Women’s Hoops: Learning to play 40 minutes
By Zach Buchanan
Northwestern coach Joe McKeown walked into the Welsh-Ryan Arena locker room after his team’s 57-52 loss to Kansas State on Monday night and wrote “40 minutes” on the whiteboard.
NU only played well for 36.
“I’m trying to turn around the culture of women’s basketball at Northwestern, and we have to learn how to play 40 minutes,” said McKeown, in his first season with the team. “That’s the challenge I put out every day.”
After trailing by six points with 4:15 remaining in the game, Kansas State went on a 13-2 run, sparked by key baskets from forward Marlies Gipson and point guard Shalee Lehning. Gipson scored a layup off a pass from Lehning to cut the NU’s lead to four. Lehning followed with a 3-pointer and a layup to put Kansas State up by three with 45 seconds on the clock.
“It just came down to Kansas State making a couple big plays at the end of the game and that was the difference,” said McKeown, whose team had held Lehning, one of the best point guards in the country, to five points before her outburst at the end of the game. She finished with 12 points on 4-for-4 shooting and seven assists.
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DEFICIT AT HALF FAILS TO SINK KANSAS STATE
By Danny Daly
When looking for an indication this Northwestern team has put last year behind it, look no further than the start of the second half of Monday night’s heartbreaking 57-52 defeat to Kansas State. NU held a 21-13 advantage with slightly less than eight minutes left in the first half before Kansas State reeled off 12 straight points to claim a 25-21 lead.
Though NU closed the deficit to one point on sophomore guard Meshia Reed’s basket and a free throw by sophomore center Amy Jaeschke, the momentum was clearly with Kansas State.
NU’s shooters had gone cold, making just one of their last eight shots after hitting nine of their first 12. Meanwhile, Kansas State had started to wear down NU’s defense, grabbing four offensive rebounds in the last eight minutes to aid the comeback effort.
This was a situation NU knew all too well. Last season, the team was close at intermission multiple times. In home games against conference foes Illinois and Michigan State, for example, NU trailed by just two points at the half. But NU could not keep it up, falling in both contests by double digits.
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