The Northwestern Wildcats lead 42-34 over the Akron Zips in the first round of this year's NIT on Tuesday night. Drew Crawford has had a huge game for the Wildcats, who have led by as many as 15 points in the game.
The game was quite close early, but Northwestern pulled away a bit after Akron made a pair of baskets to tie the game at 10-10. From that point, the Wildcats would go on a 19-6 run to establish a solid lead. The Zips actually showed some life at the end of the half, though, scoring seven unanswered points in the final 75 seconds to make the deficit more manageable.
Crawford had a great first half for Northwestern, scoring 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting to easily lead all scorers. The Wildcats also got 11 points from JerShon Cobb and 10 points from John Shurna, but the rest of the team scored just two points. Quincy Diggs has come off the bench to lead Akron with nine points.
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