| Player | Minutes | NU Pts | MN Pts | Raw +/- | Player +/- | Net +/- | Box Pts |
| Martinelli | 34 | 63 | 53 | +10 | +4.37 | +6.37 | 8.90 |
| Clayton | 21 | 43 | 23 | +20 | -1.70 | +2.30 | 4.10 |
| Windham | 24 | 42 | 46 | -4 | +2.68 | +1.88 | 6.50 |
| Berry | 32 | 62 | 49 | +13 | -0.80 | +1.80 | 6.00 |
| Hunger | 17 | 32 | 31 | +1 | +0.65 | +0.85 | 3.70 |
| Nicholson | 20 | 37 | 28 | +9 | -1.30 | +0.50 | 3.00 |
| Mullins | 37 | 63 | 58 | +5 | -1.23 | -0.23 | 5.50 |
| Ciaravino | 9 | 18 | 15 | +3 | -0.90 | -0.30 | 1.55 |
| Fitzmorris | 7 | 15 | 12 | +3 | -1.77 | -1.17 | 0.75 |
Interesting game. Nick Martinelli takes home the "star of the game" honors, but he received sold support from Clayton, Windham, Berry and nearly everyone on the team. Nobody played poorly.
Coach Collins really mixed things up, removing Luke Hunger from the isolation ward and putting him on the court for a surprising 17 minutes. He even tried Hunger with Nicholson for the first time ever (I think) when Martinelli had to sit with fouls in the first half. Martinelli may have benefitted from the (slightly) reduced minutes, as he played his best game in awhile.
Along those lines, Jordan Clayton played his best game as a Wildcat. The +20 speaks for itself - and while the former redshirt wasn't exactly carrying the team, he clearly has picked it up on the defensive end and played more efficiently on the offensive end. Nicholson/Martinelli/Mullins/Berry/Clayton opened the first half with a 10-0 run and opened the 2nd half with a 10-4 run. Clayton connected on 2 of 3 from outside the arc and recorded 3 assists to 1 turnover. He has made significant progress since being thrown into the fire after the Leach injury.
KJ Windham and Ty Berry both played well, again.
Berry is 30 of 59 from the field and 14 of 35 from outside the arc since Leach went down.
Windham had 7 assists against 3 turnovers, but offset those with 3 steals. One of KJ's turnovers occurred when he tracked down a loose ball and was falling out of bounds under our basket, but the rest of the team ran up the court, leaving him to throw it up for grabs. Another occurred when Martinelli stopped mid-cut and Windham threw the ball where Martinelli had been going. All in all, Windham looked very composed running the offense. The difference between Windham and Clayton is in how they operate in the paint. Clayton is making progress, but Windham looks pretty darned good - on both ends of the floor.
I should note that Windham was -4 for the game. We gave up a lot of points when he was playing. But his player adjust was +2.68, reflecting his strong individual play.
Windham was teamed with Hunger for nearly all 17 of Luke's minutes.
Justin Mullins had a solid game, playing 37 minutes, making 4 of 6 from the field.
It felt like Minnesota did us a favor by going with a smaller lineup when Parker Fox and Frank Mitchell were a combined 7 of 8. When the Gophers went small with 8:47 to go, putting both forwards on the bench, the Cats were ahead 59-45. Collins immediately subbed in Luke Hunger and the teams played small until there was about a minute to go. We played Hunger/Martinelli/Mullins/Windham/Clayton for 3 of those minutes, before Berry replaced Clayton (which made more sense to me). Collins definitely got the better of Ben Johnson in the 2nd half.
The two most recent games have been Northwestern's best performances in Big Ten play. That says a lot. Too much to go into in a +/- discussion. But suffice it to say that the recent losses to Nebraska and Washington loom very large as likely NCAA bubble bursters... oh what might have been... and there is now evidence to suggest that NU is playing better than it has all year... We'll see if its an illusion on Friday against Iowa.
