But injuries ravaged the squad even before the opening tipoff in November, exposing weaknesses that no weight room or treadmill can solve: size and basic skills.
The Wildcats hobbled into the conference season, falling by 57 points in one early contest against Purdue. What should have been the low point of the season was then followed by three more 30-point losses. Which – after a brief flash of potential at Michigan – ushered in a few more heartbreaking defeats.
The dreaded snowball effect took over, the losses piled up, and before anyone knew it, the Cats had become the first women’s team in NU history to go winless in the Big Ten.
So with a season to forget almost behind them – NU will officially conclude the year at the Big Ten tournament this weekend – the Cats are left wondering, “What now?”
“Clearly we can only go up,” said sophomore point guard Emily Butler, NU’s lone star this season, who was named an all-conference honorable mention Tuesday. “I don’t know how much worse it could be.”
The Cats can take comfort in knowing that they’re the fourth women’s team to go winless in the Big Ten since the conference schedule expanded to 18 games in 1982-83. And none has ever done it in consecutive years.
Exactly how NU plans to find that upward mobility is a little more complicated, but delving into it offers a nice escape from pondering this season’s woes.
Above all, the Cats are counting on making significant improvements next season – simply by staying healthy.
“I honestly think we are better this year than we were last year in a lot of regards,” Butler said. “You hate to make excuses, but we did have some really unfortunate breaks.”
In other words, attribute a few of those 16 conference losses – or at least a couple of points in that Purdue nightmare – to bad luck. The Cats got enough of it this season, mostly in the form of the magically resurfacing stress fracture, to last them through the rest of Butler’s tenure.
Senior forward Tami Sears started the season on the bench with stress fractures in her legs. Sophomore guard Nicole Daniels took her spot on the sideline with a stress fracture in her foot after playing just one conference game. And then there’s Dana Leonard, who contracted mononucleosis, and Butler, who received a concussion just in time for the showdown with in-state “rival” Illinois.
But ice bags and aspirin alone won’t improve an offense, a field goal percentage, a rebounding margin or an assists total that all rank last in the conference.
Before they can even talk about the advantages of two years’ experience under Olkowski’s “system,” the Cats have to return to the basics, like, say, the uncontested layup.
“What I see as really crucial for this team to go forward is a great postseason and summer,” sophomore center Leslie Dolland said. “Everyone’s going to have to put in a lot of effort. I don’t know how much I feel I am better than last year, but I know that I have to make great steps this postseason.”
NU still had trouble in late February finishing on easy shots, converting free throws and pulling down boards – things a player can work on in an empty gym over the long summer.
“The kids that we have – if they’ll dedicate themselves this summer – will get a lot better,” NU assistant coach Cleve Wright said. “It’s going to be very, very important that they understand the value of working in the offseason and improving their skills.”
Summing up her team’s problems with fundamentals after an 88-65 loss to Illinois, Olkowski declared, “We have to become better basketball players.”
Or, even better, recruit better basketball players. If nothing else, NU is blessed with five open scholarships for next year.
Olkowski and Wright, NU’s recruiting coordinator, signed four players in November during the early signing period and hope to add one or two more.
Before this year’s team hit its unprecedented skid, NU locked up one of Chicago’s top recruits. Fenwick High School’s Sarah Kwasinski is one of the top 10 post players in the country, according to Wright. The 6-foot-4 center immediately will help fill the void left by Sears.
NU also snagged 6-foot-1 forward Suzanne Morrison from Detroit Country Day – who will help pull up the average height of one of the Big Ten’s smallest teams – and a pair of guards, 5-foot-8 Samantha McComb and 5-foot-7 Melissa Culver.
Height and athleticism were a problem all year for the Cats, but Olkowski and Wright were looking for something a little more basic in this recruiting class.
“The fact is, you’ve got to put the ball in the hole, and every one of those kids can hit shots,” Wright said. “Overall, our skill level will definitely go up when these four come to campus.”
As an added bonus, the recruits are so committed to NU that the 0-16 season hasn’t tempered their enthusiasm.
“They told me at the beginning of the year that this year was going to be tough,” said McComb, who plays at Heritage High School in Littleton, Colo. “It was discouraging, but not to the point that I was totally discouraged about the whole program. I know that it’s going to be different. With the talent that we’re bringing in, definitely next year is going to be a rebuilding year.”
McComb oozes confidence about the program’s “direction,” a move toward the future and the upper half of the conference.
And in Evanston, the current Cats can’t get through this season and into the next fast enough.
“We’ll have a lot of new people with fresh minds and attitudes,” Butler said. “And hopefully that will bring back some life to some people who are struggling through basketball.”
