EVANSTON—Trevon Hughes’ teammates told him to keep shooting. Luckily for No. 13 Wisconsin he did just that.Hughes missed his five 3-point attempts during a ragged offensive night but in the final seven minutes he hit 4 of 5 and led the Badgers to a 60-50 victory over Northwestern.And his late game surge, along with some ferocious offensive rebounding by the Badgers — 15 for the game — ended Northwestern’s upset bid.Whether it was good defense or poor offense, both teams had a long drought of nearly eight minutes without a field goal during the second half. Wisconsin shot 28.6 percent in the second half and Northwestern 33 percent.Hughes finished with 16 points, 15 in the second half, while shooting 5 for 15. As a team, the Badgers were only 7 for 26 on 3-pointers.Jason Bohannon led Wisconsin (14-3, 4-1 Big Ten) with 19 points, 10 in the first half.John Shurna had 15 points and Jeremy Nash 13 for Northwestern (12-4, 1-3).Without injured forward Jon Leuer, the Badgers started a three-guard offense with sophomore Jordan Taylor making his first start. Taylor scored a career-high 23 points in Wisconsin’s victory over Purdue last Saturday. He had 10 points, no turnovers and seven assists against NU.The 6-10 Leuer, the Badgers’ second-leading scorer (15.4 ppg) and leading rebounder (6.2), broke his left wrist in a fall during the win over the Boilermakers.Hughes’ first 3-pointer, ending the nearly an eight-minute field goal drought for the Badgers, tied the game at 42 with 6:52 to go.Luka Mirkovic’s free throw put the Wildcats up by one but two more by Keaton Nankivil after an offensive rebound gave the Badgers the lead right back.Shurna got the Wildcats’ first basket since the 14:37 mark by driving for a score with 6:13 to go. Drew Crawford’s 3-pointer gave the Wildcats a 48-46 lead. But Hughes’ 3-pointer put the Badgers back up 49-48 and they never trailed again. After Jordan chased down an offensive rebound, Hughes hit another 3-pointer, giving Wisconsin a 52-48 lead with just under four minutes to go.When the Wildcats missed a free throw — they were only 9 for 16 for the game — Hughes again connected from beyond the 3-point line.The slow-moving first half featured more timeouts than fast breaks and ended up tied at 27. Bohannon had 10 points on 5 of 7 shooting for Wisconsin and Nash scored nine for the Wildcats.

—————————————————————-

NORMAL—Lloyd Phillips’ 18 points led four Illinois State players in double figures and the Redbirds pulled away from Evansville in the second half for a 70-56 victory Wednesday night.Dinma Odiakosa had 13 points and 11 rebounds for Illinois State (13-4, 4-2 Missouri Valley). Austin Hill scored 14 points and Alex Rubin matched his career high with 13 for the Redbirds, whose top scorer this season, Osiris Eldridge, was held to two points in 29 minutes.Colt Ryan scored 22 to lead Evansville (6-10, 0-6) and Denver Holmes had 10. The Aces outscored the Redbirds 30-18 in the paint but Illinois State was 20-for-23 from the free-throw line, led by Hill’s 8-for-8. Evansville was 7-for-8 at the line.The Redbirds led 33-31 at halftime, and the Aces trailed 47-46 with just under 12 minutes remaining. A 9-2 run later in the half gave ISU a 64-54 lead.

—————————————————————-

OMAHA—Antoine Young’s driving basket with 1.3 seconds left gave Creighton a 71-69 win over Southern Illinois on Wednesday night.The shot over two Saluki defenders saved the Bluejays (8-9, 3-3 Missouri Valley) from a late collapse on their home floor. Justin Carter led Creighton with 19 points.Gene Teague scored 14 points to lead Southern Illinois (9-6, 2-4).Tony Freeman hit a 3-pointer with 1:19 to play to pull the Salukis within 69-67, and Kevin Dillard tied the game with 35 seconds left after Justin Bocot blocked a shot by Carter at the other end.Creighton held the ball from there, and Young dribbled down the right side of the lane and put up a shot as time ran down.The win was the 400th at the Division I level for Creighton coach Dana Altman. Altman has coached 21 combined seasons at Marshall, Kansas State and Creighton.

—————————————————————–

DE KALB—Mike DiNunno had 21 points and 10 assists, and Northern Illinois made 60 percent of its 3-point attempts in defeating Western Michigan 87-77 Wednesday night.Sean Kowal had 18 points and seven rebounds, Xavier Silas scored 15 points and Darion Anderson 12 for Northern Illinois (6-8, 2-0 Mid-American), which overcame an early 26-12 deficit with hot outside shooting. DiNunno made six of the Huskies’ 12 3-pointers.NIU shot 50 percent from the field in the second half, including 5-for-7 from behind the arc, and finished the game at 46 percent overall.David Kool led all scorers with 26 points for Western Michigan (9-6, 1-1).Martelle McLemore scored 16 points and Donald Lawson had 12 points and seven rebounds for the Broncos.