On Wednesday night, No. 25 Northwestern fell to No. 23 Purdue on the road at Mackey Arena, and it was ugly. In their first conference game as a ranked team since in almost 50 years, the Wildcats got beat up badly in West Lafayette. The result was a 80-59 loss, their first double-digit defeat of the season.
Not coincidentally, it was also the Wildcats’ first game of the season playing without leading scorer Scottie Lindsey. A starter in all 22 of Northwestern’s previous games and a double-digit scorer in 21 of them, the junior guard was even more sorely missed against the Boilermakers than most expected.