Northwestern goes one-and-done in Big Ten Tournament, falling to Wisconsin

FOX 32's Cassie Carlson goes 1-on-1 with Northwestern star Boo Buie

The Big Ten Tournament is underway in Minneapolis as we are approaching Selection Sunday, and Northwestern is stacking another great season, thanks in large part to Boo Buie.

MINNEAPOLIS - MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — AJ Storr scored a career-high 30 points, Steven Crowl added 19 and No. 5 seed Wisconsin beat No. 4 seed Northwestern 70-61 on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament.

Wisconsin (21-12) advances to play top seed and third-ranked Purdue in the semifinals on Saturday. The Badgers lost both regular-season meetings with the Boilermakers, 75-69 at home and 78-70 on the road.

Storr gave Wisconsin its first double-digit lead with 6:57 left in the second half when he sank a 3-pointer for a 62-52 lead.

Northwestern star Boo Buie made his seventh 3-pointer with 4:17 remaining to get within 65-59. But the Wildcats would not make another field goal the rest of the way.

Wisconsin stayed hot from 3-point range after making 16 on Thursday against Maryland. Freshman John Blackwell, who made four 3-pointers against the Terrapins, made his only 3-pointer against Northwestern with 2:14 left for a 70-59 lead.

The Wildcats turned it over on their next two possessions and Wisconsin kept working down the clock to seal it.

The Badgers went 10 of 22 from distance, with three makes apiece from Max Klesmit, Crowl, Storr. Klesmit finished with 10 points and seven assists. Storr was 10 of 16 from the field and 7 of 8 at the stripe, and Crowl made 8 of 12 overall.

Buie led Northwestern (21-11) with 29 points and seven 3-pointers. Brooks Barnhizer had 13 points and 14 rebounds. Ryan Langborg, averaging 12.4 points per game, fouled out with 5:30 left to finish with five points on 2-of-6 shooting.

Buie was one make shy of tying the Big Ten Tournament record of eight 3-pointers in a game, set by Iowa’s Keegan Murray (2022) and Indiana’s Devonte Green (2019). Buie did set a program record for the tournament, passing Ben Johnson (2001) with six 3-pointers.

Buie scored 11 straight Northwestern points and added a personal 5-0 run for a 21-10 lead with 12 minutes left in the first half. But he didn't score again the rest of the half and Wisconsin used a 14-0 run to get back in it. Luke Hunger made a jumper from the free-throw line in the closing seconds to get Northwestern within 33-29 lead at the break.

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA - FEBRUARY 18: Head coach Chris Collins of the Northwestern Wildcats is seen during the game against the Indiana Hoosiers at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on February 18, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty

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What Chris Collins said after the loss

On losing 3 of last 4 of the regular season

No panic. You look at those games that-- he got hurt in the Iowa game, which was a tough loss for us. He got hurt in the middle of that game. We went to Michigan State and, I thought, played very well, had a shot. Ryan Langborg gets a clean three that would have potentially won the game. I thought we played pretty well in kind of a rock fight type of game.

We came home and played great against Minnesota, who I think is a good team, and I thought we did some good things today. There's zero panic. We lost to a team that's going to be a 5 or 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament in a game we lose by nine, but we're winning 21-10, it's a two-possession game in the middle of the second half.

There's zero panic. We believe we can win. We believe we're good. We believe we can compete with anybody we play against. Last year it was a similar thing. We went out and played great against Boise. Got a good win and went out and almost beat UCLA.

Some of that stuff, depending who you play, when you play them, how they're played can be overanalyzed. We're still in a good spot. Our guys will get another week or so to get healthy. We'll either play Thursday or Friday and we'll watch some practices, and we'll be confident. We'll go into the tournament confident we can play and hopefully give ourselves a chance to advance no matter who we play.

On players suffering injuries in the conference tournament in irrelevant games

Look, in hindsight it's not the worst thing. The worst thing would probably be to play three games and lose in the championship because you get wiped out and then you've got to fly home and figure out who you're playing. That being said, as a competitor, you don't view it that way. I mean, we were really excited, really ready to play. We came here. We felt we had a great chance not being able to play until Friday.

Then when you lose a game, you kind of say, okay, let's get home. Let's dust ourselves off. Let's get back to the drawing board. We're still in a good spot. We were able to get through the game. The guys we do have -- you know, Ty's out. I apologize I didn't answer your question on that. No new update on Matt.

But we'll get ourselves ready. Like I told the guys, it's the one thing that's a positive is you can kind of learn from playing an opponent like today in a tournament environment, and you can kind of go home and say, okay, there are no more do-overs now. It's a one-and-done situation. We've got to get it right. We've got to be at our best.

Obviously the margin for error for us is very slim. When you lose some key guys, two starters, you can still win. Doesn't mean we can't win, but it makes the margin for error a little bit slimmer, with our defense, with our rebounding, with our turnovers, things of that nature that we have to really shore up before we head to next weekend.

Boo Buie #0 of the Northwestern Wildcats shoots over Camden Heide #23 of the Purdue Boilermakers during the second half at Welsh-Ryan Arena on December 01, 2023 in Evanston, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

What Boo Buie said after the loss

Why the NU ‘wasn’t itself' Friday

"If you just look at our offense, especially in the first half. I just thought we got a little stagnant. We went up 21-10, and our offense was a little bit stagnant. We've been a really good, efficient offensive team all year. That's what I mean. That just wasn't like us. We made a couple of bonehead plays defensively. I know how capable this team is, and I just didn't feel we were ourselves tonight."