Northwestern women’s basketball lost Sunday to mid-major Patriot League foe Lehigh in what can most certainly be classified as a game a Big Ten team should typically win.
The Mountain Hawks (2-1, 0-0 Patriot League) capitalized on torrential three-point shooting as they took down the Wildcats (0-2, 0-0 Big Ten) 85-68.
On Friday, Lehigh lost to NU’s conference rival Michigan by 31 points. On Sunday, it beat the ’Cats by 17.
Graduate student forward Taylor Williams led NU with 22 points, logging 11 rebounds in the process. Graduate student guard Kyla Jones also scored 11 points.
It was Lehigh’s 18-for-33 three-point shooting that doomed the ‘Cats, who fell behind early and could not come back.
Junior forward Grace Sullivan scored the first points of the game, but the Mountain Hawks answered with a three-pointer.
The ’Cats jumped out to an 11-4 lead, buoyed by a triple from sophomore guard Casey Harter, though the Mountain Hawks quickly responded.
Lehigh went on a 13-0 run, preventing NU from scoring for over three-and-a-half minutes. The quarter ended with the teams tied 17-17 after freshman guard Xamiya Walton made 2-of-3 free throws after being fouled on a buzzer-beating shot attempt.
The teams traded buckets in the second quarter before Lehigh caught fire from deep range. The Mountain Hawks made four straight three-pointers to extend their lead to 33-21, forcing NU coach Joe McKeown to burn a timeout.
What McKeown told the team in the huddle didn’t appear to work, as Lehigh continued its offensive onslaught.
Caroline Lau fouled a Lehigh shooter with half a second left on the game clock to send the two teams to the half with the Mountain Hawks up 47-31. Lau finished with six points on 2-for-8 shooting and committed three fouls, but did log 12 assists.
Heading into the second half, NU capitalized on seven Lehigh mistakes to log 10 third-quarter points off turnovers.
The team began the quarter on a 16-13 run to cut the lead to 10 points, but Lehigh’s three-point shooting proved too much for NU to handle. The teams went to the fourth quarter with Lehigh dominantly ahead 71-53 – a lead it did not surrender through the rest of the match.
Here is the one major takeaway from Sunday’s match: Northwestern women’s basketball is plagued by the same mistakes, over and over and over again.
Every game, McKeown’s squad starts in a hole and is forced to come back. Every game, the team commits unnecessary offensive fouls and mind-blowing turnovers. Every game, the team commits self-inflicted wounds that result in losses.
Lehigh scored 20 points off turnovers. Soft perimeter defense allowed the Mountain Hawks to shoot 54.5% from three.
The famed ‘Blizzard’ defense, once a dominant factor in McKeown’s scheme, simply could not contain the Lehigh offense. And the NU offense made 16 turnovers, misfiring on its rotations and sending inaccurate passes.
The tallest player in Lehigh’s starting five is 6-foot-1. NU has seven players – two within its starting lineup – who stand taller than that. Yet McKeown’s squad continued its small-ball strategy, playing three guards – Jones, Lau and Harter – on the court for the majority of the time. Even then, Lehigh still hit its three-point buckets.
The 6-foot-1 player – Lily Fandre – scored a team-high 26 points for the Mountain Hawks, by the way.
Entering the 2024-25 season, McKeown told The Daily that there was a “whole new energy” surrounding the program. But following two unexpected defeats, it appears the same old losing energy is back in Evanston.
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