Northwestern Starts Season 4-0 For The First Time Since 1993 With Win Over Creighton

Following a nine-day break, the Northwestern Wildcats hit the hardwood once again at Welsh Ryan Arena against the Creighton Blue Jays. Creighton figured to be Northwestern's most difficult test to date. The Blue Jays have been one of the most successful programs in the Missouri Valley Conference making the NCAA Tournament five times since 2000, with its most recent trip coming in 2007.

An efficient offensive and quality second half defensive performance led the way to a 65-52 victory for the Wildcats.

Rust was definitely not an issue for Northwestern early. Junior John Shurna made a pair of highlight reel dunks over Creighton defenders. Added with the efficient play of Michael Thompson, Northwestern jumped out to a 36-24 lead at the 3:34 mark in the first half.

"I give credit to Juice [Thompson] on all of those [dunks]," Shurna said after the game. 

Behind 56.7 percent shooting in the first half, the Wildcats went into halftime with a 40-32 lead. Northwestern was led by Shurna's 14 and Thompson's 10 points in the first half. Defensively, the Wildcats had no answer for Creighton senior Kenny Lawson Jr. Lawson, who was voted as preseason conference player of the year, had 11 first half points. It was primarily Northwestern center Luka Mirkovic who struggled containing Lawson.

"I told Luka [Mirkovic] at halftime that it's hard to play so bad the way he did in the first half and to play well in the second half," Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said. "I said 'that's a challenge for you,' and he did. He came through in a nice way."

The second half was a different story for Lawson. He did not score in the second half and only took three shots.

"I thought the key was Luka [Mirkovic] played really good defense in the second half on Lawson," Carmody said. "In the first half, he [Lawson] dominated play. You felt like they [Creighton] were controlling things a little bit even though we had the lead. In the second half, I thought he defended very well."

Coming out of the locker room, Creighton got to within 43-38 in at the 13:43 mark but Northwestern went on a 12-1 run during the next four and a half minutes, capped by a Shurna alley-hoop dunk from Thompson, to extend the lead to 55-39. During the run, Thompson drained a pair of threes from the right corner. The alley-hoop was a set play out of a timeout.

"We thought that was the right time to call it," Carmody said.

"That's a play we work on a lot at practice," Thompson said after the game. "I saw that Shurna had an opening, Drew [Crawford] set a good screen on Shurna's man, and I just tried to throw it somewhere near the basket. I know Shurna's very athletic. I just put it up there and hoped that he would catch it and put it down. He put it down pretty good and that was a momentum changer for us."

Creighton never got closer than a nine-point deficit the rest of the way and the Wildcats earned a double-digit victory. Northwestern's defense was terrific in the second half, holding the Blue Jays to just 28 percent overall in the second half. Creighton also missed all 11 of its 3-point attempts.

Shurna led the way with 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting and hit 3-of-6 3-pointers.

"I coached against him [Shurna] last year and I think we held him to 27 [points] last year so I guess that's an improvement," Creighton head coach Greg McDermott joked afterwards. "I'm really impressed with him. I just love the way he plays the game."

Thompson had an efficient 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting and made 2-of-3 3-pointers.

"He plays like a senior and the way a point guard's supposed to play," McDermott said. "He controls the game, he takes good shots and distributes when he needs to distribute."

Northwestern is now 4-0, the first time they started off the season that way since 1993. In 1993, they made the NIT.

The Wildcats has a quick turnaround when they welcome Georgia Tech this Tuesday in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.