Northwestern Team Report (Yahoo! Sports)

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:00:49 PDT

Considering Northwestern won just 1 of 19 games against Big Ten opponents and went 8-22 overall, it's hard to imagine the Wildcats met their expectations this year.

And, yet, eighth-year coach Bill Carmody knew well in advance what to expect. Months before the season began, he predicted, "it's going to be rough." While Northwestern's record was about as rough as it gets, one needs to look deeper to see the Wildcats weren't that far away from posting a handful more wins.

Northwestern's final game—a 3-point loss to Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament—did a nice job of summing up the Wildcats' strengths and weaknesses. The Wildcats built a 13-point halftime lead but wasted little time letting the Gophers get back into the game as they went...