Northwestern has had bigger upsets, but never a bigger win. We look at the biggest victories in Wildcat history.
Story: A win for the ages
Story: A win for the ages
A win for the ages: Where does Wisconsin win rank in NU history?
- Thread starter lou v
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Thanks for the great research and writeup. While it is hard to not agree with the implications of yesterday's game as a basis for placing it number one, ignoring those intangibles, beating Michigan State in the game that helped propel us to the NIT is the one that stands out to me with all the media attention it garnered at the time.
4. Northwestern 70 No. 7 Michigan State 63, Jan. 21, 2009: This was the biggest win of the Bill Carmody era. The Wildcats posted their first-ever – and still only – win at MSU’s deadly Breslin Center. The Spartans wound up winning the Big Ten and going all the way to the NCAA championship game, while Northwestern finished 17-14 (8-10) and made it to the NIT.
4. Northwestern 70 No. 7 Michigan State 63, Jan. 21, 2009: This was the biggest win of the Bill Carmody era. The Wildcats posted their first-ever – and still only – win at MSU’s deadly Breslin Center. The Spartans wound up winning the Big Ten and going all the way to the NCAA championship game, while Northwestern finished 17-14 (8-10) and made it to the NIT.
Nice job, Lou. One correction: That West Virginia win came at the Chicago Stadium as part of one of their doubleheaders. I was there! The Cats also upset Louisville with Wes Unseld there in the '60s. Don't know where that Louisville team ended up.
You're right! I read the wrong asterisk in the media guide for that WVU game. I will make the change. (As a side note: damn, you're old!)
I considered that Louisville game, too, but it ended up at No. 11 and didn't make the cut. It was also at the Stadium. The reason I omitted it was that although the Cards were No. 3 at the time, they lost again the following week to fall out of the rankings and wound up just 21-7.
One month before I started working here, Dec. 1975, Tex Winter's Wildcats beat Joe B. Hall's Wildcats by 12 in McGaw Hall. Kentucky was ranked No. 6 nationally and had a couple of guys by the names of Rick Robey and Jack Givens.
Lou: Love the work. A polite question: Did you consider my previous comment of February 23, 1931? There was not a Top 10 win to meet your guideline, but:
1) Clinched at least a share of the Big Ten Championship.
2) A win on the road.
3) A win against a team that was a threat for the Big Ten championship.
4) A win that was played in front of, reportedly, the largest crowd for a basketball game in Big Ten history
5) The most significant win late in the season..a season where we are suggested to be the National Champion.
Or, said simply, why include games from the 1950s...but not the 1930s. Thanks for everything!
1) Clinched at least a share of the Big Ten Championship.
2) A win on the road.
3) A win against a team that was a threat for the Big Ten championship.
4) A win that was played in front of, reportedly, the largest crowd for a basketball game in Big Ten history
5) The most significant win late in the season..a season where we are suggested to be the National Champion.
Or, said simply, why include games from the 1950s...but not the 1930s. Thanks for everything!
Just because NU's media guide only lists rankings in its won-lost records going back to 1948-49. Before that, they don't include rankings. Sports-reference.com also only goes back to the late '40s. I suppose I could have tried to dig further online, but that's a lot of work. Plus, 78 years seemed like a long enough time period for me. I spelled it all out in the story.
I considered that one, too. But that was the season opener and Kentucky wound up falling out of the rankings by the end of December and never returned. They finished 20-10 and just 11-7 and fourth in the SEC that year.
I appreciate that you acknowledged the historical limitations. One of my biggest pet peeves in sportswriting is when people say "this is the biggest ______ in history!" and then don't consider all of history.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say "this will never happen!" because they ONLY consider history.
Or you could say it wasn't that big. Act like we have been there before. Biggest victory will be when we win the NCAA Championship Till then maybe the first victory that gets us to the final 4 or our first NCAA victory.
It stands out for me for a different reason. The business where i worked at the time was collapsing during the recession, and I got laid off for the first time in my life. I had texted my Sparty friend earlier in the day as part of a start of networking. Later he responded "what a pathetic loss" about the game. I thought he meant the layoff, he hadn't noticed my text.
Lou, you did good research. However, your conclusion that the Wiscy win is number one is hard to follow.
Apparently you base your assessment on the alleged "fact" that according to "experts" NU only needs 10 B1G wins (whichever?) to earn its 1st ever NCAA-T invite, and this is win #8, which means that NU only needs two more.
Even if the contention was true (AzSU missed the NCAA-T with 12 league wins, not long ago):
1) We may EXCEED the number of reg. season B1G wins experts say we need (say we may win over) which would make the Madison win superfluous.
2) We may go ice cold the rest of the way and fail to win enough games for an invite, in which case the Madison win is just another nice upset over a highly-ranked team.
3) In either of the above scenarios, we may catch fire for a few days and win the BTT (say by defeating by then top-10 Mary or Purdue in the final) which would trump the Madison win and make it irrelevant.
4) Etc.
The point is that it's EXTEMPORANEOUS to proclaim the Madison upset as no. 1 at this point, when we still don't know WHETHER and HOW we will reach the NCAA-T this season.
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Right. We do not have enough information to assess the "size" of this win.
Hopefully it won't be that big, because we won't need it to get the bid, just to get better seeding.
