Northwestern jumped out to a 13-8 lead aginst conference rival Indiana in the first 6:20 of Thursday’s game. Junior forward A.J. Glasauer poured in five points in the span and a Nadia Bibbs 3-pointer extended the Wildcats’ lead to five.
It would be the high point of the Cats’ evening.
The Hoosiers (9-7, 3-2 Big Ten) went on a 9-0 run in a little less than two minutes to take control of the game. They never looked back, beating the Cats 69-56.
“We need to find a little bit more heart than what we have,” NU coach Beth Combs said. “We have a lot of talent on this squad and we have a lot of people who can make things happen and make a mark in this league.
“But we’re not deep enough and we’re not talented enough one-on-one for only a couple people to show up every night. We’ve got to find a little bit more heart and be able to play 40 minutes every night.”
NU (4-11, 0-5) has held leads for portions of the last three games. The Cats led then-No. 10 Ohio State for most of the first half on Jan. 5, held a lead for 7:05 against Illinois on Sunday and led Indiana for five minutes in the first half of Thursday’s game.
Indiana seniors Cyndi Valentin and Jenny DeMuth, who average a combined 31.2 points per game this season, scored 14 points in the last 13:40 of the half as the Hoosiers outscored NU 29-8.
The Cats went into the locker room at halftime trailing by 16 points.
“We weren’t talking,” guard Nadia Bibbs said. “We weren’t bumping over, so there was a lot of one-person-guarding-two-people situations.”
DeMuth and Valentin combined for 33 points, 14 rebounds and 11 steals in the game.
Valentin’s 18th point came on her first free throw of the game. It was Valentin’s 61st straight make from the line on the year, breaking the Division I all-time record for consecutive free throws in a season.
The Hoosiers totaled 15 steals in the game and forced the Cats into 22 turnovers.
Fourteen of NU’s miscues came from Bibbs, its point guard, and forward Ifeoma Okonkwo, its senior leader.
Along with her turnovers, Okonkwo scored 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, her second straight double-double.
“We were being real hesitant,” Bibbs said. “I was just trying to make plays and things weren’t going my way.”
Sophomore Sara Stutz led the Cats in scoring with 16 points, all of them coming in the second half. She was 0 for 3 from the field in the first half and 7 for 13 after the break.
In the last three games, Stutz has averaged 2.0 points in the first half and 9.6 in the second.
“It is a trend, it’s a trend that needs to stop,” she said. “It’s frustrating me, obviously, but that’s the game of basketball. You get a new half, you get a fresh start. Hopefully, I can just work on putting two halves together.”
Stutz attributed her slow start Thursday to her inexperience against Indiana’s zone defense.
“I just missed a few shots right off the bat,” she said. “I’m not used to playing in the post and I was playing it for the majority of the first half. I think their zone just threw me off a little. I was just trying to find the right spots to hit the shots in. We made some adjustments at halftime and I found some gaps in there.”
Stutz is shooting 20 percent from the field in the first half over the last three games and 55 percent in the second.
NU’s play reflected its guard’s, as the team shot only 33.3 percent from the field in the first half and finished the game shooting 38.2 percent.
Through five Big Ten games, NU is shooting 35.2 percent. Its opponents are shooting 47.4 percent. These figures are second-to-last and last in the conference.
The Cats were down by as much as 25 in the second half and were able to claw their way back to within 13 points at the end of the game, but they never posed a real threat to Indiana’s lead over the final 25 minutes of the game.
Bibbs said the team needs to gain more consistency to compete with Iowa on Sunday.
“We just need to focus up and come to play every day, ” she said. “We’re real up and down. So we’ve just got to bring it every day.”
Reach David Morrison at [email protected].
