U women’s basketball: Defense rules in 43-40 win
Posted on January 25th, 2009 – 9:01 PMBy Roman Augustoviz
Northwestern coach Joe McKeown was the first postgame speaker after the Wildcats’ 43-40 loss to the Gophers in women’s basketball at the Barn.
“I thought it was a great atmosphere today,” said McKeown, in his 23rd year as a head coach. “It was a fun game in a way. But we left a lot of things on the table that I wish we would have cashed in.
“I thought defensively we played about as perfect a game as we could play in taking away their strengths,” he said.
The Gophers shot 30.8 percent from the floor, 2-for-20 on three-point attempts.
“I thought defensively, I was really proud of my team. You can probably say that about Minnesota’s defense, too,” McKeown said. “They made some plays at the end. I thought we did a real good job on [Emily] Fox but she made a couple of plays and set a couple people up. [Ashley Ellis-Milan] made a big basket late, giving them the lead. I thought we shut her down pretty well.
“They are a team that seems to know how to win at the end of the game and we are learning how to do that. And it probably showed up today.”
This was Northwestern’s fifth loss by six points or fewer.
“I think we are getting better every day,” said McKeown, who is in his first season at Northwestern after 22 years at New Mexico State and George Washington. “These type games hopefully will help us later in the year. We get into February we will pull these games out.”
McKeown also has 6-5 sophomore center Amy Jaeschke to build around.
“I think Jaeschke is one of the premier post players in the league,” he said. “… When [Ellis-Milan] hurt us, she got the ball just too deep. She would either draw a foul or score. But most of the time we kept her out a little bit further. We were able to get between her and the basket. But when you watch her on tape, she is capable of putting up numbers. She is a good player.”
Jaeschke had four blocks on Sunday and seemed to intimidate Ellis-Milan at times. The Gophers tried to get the ball inside to Ellis-Milan on their first three trips downcourt the second half and she missed two shots and had a third blocked.
“They are a good team,” McKeown said as he was leaving. “Great crowd. What was the attendance? [He was told 7,445.] It was a good atmosphere. It would have been better if we won.”
“For whom?” a kibbitzer in the media asked.
“I worry about my guys,” McKeown said.
U made late stand
Fox said she was surprised at how much pressure the Wildcats put on her team. “I felt they were all over us, the guards at least,” Fox said, “and I know they were doubling down on post. Overall, I thought it was just a great defensive battle for both teams. And how we won the game was because of our defense.”
Said freshman forward Jackie Voigt, “We got the stops when we needed to get the stops toward the end. We got the stops and we converted a couple times on offense and that’s what we needed to do.”
For most of the game, though, the Gophers struggled for points. Fox said the team had open shots at times. “We were taking good shots,” she said, “and a lot of them were just short or off. But I think we got some big boards at the end when we needed them.”
Coach Pam Borton told the players after the game, according to Fox, that they have to start making open shots if they want to win more game.
ELLIS-MILAN IMPROVISED
“Man, she is great,” Ellis-Milan said, referring to Jaeschke. “She is big. I am used to being able to turn around and hit my shot and she took that away from me tonight. So I had to try to find other ways to score.
“She is a big girl under there and she was able to push me out a little bit more. She had help, her guards were helping. She did a great job.”
Ellis-Milan was only 5-of-15 from the field, but she made a key late basket by driving around a defender. Jaeschke, I think, but I am not totally sure. Ellis-Milan also made 3-of-5 free throws and had nine rebounds.
GOPHERS SURVIVED
“It came down to the last four minutes,” Gophers coach Pam Borton said, referring to Sunday’s victory. ”We did what we needed to do at the end of the game. I thought our rebounding was very poor throughout this game. Our shooting was very poor, especially from our perimeter.
“We got to have some guards other than Emmy the last two games that can knock down shots. We were wide open. But I felt we did what we needed to do in the last four minutes. We got ourselves to the free throw line. We got the rebounds we needed to. We played smart basketball down the stretch.”
Ashley Ellis-Milan alone had three key rebounds in the last minute. “She hadn’t been rebounding the whole game,” Borton said. “I thought they did a great job keeping her off the boards. The last two games, it has been tough for Ashley. They’ve got two people boxing her out. It opens up some things for Jackie [Voigt] inside to get some more boards. But she came up with some big plays and that’s what veterans do. She got the rebounds we needed to get at the end.”
Borton said she is concerned the Gophers are not making shots. “We are scoring 80-some points at the beginning of the year,” she said. “We got to get back to scoring more in transition and we did start the game. We got to get that mindset here this week, while we have a break, that we have to score more off our defense. We got to the free throw line more. We got to score more in transition. And that’s what we have not done the last few games.”
