After suffering its second loss of the season against Kansas State on Monday, Northwestern came back the next day with a decisive 68-55 win over North Dakota State to round out the Duel in the Desert Tournament.
The Wildcats won in spite of a stomach flu that affected several players and forced junior forward Dannielle Diamant to miss the game. Kendall Hackney said that the bout of sickness added an extra challenge to Tuesday’s game.
“Having people not feeling 100 percent is really tough,” Hackney said. “We were all going as hard as we could. But it was a real physical and mental challenge.”
After scoring just two points in the first four minutes, the Cats composed a 12-2 run in the next four-minute span to take a 14-3 lead at the 12-minute mark. NU used a balanced attack to dominate the remainder of the opening period, hitting 47 percent of its shots from the field while limiting North Dakota State to just 23 percent from the field.
The Cats entered halftime with a comfortable 37-17 advantage, but struggled early in the second period. 2011 All-Summit League First Team selection Abby Plucker scored seven points in the first three minutes to lead the Bison on an 11-2 run, narrowing the Cats’ edge to 11.
“North Dakota State was a solid team,” Hackney said. “They worked hard and put up a real fight in the second half. They definitely came to play tonight.”
The Bison hung tough the rest of the half, pulling with nine at the three-minute mark. But thanks, in part, to Hackney’s 17 second-half points, the Cats were able to stave off any hopes of a comeback.
Hackney led the Cats with 27 points and added seven rebounds. Freshmen Morgan Jones and Karly Roser joined the junior forward in double figures Tuesday, notching 10 and 12 points, respectively.
Jones received Big Ten Freshman of the Week Honors last week for her impressive performances in wins over Morgan State and UNLV, the third time that she has received the honor this year.
“With a lot of the girls not at 100 percent tonight, I felt like there was a lot of pressure on me,” Jones said. “You can’t complain about those awards and averaging [15.3 points per game]. But there’s a lot of room for improvement. I feel like I can help my teammates a lot more.”
Jones and her teammates were less effective on Monday night, equaling their season-low with 45 points in a 19-point loss to Kansas State.
The Cats hit just 19.2 percent of their shots from the floor and 11.1 percent of their attempts from behind the arc en route to a 39-14 halftime deficit, and fell behind by 27 points with 3:34 remaining in the first half.
“There are no excuses,” coach Joe McKeown said. “Kansas State played terrific in the first half. We came out, we couldn’t score, and I think it affected us defensively a little bit.”
Kendall Hackney, who finished the game with 14 points and seven rebounds, wasn’t pleased with her team’s performance early on.
“Our defense wasn’t really together,” she said. “We were lacking community on the floor. We were taking bad shots on offense. We dug ourselves into a hole that we couldn’t dig out of.”
Despite their weak first half showing, the Cats battled back after the intermission behind the strong shooting of Morgan Jones, who finished with a team-high 20 points. After hitting just one of seven shots in the first half, the freshman guard nailed 5-of-12 in the second half. With Jones’ help, NU decreased Kansas State’s lead to 14 with 12:40 remaining in the game, but couldn’t get any closer than that for the rest of the game. McKeown said he was convinced his team could have come a lot closer than 14 points.
“IWe even had a couple chances to win the game if we had made a couple plays,” McKeown said.
Hackney said that despite the loss, the Cats displayed their resiliency in the second half.
“It just shows our team doesn’t just lay over and give teams what they want,” she said. “We’ve been resilient all year. We’ve been down and come back on the road, and I expected that to happen today, but it didn’t.”
NU showed its resilient nature once again on Tuesday, coming back from its second loss of the season with its 10th win. McKeown said that he was pleased overall with his team’s 2-1 performance in Las Vegas.
“Like a lot of teams in December, you play some good stretches and some bad stretches,” McKeown said. “Tonight we played a good first half, last night a good second half. Consistency and Injury played into this trip. But to be able to go 2-1 playing a tough schedule, I feel like we did a pretty good job.”
The Cats get some time off for Christmas before returning to Welsh Ryan Arena for a matchup with MAC foe Toledo on Dec. 27. That will mark NU’s final tune-up before commencing with its Big Ten schedule three days later at Iowa.
“We definitely have some things to work on,” McKeown said. “But heading into the Big Ten at 10-2 – hopefully 11-2 – feels pretty good. A lot of teams would want that record.”
