There was no room for error. Minnesota was up 61-60 and had the ball. The red 49 seconds on the game clock glared in the background, and the Northwestern women’s basketball team desperately needed to get possession back.

Instead of giving the Golden Gophers an easy bucket, Wildcats’ forward Suzanne Morrison committed a foul, putting Minnesota’s Corrin Von Wald at the line for a single free throw.

Von Wald couldn’t put it away, but it didn’t matter.

With less than a minute of precious playing time left, the Gophers — who dominated the offensive boards throughout the second half — grabbed their own rebound to earn another 30 seconds on the shot clock.

“I think it was key,” Minnesota coach Pam Borton said. “Anyone could have won the game in that last minute. But we got the rebounds and ran down the clock.”

And the Gophers’ simple strategy of holding the ball worked as they claimed victory by letting time expire on their next possession.

The Cats rebounded well in the first half and the beginning of the second en route to an 18-point lead with 15:30 left. But offensive rebounding proved to be a major factor in the Cats’ second-half collapse. NU grabbed four in the first half, but added only two more for the rest of the game.

“In the first half, we did a phenomenal job of rebounding,” Morrison said. “It was key in the second half, but that’s when we weren’t getting many.”

Overall, the Cats tallied three more rebounds than the Gophers — 33 compared to 30 — but the total is deceiving. With six offensive rebounds, NU could only halve Minnesota’s 12.

NU guard Melissa Culver best summed up her team’s second-half pattern of playing passively near the basket.

“We just couldn’t seem to get out of the funk,” she said.

With a game-high nine rebounds — two of them off her own team’s misses — Von Wald proved to be the most difficult woman for the Cats to box out.

“Sometimes rebounding is about pursuing the ball,” NU coach June Olkowski said. “Von Wald is pretty quick, and they just pursued the ball better than we did.”

NU freshman forward Ifeoma Okonkwo’s two offensive and five defensive rebounds led the way for the Cats, but it wasn’t enough. In the end, NU simply couldn’t get enough second-chance opportunities.

“There are certain possessions you could say you want back,” Morrison said. “But that’s not how it works.”