Although it wasn’t a victorious return for senior forward Suzanne Morrison, her presence was felt in a 68-65 Northwestern loss to Purdue on Sunday.
Morrison had played seven minutes in two games since missing 11 games with a knee injury.
She was back in her early-season form Sunday, scoring 10 points in seven minutes. She finished with a game-high 18 points, shooting 6 for 8 from the floor and 6 for 7 from the free throw line in 21 minutes.
“She went 4 for 4 before we could even blink our eyes,” Purdue coach Kristy Curry said. “She was great.”
After missing last year with an ankle injury, Morrison came into this season as the Wildcats’ biggest inside scoring threat. She averaged almost 12 points per game and more than five rebounds in the first eight games.
“Coach held me out a little extra long,” Morrison said. “It was good for my knee, but it was tough to watch every game.”
With Morrison back against Purdue, the Cats regained the post scoring they lacked in her absence. NU scored 30 points in the paint.
“We matched up really well with them inside, so we could take it to them,” Morrison said.
Morrison had two rebounds, but the rest of the Cats took advantage of her first full game back by outrebounding their second straight opponent. NU has outrebounded five opponents this year, and this was the third loss in which the Cats had the rebounding edge.
NU is last in the Big Ten in rebounding margin, averaging almost six fewer rebounds per game than its opponents.
“We lost some big rebounds, and I’ll take blame on that,” Morrsion said. “But we’re really stepping up. Rebounding in the past has been our major weakness, so we definitely worked to correct that.”
Morrison started the first two games of the season and came off the bench the next six before her injury.
Even with her availability Sunday, coach Beth Combs didn’t shuffle the lineup. The majority of Morrison’s minutes came at the expense of freshman forward Melissa Miller, NU’s leading rebounder.
“(Morrison) is still a little rusty,” Combs said. “She obviously scored, which is a key part for us. Defensively, she made a few mistakes, but so did everybody.”
Reach Abe Rakov at [email protected].
