Make no mistake, Northwestern's women's basketball team this year has not been very good. The Wildcats currently sit at 6-9 overall on the season, and they're already 0-4 in conference play. It's been a tough stretch, as the team hasn't won a game since November.
Northwestern continued its losing ways against Iowa last night, but it put up a valiant effort, falling by just nine against the No. 14 ranked team in the country.
A major reason for that was, of course, Grace Sullivan. The forward has been a model of consistency all season for NU on a team that's lacked consistent scoring otherwise, and she led her squad in scoring again last night at Welsh-Ryan.
Sullivan finished the contest with a ho-hum 28 points -- no big deal for her on any given night -- on 11-of-22 from the field. She tacked on seven boards and two assists for good measure. Behind Sullivan, though, Casey Harter was next in scoring with 11. Nobody else cracked double-digits.
As a team, Northwestern played surprisingly good defense against the Hawkeyes, forcing a whopping 20 turnovers. That was crucial because the 'Cats turned the ball over 16 times themselves. Nine of the Iowa turnovers came on Northwestern steals.
Northwestern, for the most part, kept up with the Hawkeyes on the glass. Iowa out-rebounded NU 39-30, but that's not a terrible margin, especially considering NU was chucking up more shots on the night.
The biggest discrepancy was in the foul battle. Sometimes you can blame refs, but when the ration is 29 free throws to 14, it usually means one team is fouling too often and isn't doing a good enough job taking it to the rim.
Both things felt true of Northwestern throughout the game. Of the 14 foul shots, Sullivan shot eight of them -- there just aren't enough other weapons on the court to supplement her game and force the issue driving the paint.
Ultimately, this game will show up as another loss on Northwestern's ledger, but the outcome was a little more positive than that. This wasn't a situation where the 'Cats got dominated and then came back a little in garbage time. It was the opposite.
Northwestern was close the entire way, trailing 13-9 after the first quarter and 32-29 at halftime. Things got away from them ever-so slightly in the second half of the game, but they never stopped fighting and put up a valiant effort.
The 'Cats will look to use that effort as momentum on Thursday when they travel to Minneapolis to take on the Golden Gophers (10-4, 1-2). Minnesota is a solid team, but this is a chance for Northwestern to finally get back in the win column.