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The Wildcats finally showed some life down the stretch but couldn’t make up for UCLA’s strong first half shooting.
After an 0-7 start in Big Ten play that featured a handful of second half collapses, Northwestern has shown a lot of improvement towards the end of the game in their past two contests. Despite their tenth conference loss of the season, the Wildcats looked uncharacteristically good in the second half, putting up 33 points to UCLA’s 30 and cutting a 15-point lead down to as little as six. While it couldn’t get the job done on Saturday, it’s a promising sign for the struggling Wildcats.
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What went wrong and what can Northwestern take away from this game? Here are three talking points from the Wildcats’ loss.
Perimeter defense leaves something to be desired
In Northwestern’s seven Big Ten losses, its opponents have averaged an impressive 40% from three point range. In their lone conference win against USC, the ‘Cats held the Trojans to a 15% clip from beyond the arc in a narrow six-point victory.
The Bruins came out of the gate on Saturday firing away. Senior forward Tyler Bilodeau was on fire in the first half, scoring 16 of his 18 points on the night and shooting a perfect 6-6 from the field while going 4-4 from deep. Bilodeau didn’t miss a shot until there were under seven minutes left in the game, when his heavily contested three-pointer rimmed out.
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The Bruins as a whole shot 67% from long range in the first half and finished the game at the 44% mark. Slow rotations and lapses in communication on Northwestern’s part allowed UCLA to get a plethora of open looks. Of the Bruins’ 16 first half makes, 11 came on jump shots and six came from three-pointers. The one area where the Bruins struggled was the free throw line, shooting an abysmal 3-9 from the charity stripe in the first half, and ending at a slightly better 11-21. If Northwestern wants to avoid giving up big runs and momentum-swinging shots, they’re going to…
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Publish date : 2026-01-25 18:06:00
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