The Wildcats held Indiana guard Cyndi Valentin, the fourth-leading scorer in the Big Ten, scoreless for the first 8:45 while jumping out to a nine-point lead.
Then Valentin woke up, and so did the Hoosiers, in an eventual 60-46 win at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind., on Sunday.
Valentin scored 18 points in the last 11:15 of the half, including three 3-pointers in the span of 4:15, to give Indiana a 31-26 halftime lead it wouldn’t relinquish to NU (6-18, 2-11 Big Ten).
“She wanted it more than our team did,” NU coach Beth Combs said. “We didn’t have enough emotion, we didn’t have enough intensity.”
The Hoosiers (14-10, 8-5) clamped down on the Wildcats’ offense in the second half, allowing only 20 points. It was the Cats’ second-lowest total for a half this season.
Indiana used a 20-4 run spanning 8:09 to build its lead to 11 with 16:21 left. The Cats got as close as seven, but were unable to overtake the Hoosiers.
“We thought we needed to make a push and maybe we were trying too hard,” guard Nadia Bibbs said.
Play was sloppy for most of the game, with both teams committing more turnovers than making shots. While Indiana was able to convert on its opportunities, shooting 50 percent from the field. NU was not.
After shooting 45.5 percent in the first half, the Cats went 6 for 26 in the second, while committing 11 turnovers.
“We pretty much broke down,” Bibbs said. “We stopped talking, stopped communicating.”
From 10:23 to 4:27 left in the game, the Hoosiers held the Cats scoreless, building their lead from seven to 14 points. NU was 0 for 4 from the field in this span and turned the ball over six times.
Sophomore forward Melissa Miller said NU’s offensive malaise wasn’t for lack of opportunity.
“We had the same looks all game,” she said. “In the first half we were being more aggressive and in the second half we were being passive. We were back on our heels.”
Valentin led the Hoosiers in scoring with 22 points, and Indiana had three players in double figures as opposed to none for the Cats.
Miller led NU with nine points, the second time she has paced the team this season.
She said she felt it was necessary coming into the game to get more points in the post after Indiana outscored the Cats 47-12 down low when the teams met on Jan. 12.
NU closed the gap this time around, but the Hoosiers still put up 24 post points to the Cats’ four.
Senior Ifeoma Okonkwo and junior A.J. Glasauer, who averaged a combined 32.6 points in the Cats’ last five games, put up only 12 against the Hoosiers.
“We didn’t have a player step up and play with the intensity we needed today, ” Combs said.
With Wisconsin’s 53-47 loss to Michigan State, NU remains one game out of ninth place in the conference, but Combs said the team was expecting to move up this weekend, not stand still.
“This game definitely hurts us as a program,” she said. “We had a chance to catch up with Wisconsin and we didn’t.”
Reach David Morrison at [email protected].
