Northwestern junior forward Nick Martinelli had the basketball in his hands, down two points to UCLA with about 20 seconds to play Monday night at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
With a Wildcats winning streak in the balance and a Big Ten tournament berth still not set, Martinelli drove to the lane but didn’t get a shot off. He stepped between UCLA defenders William Kyle III and Eric Dailey Jr. but lost the ball in the process.
Seconds later, Wildcats first-year guard K.J. Windham was called for a flagrant foul on a fast break at the other end against Dailey, who made both free throws to help UCLA pull off a 73-69 victory on Northwestern’s senior night.
It was a sour ending to what could have been a magical comeback. The Wildcats trailed by 14 points with 3 minutes, 7 seconds to play before going on a 13-0 run to pull within 68-67.
“I thought it just was desperation,” Wildcats coach Chris Collins said of the comeback. “We have a lot of pride, and our guys are fighters. They’re going to play to the very last second of the game. … We haven’t been able to win a lot of the close games, but we’re also showing up every night. We’re competing, which to me is a real positive, especially being undermanned.”
The loss broke a three-game winning streak and spoiled senior night festivities honoring five seniors, including injured players Brooks Barnhizer and Jalen Leach.
With a win, Northwestern (16-14, 7-12) could have solidified its spot in the Big Ten tournament, which now awards berths to the top 15 of 18 teams in the conference. The Wildcats entered the night in a four-way tie for the No. 11 seed with Nebraska, Minnesota and Rutgers. They also would have continued stating a long-shot case for the NCAA Tournament.
Senior Ty Berry led the Wildcats with 22 points, seven rebounds and three steals. He had nine points during the late run, including a steal and layup to spark the run, a 3-pointer with 33 seconds to play to rev the crowd up and a layup to push Northwestern within one. He said their mindset was to try to “claw our way back.”
After UCLA’s Skyy Clark made one of two free throws, Collins called the play for Martinelli, who hit two game-winners within a span of a few weeks in January and February.
“We wanted to open the floor and let Nick operate,” Collins said. “Nick has been a pretty good late-game player for us. He won the Maryland game. He won the USC game. At that point in time, they’re going to be switching a lot of screens, so we wanted to open the floor and let Nick create. I thought he did a good job. He got in the middle of the floor. He got to his spot. I thought he got fouled, but that’s the way it goes. You’ve got to go to the next play.”
Collins said his players “kind of froze” when Martinelli lost the ball to Kyle. He lamented that the Wildcats didn’t immediately foul and that they let Dailey get behind them. Center Matthew Nicholson didn’t want to speculate whether Martinelli was fouled.
“Calls don’t go our way, and calls do go our way. … We’ve just got to keep playing,” Nicholson said. “We should have fouled after it. Their worst free-throw shooter had the ball. We should have fouled him. We would have had a chance. We were only down two at that point. But we didn’t. Things just didn’t go our way at the end.”
That included the call on Windham, which Collins said he needed to review further.
“To me it’s got to be pretty darn egregious to call a flagrant at that time,” Collins said. “But maybe it was. I’m not saying it wasn’t. These were really good officials. It looked from my vantage point like K.J. tried to make a play on the ball behind, but that wasn’t what the referee saw. And that was game.”
The Wildcats led 35-34 at halftime after Nicholson made a big dunk on an assist from Martinelli in the final seconds of the half.
But the Bruins (21-9, 12-7) found the edge for much of the second half behind 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara and 6-foot-9 forward Tyler Bilodeau. Mara had nine of his 11 points in the second half, and Bilodeau had 12 of his 19. Mara also had 10 rebounds and three blocks.
“We were sending double teams (against Mara),” Collins said. “He did a pretty good job against them, of keeping the ball high and making some passes out. He pivoted around our guys a little bit and drew some fouls. He had some offensive rebound baskets that were really crucial. We had to come over and help at times when our guards got beat. … We forced them to miss, and he cleaned up two or three that I thought were really key baskets. He’s a talented player, and he’s unique — so tall, so long but also very skilled.”
Monday was the season finale at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The Wildcats have one more regular-season game, at No. 13 Maryland on Saturday.
“It’s March. You never know what can happen,” Berry said. “If we get into the Big Ten tournament and make something shake, you never know. I know from our end we’re going to keep fighting to the end, and we’re never going to quit.”
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