{"id":53831,"date":"2017-03-02T10:37:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T16:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=53831"},"modified":"2017-03-02T10:37:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T16:37:58","slug":"dramatic-win-propels-northwestern-toward-march-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/dramatic-win-propels-northwestern-toward-march-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Dramatic win propels Northwestern toward March Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Astasia Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hail Mary. Program-record 21 wins. March Madness.<\/p>\n

The first day of March lived up to its nickname at Welsh-Ryan Arena as Northwestern took down Michigan in a cinematic fashion Wednesday night. Now may be the time for Evanston, Illinois, to put on its dancing shoes for the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Home-court advantage was in full affect for the Wildcats. Students rushed into the\u00a0Wildside section to grab their free T-shirts\u00a0and giant cardboard heads of famous Northwestern alumni. Twenty-one\u00a0shirtless males stood in the student section with purple letters on their chests, spelling out P-O-U-N-D-T-H-E-R-O-C-K-#-B-I-G-C-A-T-S.<\/p>\n

Turns out, Northwestern threw the rock to record arguably its biggest win in team history.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t the Bears need a QB?\u201d Wildcats coach Chris Collins joked.<\/p>\n

Look out Trevor Siemian. Nathan Taphorn may have a future at quarterback. Taphorn showed his arm strength throwing a floor-length pass to Dererk Pardon with 1.7 seconds left on the clock to score the game-winning basket and beat the Wolverines 67-65.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a play I will always remember,\u201d Taphorn said. \u201cEspecially being my last week here at Welsh-Ryan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until the final play, the\u00a0Wildcats lived by their \u2018Pound The Rock\u2019 mantra, scoring 36 points in the paint and shooting 52.9 percent from the field. But they also committed 12 turnovers. Northwestern had to inbound the ball\u00a0under Michigan\u2019s basket, and any long pass raised the\u00a0turnover risk. But Collins wanted to make a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy instincts just said go for it,\u201d coach Christ Collins said. \u201cOnce I said that, coach [Brian] James grabbed the clipboard and drew up a great play.\u201d<\/p>\n

A great play, indeed, which no one will ever forget. Also, a play that has never been executed in a game\u00a0or even practiced by this team.<\/p>\n

“He said, ‘Go long and score the ball,”’ Pardon said. \u201cAs I caught it, I\u2019m like\u2026 the rim is right there. So I just turned around and shot the layup. This was just amazing for us and for this program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pardon is correct. Northwestern men\u2019s basketball notched\u00a0in its 21st win of the season, a program record. And the Wildcats matched their highest conference win total since the 1932-1933 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a special night,\u201d Collins said, choking\u00a0up. \u201cTo finish the game the way you did; it\u2019s almost fitting when you\u2019re trying to do things that are really hard. It takes exceptional things sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the opening tip, Welsh-Ryan was electric. As the song says, the purple frenzies brought the turbulence. An hour before tipoff, every seat in the 8,117 arena was filled with fans of all ages. On Feb. 14, Northwestern announced that the last three home games<\/a> of the regular season were completely sold out.<\/p>\n

Once the clock hit\u00a00:00, all you saw was the sea of purple, a human dog pile, and a lot of Wildcat basketball enthusiasts grasping what is happening before them.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats knew that they were not in for an easy matchup Wednesday. The Wolverines had won\u00a0their last two games and five of their past six, including an upset over Big Ten regular-season champ Purdue.<\/p>\n

The Boilermakers visit Evanston on Sunday for another Welsh-Ryan sellout and a nationally televised game on CBS to close out the regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the game I committed here for,\u201d Northwestern forward Vic Law said. \u201cTo play in a game like this; I don\u2019t think any other Northwestern team has played in a game so big as this. That really meant everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wildcats are proving themselves to be more than just a bubble team for the NCAA tournament. Collins spent most of the season telling the media that he didn\u2019t want his locker room to focus on the rankings and the newly added media attention because of their success. But after the Indiana game, Collins challenged his team to feed into the hype.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything good in life involves handling pressure and succeeding under pressure,\u201d Collins said. \u201cWe are not going to avoid it anymore. We are not going to not going to talk about it. There is pressure on us. We got to go out and win if we want to do something great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are you not entertained?<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Wildcat fans rush the court after a buzzer-beating basket from center Dererk Pardon beats Michigan and gives\u00a0Northwestern a program-record 21 wins. (Astasia Williams\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Astasia Williams Hail Mary. Program-record 21 wins. March Madness. The first day of March lived up to its nickname at Welsh-Ryan Arena as Northwestern took down Michigan in a cinematic fashion Wednesday night. Now may be the time for Evanston, Illinois, to put on its dancing shoes for the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":53819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,3516],"tags":[723,3796,3795,752],"class_list":["post-53831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-winter-2017","tag-chris-collins","tag-dererk-pardon","tag-nathan-taphorn","tag-northwestern-basketball"],"yoast_head":"\nDramatic win propels Northwestern toward March Madness - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/dramatic-win-propels-northwestern-toward-march-madness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dramatic win propels Northwestern toward March Madness - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Astasia Williams Hail Mary. Program-record 21 wins. March Madness. The first day of March lived up to its nickname at Welsh-Ryan Arena as Northwestern took down Michigan in a cinematic fashion Wednesday night. 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