Last night, the Northwestern University men’s basketball team welcome #8 Wisconsin into Welsh-Ryan Arena for a Big Ten tilt. After dispatching #10 Michigan State 64-62 on Saturday, the Wildcats were on the hunt for their second straight win over a top 10 team and courtesy of a tremendous performance from Chase Audige ’17, they came tantalizingly close.

The redshirt junior poured in a team-high 23 points on 10-of-17 shooting, including 3-of-4 from behind the arc, to pace the Wildcats who have now lost to #13 Ohio State, #10 Michigan State, and #8 Wisconsin by a mere 6.7-point average. Though it was not his highest scoring mark for Northwestern, it may have been his best performance from his season-and-a-half in Evanston. Last January he poured in 25 points at Ohio State but needed 23 shots to do it. Last night proved Audige can not only be a productive scorer, but a highly efficient one.

The former Bear scorched the Badgers for 16 points in the first half on 7-of-10 shooting to lead the ‘Cats into the break trailing, 35-41. An Audige jumper with 2:42 left pulled the ‘Cats back within 68-73 and his 3-pointer with 1:09 left cut the deficit to 73-80, but the Badgers were able to salt the game away for an 82-76 win.

Audige added 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals in 31 minutes.

Northwestern has its third straight top-10 match-up on Sunday at they travel to West Lafayette, IN for a match-up with #4 Purdue.

We’re trying to be as positive as possible. We have a really good team, everyone in the locker room believes in each other. We won last week at Michigan State and had this game a few times. There’s just a few key plays and stuff like that, but we’re gonna keep fighting.

~ Audige to The Daily Northwestern

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