Another home rematch, another win for the Wildcats. Dating back to Northwestern’s Jan. 17 victory over Minnesota, four of the Cats’ last five home games have been rematches with teams they played first on the road.
One month ago the Cats topped Minnesota 10 days after falling to the Gophers in Minneapolis.
Two-and-a-half weeks later NU bested Michigan for the second time this season, the only time the Cats have swept a Big Ten team in the last decade.
On Thursday the Cats took down the Hoosiers one month after Indiana beat NU in Bloomington, Ind.
With its 72-66 win over Iowa on Sunday, NU is now 4-0 in those games.
“In this league when you’re playing everybody twice and you’re playing 18 conference games, you have a history the first time around,” coach Joe McKeown said. “If you win, that’s a confidence-builder, and if you don’t win, it gives us an opportunity to point out what we have to do when they come to our place. For our players, they’re learning that. Just because they beat you at their place doesn’t mean they’re better than you when you play them at home.”
When the Cats played the Hawkeyes in Iowa City, Iowa, NU blew a nine-point lead midway through the second half. The Cats committed a season-high 25 fouls, with 16 coming in the second half. Iowa took advantage of NU’s miscues, getting to the free throw line 37 times and connecting on 31 of those attempts.
“Going through what happened at Iowa, (we knew) how they battled back,” McKeown said. “We were up nine there, and they just kept coming at us. Our kids were a little more prepared today, and we played that way.”
This time around the Hawkeyes only managed six points from the charity stripe. NU also limited Iowa where it is most dangerous: beyond the arc. The Hawkeyes lead the league with 543 attempts and 201 baskets from 3-point range. A big reason for Iowa’s success from downtown is freshman Jaime Printy, who is fourth in the conference with a 41 percent mark. In the two squads’ first game, Printy went off for a team-high 23 points. Sunday the Cats limited Printy to eight points while the Hawkeyes shot just 8-of-22 from long distance.
“We did a better job defensively of staying between them and the basket,” McKeown said. “This is a team that can make 10 or 15 3s easy. We contested from the 3-point line pretty well.”
On Sunday the Cats were able to use the crowd to their advantage. Almost 1,500 fans showed up for the annual Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Pink Zone Day, a breast-cancer initiative. It was NU’s highest-attended conference contest all season.
“That was huge,” freshman forward Kendall Hackney said of the crowd. “At first Iowa had more fans walking in, and I was like, ‘Oh crap, are you serious?’ But then we had a ton of people there, and it was so much fun. It was loud. That helps us a lot, and not a lot of people realize that. The adrenaline kept us going.”
With the win the Cats improved to 11-5 at Welsh-Ryan Arena, the most home wins NU has had in 14 years.
“In this program they’re used to getting beat home and away,” McKeown said. “We have to explain how important it is to win at home. In college basketball you have to protect your home court. That’s what great teams do.”[email protected]
