GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – With the clock racing down toward halftime, Illinois all-conference guard Allison Curtin rebounded her own miss, ran the ball to the baseline, fired an off-balance desperation jumper from just inside the perimeter and nailed it to send the Fighting Illini into the locker room with a comfortable nine-point lead.

Later, as the final minute-and-a-half of the game waned, Illinois (15-14, 9-7 Big Ten) converted on three-straight possessions, using a pair of steals to end a late Northwestern run.

“Those plays right there really summed up our entire season,” NU coach June Olkowski said after the Wildcats’ 75-60 loss to the sixth-seeded Fighting Illini on Thursday night in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. “Just giving up basketball plays, hustle plays, our inability to execute …”

The defeat, before 5,340 fans at Van Andel Arena, eliminates NU (4-23, 0-16 Big Ten) from the postseason and sends the Cats home with the bitter memory of 17 consecutive losses.

“It’s been a long year,” Olkowski said. “I feel for our kids. But if you saw the camaraderie in the locker room after this game, you’d know that we definitely grew as people and as a team.”

At the end of arguably the worst season in NU women’s basketball history, the Cats take little consolation in playing some of their best basketball and forcing a near nail-biter against the “rivals” they said had snubbed them all season.

The ambiance of the tournament – the dueling pep bands, the three rows of press tables, the Jumbotron with actual highlights – instilled in NU a sense of immediacy it has lacked all season.

The Cats opened the game with a strong run, pulling ahead of the Illini 15-9 in the first eight minutes of play. Then Illinois reminded them of their underdog status, reeling off 10 points in a row.

But instead of folding, the Cats kept the game close. They scored the first points of the second half and held the contest within eight most of the way – before Illinois’ last-minute spurt.

In the second half the Cats also discovered the three-point touch they have hinted at all season. After shooting only 2-for-10 from the arc in the first half, they went 7-for-9 after the break.

In the span of a little more than a minute, guards Emily Butler and Dana Leonard hit three treys.

“That’s the way I anticipated Dana shooting all year,” Olkowski said.

But in the end, all the effort fell short – suggesting that even at peak performance, the Cats were overmatched against the Illini.

The three-point clinic at least proved the Cats worthy competitors.

“I personally don’t think Illinois respects us at all,” NU forward Tami Sears said. “I don’t think they have from the beginning, when we played them this year – let alone last year. I think they came in here probably looking forward to playing against (second-round opponent) Wisconsin.”

The apparent snub did play in the Cats’ favor, as Illinois gave one of its weaker performances of the season.

A displeased Illini coach Theresa Grentz spoke sparingly of her team’s strengths after the game, emphasizing only that her players found a way to win.

But the Cats will have to wait until next year to find out if their play Thursday had any effect on Illinois’ view of an intrastate rivalry.

And in the interim, they will have plenty of time to contemplate the 0-16 conference season.

“It would be better to not put this behind us,” said Butler, who scored a game-high 22 points. “It’s important to remember how this feels, to remember that when we’re trying to do our spring workouts and in the summer.”

Butler was forced to start the remembering a little early. With 49 seconds on the clock, she fouled out of the game and had to watch the final seconds of the season from the sideline.

Teary-eyed, the Cats’ best player this season walked off the court to a standing ovation from the scattered NU supporters and band members.

But Butler at least has a future to look forward to and an opportunity to avenge both the Illini defeat and the entire season – more than can be said for the team’s four departing seniors.

“Our seniors – as much as we would love to change it for them – left us with a lot of positive things,” Olkowski said. “We’ll build from there.”