By Philip Rossman-ReichThe Daily Northwestern

The Northwestern players and coaches did not bow their heads in defeat or let their shoulders droop after losing their ninth consecutive game Sunday against Iowa.

Instead, the Wildcats took their failed comeback bid as a lesson in basketball.

The lesson: Close Games 101.

According to many players, the team gained the confidence and experience in close-game situations needed to complete a comeback.

“I think it’s a matter of confidence,” junior forward Melissa Miller said. “We haven’t really been put in that situation yet and I think it was a little bit of inexperience being in that position.

“I think that now we have experience, we are a little more confident to finish those runs in that kind of game.”

NU has not been involved in many close games. The Cats’ 63-61 loss to the Hawkeyes was their narrowest defeat since falling by three to Mississippi in late November. In that game they rallied from a 21-point deficit.

Besides those two games, NU hasn’t played in any other game decided by less than eight points. Their average margin of defeat is 12 points.

“We’ve been getting blown out lately, you’re not going to gain experience from that,” junior guard Sara Stutz said. “We know what mistakes we made in the Iowa game. And now we know what we need to not do in the future to put ourselves in a situation to actually win a game like that.”

In addition to trying to develop confidence in close games, the Cats also are trying to establish consistency on the court. They have had good nights and played good games, only to follow them up with lackluster efforts.

The Cats lost to No. 24 DePaul by an encouraging eight points one night, but unranked Penn State defeated the Cats by 25 points a few weeks later.

Junior point guard Nadia Bibbs said the team must continue to become more consistent if they want to realize their full potential.

“We just need to start paying attention to the little things,” Bibbs said. “We’re a good team. We’ve got a lot of talent. It’s just not really consistent. We’ve got to focus on bringing it everyday.

“We’d be middle of the Big Ten if we bring it everyday.”

Bibbs noticed that with some games the team came out hesitant, waiting to see how their opponents would play.

But against Iowa, NU came out strong. Despite falling behind, they fought back and had a chance to win on the final possession.

“I feel like with Iowa, we came out ready to go,” Bibbs said. “I notice with some games we’ll come out and we’re kind of waiting to see and feel the team out. With Iowa, we were like, ‘This is our Big Ten (home) opener, we need to come out and just play hard.’ Hopefully we can bring that same amount of intensity to every game.”

With the team suffering through a long losing streak, coach Beth Combs said NU simply just needs to put the effort in and win.

“We’ve got to get over the hump, we’ve got to bring it every day, we’ve got to be consistent in practice and we’ve got to win the game,” Combs said.

Reach Philip Rossman-Reich at [email protected].