With Northwestern trailing by a point at the start of the second half of its victory against Indiana on Thursday, Suzanne Morrison threw a perfect bounce pass to a cutting Samantha McComb, who made an uncontested layup to give the Cats a lead they would hold for the remainder of the game.
It was the biggest play of the game, and it provided a microcosm for the rest of the season: The Wildcats’ limited success has come from unselfish ball.
NU enters tonight’s game against Illinois in Champaign averaging 16 assists a game, third in the Big Ten. That number is up from 15.3 a game last year.
In all of its eight wins this season, NU had as many or more assists than its opponent. In their three conference wins, the Cats have collected 57 assists to just 28 for opponents.
“We all like to pass, but we know when we have to shoot,” center Sarah Kwasinski said. “It’s not that we like passing as much as we like taking open shots.”
Despite the Cats’ high team total in assists, they don’t have a Jason Kidd racking up double figures in handouts every night.
Senior Natalie Will leads the team with 2.7 assists per game. Her average is far below the Big Ten leader, Penn State’s Jess Strom, who averages 6.7.
And Will is leading the team off the bench. The starters have spread the wealth, with McComb, Melissa Culver and Sarah Kwasinski all averaging at least two assists a game.
“It’s much more of team effort here, because we don’t really have anyone that gets a ton of assists in one game,” Morrison said. “It’s different from what I was used to in high school, but I like this better.”
Morrison, who has led the team in scoring for the past three games, was high school teammates at Detroit Country Day High School with Ohio State point guard Kim Wilburn. Wilburn is currently fourth in the conference with more than 5 assists per game.
This wasn’t the case for Kwasinski, who played in a system similar to NU’s at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Ill.
“The assists were pretty spread out back then too,” Kwasinski said. “Personally, I think it makes things less predictable and gives us a sort of edge as opposed to having one leading assist-getter. I like passing a lot.”
Added Morrison: “I love to pass — it’s up there with making baskets. I used to like passing the ball a whole lot more than shooting, but now I like both equally.”
It’s nice that the team doesn’t have any ball hogs, given that the offense is built around passing until the open shot appears — a process that often runs down the shot clock.
But when everyone on the team is in love with giving the ball to the nearest teammate, it might not be such a good thing.
“It can be a problem sometimes — I know that I’ve been yelled at a few times for passing up an open shot I should have took,” Morrison said. “But I can sense that it sometimes frustrates opposing defenses and pisses them off that we pass it around so much.”
NU (8-17, 3-11 Big Ten) at Illinois (16-9, 8-6)
7 p.m., Thursday
Assembly Hall, Champaign, Ill.
Player to watch: Illinois’ Angelina Williams leads the high-powered Illini offense averaging 15.5 points.
