Dec. 4, 1999
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) - Victor Thomas scored 19 points and pulled down nine rebounds to lead La Salle to a 62-44 win over Northwestern on Saturday.
Rasual Butler scored 15 points and Donnie Carr added 14 points and seven assists for the Explorers (4-1).
Winston Blake led Northwestern (1-5) with 14 points.
The Explorers led 28-22 at halftime and started the second half with a 17-4 run. A turnaround jumper by Carr with 11:05 left that gave La Salle its biggest lead to that point at 45-26.
The Wildcats missed 14 of their first 16 shots in the second half before Brody Deren's dunk with 5:38 left in the game. Deren's basket started an 8-2 Northwestern run that cut La Salle's lead to 18 at 57-39. But Thomas sank a 3-pointer with 3:06 to go and the Wildcats got no closer than 16 points in the final minutes.
Northwestern shot just 29 percent (7-of-24) in the second half and 30 percent (14-of-46) for the game. The Wildcats also committed a season-high 19 turnovers.
The Wildcats missed 10 of their first 11 shots and fell behind 11-2 in the opening 10 minutes of the game. But Tavaras Hardy hit a jumper from the free-throw line with 9:49 left in the first half and David Newman sank a 3-pointer from the left corner with 9:10 remaining to trim the deficit to four.
The Explorers twice matched their nine-point lead in the final 2:10 of the first half. But Northwestern went 6-of-8 from the free-throw line in the closing two minutes to pull within six points by halftime.