Northwestern didn’t just want to beat Wisconsin, which it did 66-59 on Sunday night.
The Wildcats, coach Chris Collins said, want to be Wisconsin.
“We’re trying to build a program to emulate what Wisconsin has done,” Collins said. “They have good kids; they play the right way.
“It was a great win for us.”
To say the Wildcats were happy with the upset would be an understatement.
To say they were content after a road win against the No. 7 team in the country, one that hadn’t lost at Kohl Center in more than 13 months, well, that would be an overstatement.
To say the Wildcats were sorry, that would be the truth.
With four seconds left, Sanjay Lumpkin accounted for the Wildcats’ 65th and 66th points with a dunk on a pass from Bryant McIntosh, a play that Northwestern and Collins almost immediately regretted.
“The right play would have been to pull out,” Collins said. “That’s my mistake. I apologized to Wisconsin’s staff and the team. We all got a little bit excited. We knew we accomplished something good.”
Collins is no stranger to winning at Kohl Center. The Wildcats (19-6, 8-2) managed a 65-56 upset of the then-No. 17 Badgers there during Collins rookie season in 2013-14.
McIntosh, who had 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists and plenty to do with the signature victory, didn’t disagree with his coach about how this one ended, though.
“I knew it wasn’t the right play but it was just like, that finished it,” he said. “It was the dagger.”
Photos from the Northwestern-Wisconsin men’s college basketball game on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Madison, Wis.
And so the team that had just lost to winless-in-true-road-games Illinois at Welsh-Ryan had just defeated Big Ten leader Wisconsin (21-4, 10-2), which had won 19 in a row at home.
And they did it without their leading scorer, Scottie Lindsey, who has missed the last three games with mono. Lindsey could return for Wednesday’s game against Maryland, but it’s a possibility the Wildcats wait till Saturday’s game against Rutgers to bring him back.
Either way, Sunday’s win is sure to please the NCAA tournament selection committee, which might have no choice but to extend the Wildcats an invitation in the making since 1939.
A second time for everything: Nathan Taphorn has played in 98 games for Northwestern during his three-plus seasons with the Wildcats. He earned his second start Sunday, three years after his first. The senior played in place of Lindsey and was a vital part of a Northwestern’s 16-0 run during the first half, when he made a pair of 3-pointers for his six points.
Dunk ‘n’ go nuts: Sophomore Dererk Pardon had a few dunks Sunday, but an above-the-rim camera caught a glimpse of his face during one of them. Pardon’s eyes were closed and his mouth was open as he powered the ball through the rim.
“It’s funny to see the looks on my face afterward,” he said. “People call it my dunk face.”
Pardon had 11 points and eight rebounds during the victory.
pskrbina@chicagotribune.com
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