
Sobolewski scored 17 of his career-high 25 points in the first half and Drew Crawford added 18 as Northwestern routed Illinois-Chicago 93-58 on Wednesday night.
Northwestern (2-2) opened the game with a 17-4 lead on Sanjay Lumpkin’s layup and JerShon Cobb’s 3-pointer extended the lead to 20-6 as the Wildcats led wire to wire.
Jordan Harks led Illinois-Chicago (1-3) with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Marc Brown, who averaged 21.7 points in the first three games, was held to seven points.
Sobolewski was a high school teammate of Frank Kaminsky at Benet Academy in Lisle, who set a Wisconsin school record with 43 points in a win against North Dakota. He made all six 3-point attempts. Sobolewski was 4-for-6 from 3-point range in the first half.
Sobolewski sparked the Wildcats with 13 points in the first
11:13 of the game. He also connected on back-to-back 3-pointers with Crawford to extend the lead to 39-14. The Flames trailed by as many as 29 in the first half as Northwestern was 7-for-12 from 3-point range in the half.
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Sobolewski said of matching Kaminsky’s record night.
“I was sure hoping for it,” Northwestern coach Chris Collins interrupted.
“I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get to 43. I know that,” said Sobolewski.
He was teammates with Kaminsky for four years at Benet.
“That was unbelievable. I was really happy for him last night. To have a record at a school like that is fantastic,” said Sobolewski.
Northwestern tied the all-time series at 4-4, rebounding from last season’s home loss to the Flames.
“It was in the back of our mind for sure,” said Sobolewski. “It was an ugly game. We didn’t play well. Yeah, we were definitely thinking about that game.”
Northwestern led 47-22 at the half. Crawford scored eight points.
Northwestern rebounded from back-to-back losses to Stanford and a home loss to Illinois State on Sunday.
Kelsey Barlow led Illinois-Chicago with five points in the half and finished with 10. As a team they shot 22.6 percent in the half and allowed Northwestern to shoot 57.1 percent.
“For some reason we are giving up easy 3’s and that’s unacceptable obviously,” said Illinois-Chicago coach Howard Moore. “It’s not just one guy’s fault. It’s a team deal. We’re just not getting it done defensively. It’s not an end of the world type deal but the urgency level is at an all-time high.”
Lumpkin finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds and Alex Olah scored 10 points.
The 35-point road win margin for Northwestern on Wednesday night was its highest total margin since a 77-20 win against University of Chicago on Jan. 14, 1944.