Posts Tagged ‘Joe McKeown’
Women’s Hoops: Marquette’s star shines at end
By Danny Daly
Entering Tuesday night’s game, both Marquette and Northwestern had been led by offenses that featured one dominant player.
Amy Jaeschke, the Wildcats’ sophomore center, had averaged 16.3 points and 11.5 rebounds in NU’s first six games and topped the team in both categories by substantial margins. For the Golden Eagles, senior guard Krystal Ellis had scored 16.0 points per game in Marquette’s first seven contests, including 23 points in her last two outings. She also led the team with 1.86 steals per game.
So it is not hard to see why Marquette circled Jaeschke as the player they needed to contain to stop NU’s attack, and why the Cats did the same to Ellis. The key to the Golden Eagles’ 55-54 win was that Ellis turned it on when it counted, scoring her team’s last nine points to give Marquette the come-from-behind victory.
Jaeschke, on the other hand, did not take a shot from the field after sinking a jumper with 14:16 remaining in regulation.
“That’s a hard one to lose because we played so well,” NU coach Joe McKeown said. “Our biggest thing is not to beat ourselves right now, that’s what we got to avoid. We have to learn how to do that, make people have to play great to beat us.”
Women’s Hoops Final: Slipped through NU’s fingers
By Philip Rossman-Reich
Marquette had nearly completed a 14-point halftime comeback. Down by two, the Golden Eagles double teamed sophomore center Amy Jaeschke. Jaeschke skipped it to 3-point specialist Erin Dickerson wide open for a 3-pointer.
The ball squirted through her hands.
Marquette took advantage of the opportunity. Krystal Ellis tied the game at 54 with a pull up jumper along the baseline. Sophomore guard Meshia Reed missed a 3-pointer and fouled Ellis going for the rebound. Ellis completed the comeback with a free throw with 14 seconds left as Marquette came from behind for a 55-54 win at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Tuesday.
The Wildcats could not create any offense on their final possession and Dickerson made a 3-pointer after the buzzer sounded, sealing NU’s defeat.
Four Minutes Left: NU hoping to finish off the 40
Coach Joe McKeown has been preaching to his team to play 40 minutes ever since Northwestern lost a six point lead late to Kansas State a few weeks ago. The Wildcats will get their chance to follow their coach’s mantra tonight against Marquette.
NU held a 14-point halftime lead, but takes a tenuous 52-44 lead to the final four minutes.
Both teams have not helped themselves in the half.
Marquette can definitely close this gap as the team has crashed the offensive glass for second-chance opportunities and limited the turnovers that cause it so much problems in the first half. But the Golden Eagles have not been able to quite close the gap — turning the ball over or missing an open shot or committing a foul with a chance to really put a scare into the Cats.
NU to its credit, has taken all of Marquette’s runs in stride. The team has not let Marquette get enough momentum to really threaten the lead and have continued to attack the basket and get to the foul line. That has been the Cats saving grace as they have shot 27 percent from the floor in the half.
All they need to do is hold on to secure the upset win.
Women’s Hoops: McKeown earns first win in ugly game
By Danny Daly
It might not have been pretty, but Northwestern beat Houston Baptist 68-60 on Thursday night for its first victory of the season.
For the Wildcats, it was liberating to win one after starting the year with back-to-back tough losses.
“Coming out 0-2, you definitely want to get a win under your belt,” freshman forward Brittany Orban said. “It was sloppy and we all know we have a lot of things to work on. As Coach (Joe McKeown) told us in the locker room, there are harder practices to come and a lot more hustling to go.”
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Women’s Hoops: McKeown wants team to concentrate on positives
By Danny Daly
Few defeats are as painful as Northwestern’s 57-52 loss to Kansas State on Monday.
After dictating the pace of play and leading last year’s regular season Big 12 champions most of the way, NU broke down in the final four minutes and squandered a chance to notch a signature win less than a week into the season.
For a team that endured such a trying season a winter ago, it was especially hard to take.
“It hurts because we were so close,” said sophomore guard Meshia Reed, who finished the night with 14 points and three steals. “They’re a good team and we were right there, so that makes it a little worse.”
In a lot of ways, the players should be encouraged and excited to move forward, seeing how they are capable of causing trouble for an NCAA tournament team that returns four of its five starters. But even though the Kansas State game can be considered a moral victory of sorts, the harsh reality is that it still counts as a loss in the standings.
Three days after the emotionally charged Kansas State loss, the next challenge for the Cats is putting the disappointment behind them and trying to bounce back against Houston Baptist.
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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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Women’s Hoops: McKeown brings in first round of recruits
New coach Joe McKeown signed two recruits to national letters of intent Monday, marking the beginning of his first recruits since becoming coach at Northwestern.
The Wildcats will add forwards Inga Orekhova and Dannielle Diamant next season.
“My staff did an outstanding job with our first recruiting class at Northwestern,” McKeown said. “We brought in student-athletes we think will have an impact on our program over the next four years.”
Women’s Hoops: Cats fall to Chicago State in opener
The Joe McKeown era for Northwestern did not get off on the right foot.
The Wildcats got a solid effort from sophomore Amy Jaeschke, but the Cougars held them off for a 76-69 victory at the Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center on Friday.
Jaeschke scored 21 points and a career high 14 rebounds and sophomore Meshia Reed and freshman Brittany Orbin added 12 for NU.
Chicago State led the back-and-forth game for much of the second half when a basket by senior guard Jenny Eckhart closed the lead to one with 2:45 left. The Cougars’ Jasmin Dixon pushed the lead back to five with a layup with 1:45 left and the Cats were forced to foul as they could not convert on the offensive end.
Weekend Preview: Men’s Hoops focuses on strong start with game one
By Adam Fusfeld
After a preseason centered on fitting the newcomers in with the team, it is finally time to see how it will all come together.
On Sunday, Northwestern kicks off the 2008-09 basketball season by welcoming Central Arkansas to Welsh-Ryan Arena. The Wildcats have lost their last two home openers, losing to then-No. 20 Stanford 71-60 last season and Cornell 64-61 the year before.
NU wants a win to get the season started in the right direction.
“We’d like to get off to a good start in non-conference play,” junior forward Kevin Coble said. “If we get some momentum going into the Big Ten that would be really good for us.”
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TIP OFF: Big Changes at NU
Ready for basketball season yet? Northwestern open up its basketball season Friday when the women’s team visits Chicago State. The Men start Sunday afternoon against Central Arkansas.
Get ready for the season with The Daily’s Tip Off coverage.
MEN’S BASKETBALL: SMALL LINEUP GETS AN UPGRADE
By Adam Fusfeld
The Daily Northwestern
Though coach Bill Carmody is known for teaching players his complex offense, he, like many coaches before him, have not been able to teach size in recent years. The Wildcats did not have a player taller than 6-foot-8 last year after the graduation of 6-foot-10 center Vince Scott, leading to struggles in the physical Big Ten.
So he went out and recruited size.
Joining a squad that remains mostly intact from last season are five freshmen, four of whom are at least 6-foot-8 or taller, something the team did not even have last season. Highly-touted centers Kyle Rowley (7-foot) and Luka Mirkovic (6-foot-11) are two of the tallest players NU has had since Evan Eschmeyer (6-foot-11) graduated and was drafted in the second round of the NBA Draft in 1999. They figure to help reshape a team that struggled last year, especially in the post.
“It will move everyone to more of their traditional position where they should be playing,” said junior Kevin Coble, a forward who was forced to defend bigger players at times last year. “I was playing down low last year, and a lot of our guys were playing out of position. So this will move them to where they should be, and I think it will help us a lot.”
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