March 19, 2011
Box Score
Site: Chestnut Hill, Mass. (Conte Forum)
Score: Northwestern 85, Boston College 67
Records: NU (20-13), Boston College (21-13)
Next NU Event: Wednesday, March 23 -- at Washington State
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- All five Northwestern starters scored in double figures led by Michael Thompson's 22 points as the Wildcats advanced the quarterfinal round of the National Invitation Tournament with an 85-67 victory at Boston College on Saturday.
John Shurna posted 20 points and nine rebounds, Luka Mirkovic and Drew Crawford scored 13 points apiece and Alex Marcotullio added 12. The victory is the 20th of the season for NU, matching the school record also achieved a year ago.
The Wildcats advance to take on Washington State for the right to advance to the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
It took both teams a little while to shake off the cobwebs of an 11 a.m. local time tip. Northwestern finally started to get into a flow midway through the opening stanza. With the Wildcats trailing 14-12, Thompson scored on a lay-up and Crawford followed with back-to-back 3-pointers to put NU up 20-14.
Boston College would tie the game at 23-23 apiece on a three-point play by Josh Southern, but Northwestern controlled the final seven minutes of the half. The Wildcats' advantage was 28-26 when Shurna scored on a lay-in.
Consecutive triples by Thompson and Mirkovic followed by a Shurna slam off a feed from Mirkovic gave NU its largest lead of the opening half at 38-28. The Wildcats would eventually take a 38-31 advantage into the intermission.
Northwestern got balanced production over the opening 20 minutes of play as Thompson scored 10 points and Shurna and Crawford nine and eight, respectively. Mirkovic pitched in with six assists.
NU quickly built on its lead to open the second half as Thompson drilled a trey and Marcotullio converted a four-point play to put the visitors in front 45-33. It was a 49-41 game when Shurna drilled a triple and then flushed a breakaway dunk to put Wildcats up 54-41.
Four straight points by the Eagles got the hosts back to within single digits at 54-45, but Thompson capped an 11-3 run by drilling a 3-pointer to stretch the Northwestern lead to 65-48 with 9:24 to go.
Spurred on by a large fan base in attendance to support the purple, the Wildcats never led Boston College go on any extended runs in the contest as they withstood the Eagles' pressure down the stretch. Thompson delivered the final dagger with 2:18 remaining as he hit his sixth triple of the game to push NU's advantage to 16.
Northwestern connected on 15 of 36 3-point attempts in the contest and shot 54.8 percent overall in the contest. The Wildcats assisted on 27 of their 34 field goals and out-rebounded Boston College 29-20.
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