Northwestern was bad in its 68-44 loss Tuesday to Michigan State at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
The Wildcats (10-14, 1-10 Big Ten) were the kind of bad that makes you cringe and question whether they are, in fact, making any progress toward earning their first NCAA tournament berth.
Win or lose, that question wasn’t going to be answered against the Spartans (16-8, 7-4). It likely will take much more time to get clarity on that issue.
What was apparent, though, is that NU has absolutely no chance of beating anyone when it plays badly. Programs such as Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin often find ways to win when they don’t play their best. That’s not something that can be said of the Wildcats — not this season, at least.
NU coach Chris Collins said much of that has to do with attitude.
‘‘For the first time, I thought I saw some guys with their heads down a little bit,’’ Collins said. ‘‘I thought they looked defeated.
‘‘I didn’t think we played hard enough to be worthy of winning. I didn’t think we had this sense of fight that we have been having.’’
The Wildcats stayed close for 10 minutes before going through one of their all-too-familiar offensive droughts. Guard Tre Demps made a three-pointer with 10:47 left in the first half to cut NU’s deficit to three, but the Spartans responded by scoring 22 consecutive points.
Demps’ three-pointer was the last field goal the Wildcats made in the first half. Their only point after that came on a free throw by Demps with 46 seconds left, and they trailed 38-14 at the break.
Stunningly, Demps (20 points) made all four of NU’s field goals in the first half. He went 4-for-7; the rest of the team went 0-for-15.
The Wildcats went more than three minutes without a field goal to start the second half before Vic Law scored on a tip-in with 16:41 left. That ended NU’s stretch of 14:06 without a basket.
Believe it or not, though, Collins was even more upset with the Wildcats’ defense, which lacked energy and failed to keep them in the game. He made reference to the 2013-14 team, which was abysmal offensively but was able to win a few games with defense.
‘‘Obviously, it was a very disappointing night,’’ Collins said. ‘‘This hasn’t been indicative of how we’ve played in terms of effort, fight, competitiveness.’’
