It was over at halftime.
Trailing 45-27 to the Fighting Illini after the second quarter, Northwestern appeared doomed to the same fate it had suffered in losses to ranked teams such as Oregon, Notre Dame, Duke and Ohio State. In each of those defeats (albeit to excellent opponents), the Wildcats fell behind early by a large sum and ultimately did not play a competitive game. The matches were over by the second quarter.
A similar result did not happen Thursday night.
Against a much improved Illinois team compared to the 14 losing iterations Northwestern had played prior, the Wildcats faced a similar, yet beatable opponent as the aforementioned ranked losses.