Women’s Basketball

Northwestern coach Joe McKeown has repeatedly described the Wildcats this season as a streaky shooting team.

Three days after No. 15 NU (11-1) shot a measly 35.4 percent en route to a loss to then-No. 16 DePaul, the golden touch returned to the Cats’ fingers in an 80-38 rout of Missouri-Kansas City on Tuesday.

Nine different players factored in the scoring as the team shot 45.2 percent from the field, using a run of 21 unanswered points in the third quarter to pull away from the Kangaroos (4-7) and earn a much-needed, confidence-restoring victory to conclude the non-conference slate.

“After Saturday’s game, it gave us a chance to … address some things (that) if we aspire to be a contender in the Big Ten, we’ve got to get better at,” McKeown said. “I thought we addressed them and we executed some of them today.”

The defeat to local rival DePaul Saturday shook NU, not only spoiling its undefeated record but also delivering a major blow to the aura of invincibility that the team had begun to emit. After winning six of its first 10 games by 24 or more points, the 13-point defeat threatened to derail the team’s ascendency that previously seemed unstoppable.

On Tuesday, however, the swagger returned to the Cats’ steps.

Senior guard Maggie Lyon, after being held to single-digits against DePaul for the first time since the season opener, scored 12 points before the midpoint of the second quarter and finished with a team-leading 17. McKeown called it her best game of the year to date.

Junior forward Nia Coffey, who had committed an uncharacteristic nine combined turnovers in the two prior games, turned the ball over just once Tuesday.

Freshman forward Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah, who recorded just one rebound against DePaul after setting with 13 against Alcorn State, returned to form with eight boards, including seven in the first half.

Heading into the Big Ten schedule, which begins at Penn State on New Year’s Eve, NU desperately needed to shake off the DePaul loss as a mere slip-up and regain some of the lost momentum.

With Tuesday’s crusading, never-in-doubt victory, they did just that.

“(The game) was just an opportunity to work on the things that we struggled with … and prove something really to us more than anything else,” McKeown said on WNUR Sports after the game. “We did a pretty good job of that.”