In horse racing, the championship thoroughbred Zenyatta made a habit of starting slow out of the gate before coming on strong toward the end.
In Evanston, Northwestern has found that coming back is a lot harder than Zenyatta made it look. After the Wildcats were unable to overcome a big deficit against Purdue on Sunday, they dug themselves another deep hole Thursday night and were unable to climb their way out, falling 76-67 to Michigan at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
“You can’t let a team get a lead like that and then try to fight back,” senior center Amy Jaeschke said. “It’s a tough way to play a basketball game.”
The Cats fell behind early against the Wolverines, trailing 7-2 after two-and-a-half minutes. After NU rallied to tie it at 7, Michigan went on a 14-2 run to take a 21-9 lead.
The Wolverines led by as much as 16 in the first half, and NU was unable to take any momentum into the locker room. After clawing their way back into the game with nine consecutive points, the Cats surrendered the final five points of the half, the last three coming on a buzzer-beater courtesy of Michigan guard Kate Thompson.
In the second half, Michigan led by double-digits for almost the entire 20 minutes. A late barrage of threes gave NU a chance, but the large deficit proved too much to overcome.
Just making shots was a welcome change for an NU team that struggled early on. The Cats shot just 36 percent in the first half, relying heavily on Jaeschke. The senior scored 15 of the Cats’ first 18 points.
“We went inside early,” Jaeschke said. “I was able to get some shots up, some points. That really opened up the game for the guards in the second half.”
Jaeschke made her first six shots of the game. Her teammates, on the other hand, couldn’t get anything going, with just four field goals in the first 20 minutes.
NU’s offensive difficulties were compounded by its poor defense. Michigan hit 11 of its first 19 shots.
“They made some tough shots, they really did,” sophomore forward Kendall Hackney said.
The Wolverines were led by guard Veronica Hicks, who had nine points in the game’s first nine minutes. The senior added ten rebounds and finished a point away from a first-half double-double.
“She’s a really good player, one of the best guards in the league,” coach Joe McKeown said. “We just didn’t do a very good job staying in front of her.”
While Hicks did the majority of her scoring down low, where she swooped to the hoop with confidence, her teammates lit it up from behind the arc. The Wolverines went 5-of-11 from three-point range, accounting for 15 of Michigan’s 37 first-half points.
“They really spread us out every which way,” Jaeschke said. “It really comes down to us taking the scouting report and knowing who’s going to be the three-point shooter, who’s going to be the driver.”
The troubling trend of slow starts began two weeks ago in Evanston, when NU fell behind 20-10 to Penn State a little more than seven minutes into the game. One week later, the Cats got off to another bad start at Welsh-Ryan Arena, falling behind 11-4 to the Buckeyes with 13:48 remaining in the first half.
Although NU was able to recover from its early deficit against Ohio State, recent slow starts have proved less surmountable. In West Lafayette, Ind., the Cats fell behind 25-11 with a little more than four minutes remaining in and never recovered, losing 54-43 to Purdue.
McKeown blamed the slow starts on bad defense.
“When we beat Purdue here, when we beat Ohio State, we got stops on the other end,” McKeown said. “We have to be able to do both, score and get shots, we weren’t able to do that tonight and at Purdue.”
