Northwestern women’s basketball coach June Olkowski has spent the better part of the season preaching the value of effort — as in, “We can’t talk wins and losses — we have to talk effort.”
Embracing that philosophy has helped the Wildcats stomach a disastrously disappointing start to the conference season, which continued with Sunday’s 79-47 loss to Minnesota at the Sports Pavilion in Minneapolis before 1,061 fans.
The loss against the only other team entering the weekend winless in the Big Ten leaves the Cats (4-13, 0-7 Big Ten) alone at the bottom of the heap. It also leaves them with a seven-game losing streak and only one victory in their last 13 attempts.
Word has gotten out in the Big Ten that the Cats are easily victimized by the full-court press, a weakness the Golden Gophers (8-9, 1-5) exploited to exhaustion Sunday. The press exacted more effort from the Cats than even Olkowski could have asked for, resulting in 26 NU turnovers.
“We didn’t have success against it early and then we got shy and not everybody was a presence,” Olkowski said. “All five players have to be a presence when you’re being trapped.”
NU was regularly double-teamed in the backcourt and strong-armed into the corners. And when the Cats managed to push the ball past halfcourt, they had trouble avoiding the trap and keeping the ball away from the sidelines.
The press continues to work against the Cats, whose injuries alone make it difficult to sustain energy over a 40-minute period. Sporting a banged-up lineup, the effects of the press often wear the Cats out by halftime.
“We don’t really have people who want to handle the ball,” Olkowski said. “We can’t hide from that. Everybody’s got to be a threat.”
The struggling Cats made an otherwise less-than-mediocre Gophers squad look unbeatable. From the field, the Cats shot only 28 percent to Minnesota’s 60 percent.
Gophers freshman guard Lindsay Whalen took advantage of the media spotlight — the game was televised on Fox Sports Net — to showcase some slick moves, stutter-stepping her way to a career-high 31 points.
“She had a great game,” Olkowski said. “We can never contain her, and each person who played her got burned.”
Point guard Ozlem Piroglu made a convincing case on TV for moving back the three-point arc, sinking a pair of treys from more than 4 feet beyond the perimeter — a demonstration more of her own crowd-pleasing ability than of the Cats’ defensive pressure.
Piroglu, in her second game back after missing two weeks with a knee injury, posted the game’s only double-double with 15 points and 11 assists.
The most effortless Gophers contribution came from junior Kim Bell. The 6-foot-7 center did little more than stand near the basket to extend her career block total to 102, swatting two shots Sunday.
In the face of all of the adversity, NU has mastered the art of sifting for positives. Natalie Will came off the bench to lead the Cats with 11 points in 32 minutes, her second venture into double digits this season.
NU also outrebounded Minnesota 40-36, the first time the Cats have won the battle on the glass in a conference game.
“We did a nice job on the boards,” Olkowski said, “but a lot of it was our own missed shots inside.”
NU can take some additional solace in sticking with the Gophers early on. The two teams traded baskets in the first five minutes, and the Cats came as close as 27-20 midway through the first half.
In the Cats’ previous three games — affairs they lost by an average of 41 points — they stumbled out of the gates and mentally handed themselves over to the competition. But NU started Sunday’s game looking like it was finally prepared to claim its first conference win.
But the strong start was overshadowed by an 11-0 Minnesota run that put the Gophers up by 18 and effectively declared Minnesota the better of the two cellar-dwellers.
“I can’t tell you I don’t hurt,” Olkowski said after the game. “But you cannot give up. You still have to have the will to work as hard as you can. Tomorrow’s a new day and you have to forge forward.”
