Proving once again that it plays better against better opponents, the Northwestern women’s basketball team took No. 18 Minnesota down to the wire Sunday at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The Wildcats nearly escaped with their first Big Ten victory of the year, but they fell apart in the final five minutes, losing 86-78 before a crowd of 1,020.
In a game reminiscent of the Cats’ Jan. 13 loss to then-No. 5 Wisconsin, when they stayed in the game until the final minute, NU (4-19, 0-12 Big Ten) kept pace with the Golden Gophers (19-4, 9-3) but could not finish strong enough to win.
Although the Cats held a two-point lead with seven minutes to play, inexperienced mistakes led to their 38th straight regular-season Big Ten loss. This one came to a Minnesota squad that won just one conference game a season ago.
“It was both encouraging and frustrating,” NU forward Michelle Zylstra said. “We were so close. These ones hurt worse.”
NU enjoyed balanced scoring, with four players in double digits. Freshman center Sarah Kwasinski led the Cats with 22 points, followed by freshman guard Samantha McComb, who hit five three-pointers en route to a season-high 18 points.
McComb tied the score three times in the first half and had several clutch baskets in the second half as well. NU head coach June Olkowski said she hopes McComb’s offensive performance was a “breakout,” and that she will become a reliable contributor on offense.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that Sam had surgery and was cleared to play two weeks into practice,” Olkowski said. “This is where she would have been at the beginning of the season, but it’s tough to come back from surgery.”
NU capitalized on Kwasinski’s 10- to 15-foot turnaround jump shots, using a strong inside-outside game that Minnesota struggled to defend.
“They were high-lowing us in the first half, which we struggled against,” Minnesota head coach Brenda Oldfield said. “If we moved inside, their guard could hit the three. They have a lot of balance.”
Olkowski said the problem with Kwasinski playing outside the post is that she doesn’t draw enough fouls – she made her way to the line only once in Sunday’s game. The entire team combined for only eight free-throw attempts.
A high point for the Cats was improved ball control – NU’s 16 turnovers marked a season low and the first time all year the Cats have turned the ball over fewer than 20 times. Minnesota used a full-court press early in the game, but NU was successful in breaking it, and the Golden Gophers quickly went to a half-court defensive set.
“We called off the trap because they were slowing the game down,” Oldfield said. “They passed the ball around and all (the trap) did was take time off the clock.”
Despite NU’s three team fouls in the first minute-and-a-half of the game, the two teams traded baskets for the opening minutes of the game. The score remained within five points until Minnesota went on a three-minute, 13-5 run midway through the half. The Cats chipped away at the deficit and tied the score at 36 on a McComb three-pointer with 2:53 left in the half.
NU took a 38-37 lead about a minute later, but an ensuing steal and fast-break layup by Minnesota center Janel McCarville denied the Cats their first halftime lead of the Big Ten season.
The second half opened much like the first closed, a nip-and-tuck battle until the Golden Gophers opened up a six-point lead with 13:45 left. Kwasinski’s 10-for-13 shooting from the field helped the Cats come back and take their final lead of the game, a 67-65 advantage with just under seven minutes to go.
From there, things went downhill for the Cats. They had turnovers on four key possessions down the stretch, and the Golden Gophers beat the Cats to several loose balls.
“If you look at the numbers, we didn’t play bad,” sophomore Michelle Zylstra said of the Cats’ 52.5 percent shooting, 37.5 percent three-point shooting and 22-to-16 assist-to-turnover ratio. “But if you look at stuff not in the box score, that’s where we got killed.”
NU’s inexperience in close games – this in only the second game this season they lost by fewer than 10 points – hurt them as time ran out.
“Northwestern played a heck of a ball game,” Oldfield said. “They really stepped up, but it was nice for us to have composure down the stretch.”
