With 5:48 to go in the first half, Northwestern’s Melissa Miller intercepted a pass by Minnesota’s Shannon Schonrock and took it took the hoop, only to miss a wide-open layup.
It was that kind of day for the Wildcats.
NU dropped its final game of the regular season on Sunday afternoon, getting blow out by the No. 21 Golden Gophers, 71-33.
“We’ve played well the last few weeks, and we just didn’t come into this game ready to play from the tip,” NU coach Beth Combs said. “Minnesota’s too good of a team that we’re not able to play catch-up. We just didn’t play as well as we were playing and that’s disappointing right now.”
Things were tough from the start, as the Cats (6-21, 2-14 Big Ten) missed their first nine shots and soon found themselves in an 18-1 hole.
A jumper in the paint by freshman center Julie Bielawski marked the first field goal for NU, which came at the 11:07 mark.
By then the Gophers (19-8, 11-5) had already taken control of the game, as junior forward Jamie Broback led the charge early with five points, four boards and a steal before Bielawski’s jumper.
Broback helped the oversized Gophers frontcourt – Minnesota has eight players listed at over 6’0″ on its roster – pound the Cats inside. NU was out-rebounded 50-28 and outscored 36-6 in the paint.
“Most of the Big Ten teams that we face have posts bigger and stronger than a lot of other teams do,” Miller said. “We just need to be able to play more physical and boxing out is really important for us, because we are undersized.”
The frontcourt wasn’t the only problem for NU on Sunday. The Cats had offensive problems all around as the team shot a paltry 21.3 percent from the field. Senior Ifeoma Okonkwo had only 12 points, well below the 27 and 23 points she scored in her last two outings, and was the only player to finish in double figures.
In contrast, 13 different players scored for Minnesota as the Gophers shot better than 42 percent.
“A few of our early shots didn’t fall, we weren’t making defensive stops and we weren’t talking as well as we could on defense,” sophomore Sarah Stutz said. “We had a lot of turnovers and it was just preventing us from getting in a flow.
“It’s hard to take positives out of a game like that.”
Stutz finished without scoring a field goal, and along with point guard Nadia Bibbs helped steer an offense that committed 24 turnovers leading to 34 Gophers’ points.
Forward A.J. Glasauer also struggled, finishing 1 of 8 for two points, with her lone score not coming until 4:56 remained in the game.
“That’s huge,” Combs said. “Foamy (Okonkwo), Glasauer and Stutz didn’t do what they’re supposed to do and didn’t do what this team depends on. We can’t win ball games when those three aren’t ready to play.”
With the Big Ten tournament only three days away, there will be an extra emphasis for the Cats to put one of their worst performances of the season behind them.
“We have to learn from it,” Combs said. “We have to find out the team we want to be: the team that we’ve been the last couple of weeks or the team that showed up today.”
Reach David Kalan at [email protected].
