The Big Ten’s third-place team beat the conference’s last place team, missing its top scorer, by 20 points at home. As unsurprising as that is, plugging in Northwestern’s name and its recent history typically adds shock value comparable to the effect of flipping the sentence altogether.
But that really wasn’t the case on Saturday, nor was it the story. It was the opposite that was true; Northwestern took care of business from the under-12 media timeout in the first half onward. From there, NU found holes in the middle of Minnesota’s zone defense at will, forced turnovers constantly and all but clinched the win before halftime with a 26-8 run.