There were times during Northwestern women’s basketball’s narrow 67-58 loss to No. 14 Iowa where it felt like the Wildcats were on the cusp of their biggest moment in three years.
Northwestern was a 27.5-point underdog on Monday night. It was coming off an 87-54 beatdown in Eugene, against an Oregon team that started 0-2 in conference play. The ’Cats hadn’t won a game since Nov. 28. Monday’s Welsh-Ryan Arena atmosphere wasn’t quite like the celebration when Caitlin Clark came to Evanston two years
ago, but the 2,000+ Hawkeye fans who filled the lower bowl were enough to make the game feel like a hostile Big Ten road environment.
And yet, against the best opponent it faced all season, Northwestern ensured there would be a game.
“We are so capable, more than we think,” said Northwestern forward Grace Sullivan, who led all scorers with 28 points. “This is a top 25 team, and we had them scared. That shows that we are better than we think, and we are capable of almost winning and eventually beating these really good teams.”
Throughout the first three quarters, Northwestern never trailed by more than six points, with those six points coming from Iowa’s early 6-0 lead in the first. The Wildcats were ahead by as much as four points for significant stretches in the second and third quarters and held a lead with as 2:31 left to play in the third.
Yes, Iowa played a sub-par game for its standards. It was well under its 82.5-point-per-game average. It committed 20 turnovers, missed easy layups and struggled from the charity stripe. No Hawkeye outside of Ava Heiden scored a field goal until the waning moments of the first quarter, and Heiden herself played just 18 minutes, finishing with four personal fouls despite leading her team with 23 points.
But as much as Iowa was poor at times, credit must be given to Northwestern’s newfound tenacity on defense, something that wasn’t seen in previous games — especially against Oregon.
“Since last game, we really took it upon ourselves to focus and buy into defense, especially during practice,” Sullivan said. “We bought in, and that’s why we were so successful tonight, turning them over.”
For all the good Northwestern showed though, there were many poor moments characteristic of a now 6-9 basketball team. The Wildcats still let what could have been a very winnable game slip away from them.
Northwestern could never fully pull away from Iowa despite the Hawkeyes struggling to find a reliable option aside from Heiden. The reason was that the ‘Cats didn’t have reliable options themselves, with only Casey Harter and her 11 points joining Sullivan in double figures. They shot an abysmal 36% from the field and 24% from the free throw line. They made just 40% of their layups and committed a whopping 26 personal fouls.
That type of offense won’t win Big Ten games, let alone one against the No. 14 team in the nation.
“We had some good opportunites, didn’t finish,” Northwestern head coach Joe McKeown said. “We did our job defensively. It’s just, you can’t go 5-for-21 from three and beat a top 20 team or top 10 team in this league.”
This inability to take offensive control showed itself at critical moments. At the end of the second quarter, Northwestern led 29-26 with 1:12 left. After a jumper from Iowa’s Taylor Stremlow closed the gap to one, the Wildcats proceeded to turn the ball over twice, and the Hawkeyes headed into halftime with a 32-29 lead.
Northwestern similarly lost its third-quarter momentum, going four minutes between the third and fourth without a field goal after taking a 42-41 lead. At the end of that period, which consisted of bad three-point attempts, personal fouls and a travel call against the Wildcats, Iowa led 50-44. It’s moments like this that could have been the difference between a win and a loss, and the team knows that.
“In the second quarter, if we could have capitalized, we might go into halftime up seven, eight, something like that, and we couldn’t do it,” McKeown said. “The last two minutes of the second quarter really swung some momentum.”
Despite the loss, Northwestern can be satisfied with its improvements, as verbalized by McKeown, Sullivan and Harter in their post-game press conference. But for a team that hasn’t garnered a ranked win in almost four seasons, it’s easy to feel bittersweet from an outside perspective, knowing that it had opportunities to make Monday night way more than an “almost.”
McKeown, who said he’d miss his battles with Iowa when he retires, clearly values his rivalry with the Hawkeyes. Monday was a chance to put Northwestern back in the sport’s spotlight, to shock a longtime Big Ten foe across all sports. An opportunity to silence a majority black-and-yellow crowd, the same crowd that brought Welsh-Ryan its first and only women’s basketball sellout two years ago, to prove that Northwestern was worth showing up for, too. And in a way, NU did all that — but the impact would have been considerably more seismic with a win.
That doesn’t seem to matter for Northwestern’s team, though, which has instead opted to focus on its own journey.
“I sat here a couple years ago, we had just beaten Caitlin Clark. We beat her three times, great Iowa teams, and I [currently] feel the same way as I did that night,” McKeown said. “You’ve got to be beyond the league, in that you focus on yourself and rather than the opponent. And I think we’re doing a good job of that.”
As frustrating a loss as Monday was for Northwestern, the best thing it can do is shift its attention to carrying progress into future games. If that progress really does translate, a maiden Big Ten win could be on the horizon.
