A horrific shooting effort belies overall weak performance by the Wildcats.
EVANSTON — When a team plays as poorly as Northwestern did Saturday night in a 71-62 loss to Penn State at Welsh-Ryan Arena, while going just 3 of 26 from three-point range, it's easy to blame the performance on the terrible shooting effort and ignore any other potential weaknesses.
In addition to missing a staggering amount of relatively open shots from beyond the arc — Northwestern's first made three was by Tre Demps with 10:21 left in the second half — the Wildcats did not play well on defense, allowing Penn State to shoot 43 percent from three and score a relatively efficient 71 points on just 44 shots (and 23 free throws).