EVANSTON, Ill. - When it came down to it, Northwestern senior Craig Moore could have probably made free throws with his eyes closed.
The Wildcats guard hit six straight shots from the charity stripe in the final 11 seconds en route to his 26-point day, matching every lay-in the Badgers scored in the waning seconds as Northwestern went on to claim its 66-63 win.
They were looking for [Moore] the whole time,"" said UW junior guard Jason Bohannon, who finished with 11 points. ""We got to do a better job preventing it, and I did a poor job keeping him away from the ball at the end. We shouldn't have put ourselves in that position anyway.""
For UW, a team that has not won in over three weeks spanning six games, this new chapter to the losing streak was more of the same. Although the Badgers shot better than 52 percent from the field and out-rebounded the Wildcats by 11, Wisconsin still suffered through defensive collapses down the stretch.
With his team trailing by one with less than three minutes to play, NU's Kevin Coble, who was bottled up for the majority of the game, beat his defender back door for a nifty reverse lay-in.
Then, on UW's ensuing possession, sophomore guard Tim Jarmusz threw an ill-advised pass that was intercepted by Coble. The Wildcats capitalized on the opposite end with a lay-up from Luka Mirkovic that gave Northwestern a three-point edge with only 90 seconds to play.
""They were very effective,"" Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said, after he saw his team extend its worst winning drought in over a decade. ""Cuts to the basket, their timing is a lot better here.""
With the Badgers trailing by three with just over 20 seconds to play, it appeared Jarmusz, who had already hit two shots from beyond the arc, passed on a wide-open shot that could have potentially tied the game.
Instead, he dished it down to senior Marcus Landry who scored the ball from the post for his 10th and final points of the game. Although UW was able to get a bucket and cut the deficit to one, Jarmusz's look was the best one the Badgers would have the rest of the game.
""They made some tough drives at the end,"" Ryan said. ""But we kept coming down trying to match and keep it at one possession. With no timeouts, I liked the way we attacked the rim.""
But attacking the rim never allowed the Badgers to even the score, as Moore was the epitome of clutch from the line.
After he connected on his fifth and sixth straight free throws in the closing seconds, UW had one last chance.
But as junior Trévon Hughes approached mid-court, he ran into some contact from Northwestern defenders and was unable to get a shot off.
""Their coach told them to foul,"" Hughes said. ""So I was waiting for it, I was anticipating the foul. They smacked me across my arm. I'm not going to fake that. We needed to get a shot up.""
With nine games left to play in the regular season, the Badgers cannot afford to let their current slump continue much longer.
""It's hard to get back on the left-hand side of things,"" Hughes, who chipped in 15 points on 3-for-10 shooting, said. ""But, this is life. We got to get it together. We're running out of time.""
