Jahmyl Telfort scored nine of his 23 points in the final 6:12 to help Butler hold on to a 71-69 victory over Northwestern in an Arizona Tip-Off semifinal Thursday night in Tempe, Ariz.
After Boden Kapke sank a free throw with 5.8 seconds left to give Butler the two-point edge, Brooks Barnhizer drove the length of the court and his game-tying layup rolled off the iron — and Nick Martinelli’s tip a split-second before the horn curled around the inside of the rim before coming out.
Fifth-year center Andre Screen came off the bench to contribute a season-high 15 points for Butler (5-1), which advanced to Friday’s championship game against the winner of No. 25 Mississippi State and UNLV. Finley Bizjack added 12 points. Leading scorer Pierre Brooks II finished 1 of 7 from the field for two points — 14 points below his average.
Barnhizer paced Northwestern (5-2) with 24 points and seven rebounds while fifth-year center Matthew Nicholson finished with a season-high 14 points. Martinelli, who entered the day as the nation’s No. 5 scorer with 23.8 points per game while shooting 60.2 percent from the field, missed his first six shots and finished with seven points on 3-of-15 shooting.
Both teams needed time to heat up. Butler needed six possessions and four minutes to register its first points while Northwestern, after getting a Barnhizer fadeaway on the game’s first possession, needed nearly five minutes to get its second basket.
The Bulldogs found their groove first. They put together an 11-0 run that began with Patrick McCaffery’s jumper at the 14:28 mark and concluded with Screen’s power move for a layup to take a 15-6 lead with 11:17 to go.
While the Wildcats were busy missing 10 out of 11 field-goal tries, Butler pushed its margin to 24-10 with 6:43 left as Screen threw down a putback dunk and a layup and Telfort swished a 3.
K.J. Windham came off the bench to kickstart a Northwestern rally with a 3-pointer and a transition layup. Barnhizer finished the half with a 3-pointer and two free throws to cap a 13-2 run and pull the Wildcats within 31-28 at the break.
In the second half, Northwestern failed to capitalize on its first seven possessions to tie or take the lead. Then Jalen Leach cashed a pullup just beyond the free-throw line with 6:27 left to give the Wildcats a 53-52 edge — their first lead since 6-4.
That sparked Butler’s game-defining run. Telfort hit two free throws, Bizjack made a 3-pointer and Telfort sank a 3 from the wing to push the Bulldogs’ margin to 60-55 with 3:45 to play.