In the Gophers’ previous game, they lost 56-43 to Purdue on Thursday.
“Defensively, we have been very solid,” Borton said. “I don’t know if we can play better defense. It’s been very solid. At Purdue, it was very solid keeping them to the point total that they had. But we have to get the other end of the floor going and start making some shots.
“Some of the shots, I don’t think our guards were ready. They didn’t have their feet ready. I think they were surprised sometimes when they had wide-open shots. [Katie Ohm] Ohmie was open quite a bit tonight. Kiara Buford was open on almost every shot that she took. We just got to knock them down and be ready. Taking shots in rhythm. That’s what I don’t think we are doing right now.”
Ohm was 2-for-10, Buford 0-for-5. All their attempts were from three-point range.
Borton said she expects most Big Ten games to be close. “We know each other so well,” she said. “We got an 18-game schedule. We are beating each other up a couple times a week. It’s going to come down to a chess match [Is coach Borton listening to the Common Man on KFAN, that’s one of his favorite gag lines] because we know each other so well and we are taking away team’s strengths. Everybody is. It’s the team that makes the most plays down the stretch.
“You don’t see any blowouts anymore in the Big Ten. It’s a very competitive conference. And we just got to continue finding ways to win basketball games right now.”
Borton said nothing about Northwestern surprised her. “They are a very well coached team,” she said. ”They took Purdue into overtime a week ago. They are in close games. The taste of winning is so close to them. Hopefully it is right around the corner, but I don’t want it to be against us.”
Borton, in her seventh season at the U of M, and McKeown hugged briefly before the game and then chatted for a minute or so.
Borton also was asked why she shortened the bench on Sunday. Only seven players played much. “If we can get ourselves a bit of a lead, we can get some other people in,” she said. “But when we are fighting to score, and we have non-scorers coming off the bench, it’s hard to get them minutes. We got to play the players that are going to score for us.”
It was hard to find any of those at times on Sunday.
OTHER SUNDAY HILIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS
* The two teams were a combined 3-for-33 on three-pointers.
* Northwestern had 19 turnovers, the Gophers 13.
* The combined 83 points on Sunday is the lowest total in a Gophers’ game since the NCAA era began in 1981-82. That season the NCAA brought women’s basketball under its wing and held the first NCAA tournament.
Before that the Gophers and other women’s teams strived to either make the AIAW or NWIT tournaments.
The previous low was 94, set twice, the last time when Purdue beat the Gophers 63-31 on Feb. 12, 2005. The previous low combined score at home in the NCAA era was 97 when the Gophers beat St. Francis 64-33 on March 19, 2005, in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
* The 40 points Northwestern scores is the lowest for an opponent this season and the lowest since the Wildcats scored 33 against the Gophers at Williams Arena on the last game of the 2005-06 regular season. The U won that game 71-33 on Feb. 26, 2006.
* There was a moment of silence for North Carolina State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow before the start of the game. Yow, 66, died on Saturday. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987. The coaches of both teams wore a pink ribbon, a sign of the fight against that disease.
* Ten minutes into the game, Northwestern had nine turnovers, the Gophers six. The score was 13-7 Ski-U-Mah.
* Brittany Orban of the ‘Cats made two free throws with 0.4 seconds on the clock at the end of the first half to cut Minnesota’s halftime lead to 24-21.
* Orban’s layup gave NW its first lead at 25-24 early in the second half.
* Back-to-back baskets by Fox near the middle of the second half got the sedate Barn crowd roaring. The first was on a jumper in the lane, the second on a fastbreak layup.
* Orban scored inside with 1:20 left to give the Wildcats their last lead at 40-39.
* The Big Ten standings at the top:
1) Ohio State 7-1
2) Indiana 7-2
Michigan St. 7-2
4) Minnesota 6-3
Purdue 6-3
Those five teams are 17-4 in home conference games. The Gophers and Indiana are both 4-0 at home in Big Ten play halfway through the 18-game conference season.
A SHOUTOUT TO AN EAGLE
The Gophers’ score may have been the weirdest of the day on Sunday, but the upset of the season was at Illinois.
The 11th-place Illini, formerly winless in the Big Ten beat conference co-leader Indiana 61-52. Junior center Jenna Smith, the former Bloomington Kennedy star, had 24 points and 15 rebounds for Illinois.
She has a ritual of talking on the phone to her father, Frank, before every game. He gives her advice and keeps her focused, according to a weekly Big Ten news release.
