Women’s Basketball: Wildcats flop, lose sixth straight to Buckeyes
February 23, 2014
Northwestern rallied, but it was too little, too late.
The Wildcats (14-13, 4-10 Big Ten) buried themselves with turnovers and fell 71-62 to the Ohio State Buckeyes (15-15, 5-9), who cruised to an easy victory on their home court. The loss was the sixth in a row for NU.
“We just dug a huge crater,” coach Joe McKeown said. “We tried to keep fighting back, but we needed a third 20-minute period. … It was just too big a gap.”
The Cats couldn’t establish any rhythm on offense, mainly because their top two scorers combined to commit 11 turnovers.
Sophomore guard Maggie Lyon had a good day shooting from the floor, leading the team with 21 points but gave the ball up five times.
Freshman forward Nia Coffey, meanwhile, had the biggest weakness in her game exploited. The team’s leading scorer, averaging 15.5 points per game, was repeatedly stripped in the lane and lost possession of the ball six times of her own.
The rest of the team contributed another 12 turnovers, pushing NU’s total to an insurmountable 23. The lack of composure mirrored the lack of experience on the young team.
“We don’t have the poise sometimes to make great decisions,” McKeown said. “That’s what hurts us. We have the heart. We have the effort. It’s just frustrating sometimes.”
Foul trouble also resurfaced for the Cats, with Coffey fouling out in the final minute of the game and sophomore forward Lauren Douglas limited down the stretch with four fouls.
But Douglas didn’t find the game to be too out of the ordinary.
“It was probably less physical than what we’re used to,” she said. “We just didn’t execute what we needed to.”
The lack of physicality was probably a boost for the undersized Cats.
For the first time during the six-game losing streak, NU actually managed to outrebound its opponent. Coffey dominated the glass with 18, and the Cats edged the battle of the boards 47-43.
“It’s just something we’ve been talking about working on,” Douglas said. “It still needs to get better, though.”
Potential future improvement aside, a small technical victory isn’t much to be proud of at this point. As the losses have piled up late in the season, the Cats’ record begs the question: Where did it all go wrong?
Perhaps some of the blame lies with Lyon, who has launched a team high 338 shots despite being one of the squad’s most inefficient scorers.
Even with her propensity for the long ball, Lyon produces just 1.08 points per shot. For perspective, Coffey, predominately an inside player, generates a much higher 1.22 points per shot.
Or perhaps the problem lies in Coffey’s high usage rate. The freshman puts up plenty of points with all of the volume she receives, but is also second on the team in turnovers behind freshman point guard Ashley Deary.
Maybe the reason NU got off track is simple: the team’s consistently poor rebounding. Despite their better performance in this game, over the course of the season the Cats have been outrebounded by an average of 7.5 boards per game, a figure that includes their weaker non-conference opponents.
Whatever the issue is, the Cats have just two games left on their regular season slate to get themselves primed for the Big Ten Tournament.
“We’ve had some heartbreaking losses,” McKeown said. “You have to be able to bounce back.”
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Twitter: @BobbyPillote
