DeKALB — NIU women’s basketball (4-17, 2-8 MAC) dropped a close matchup on Saturday, losing at home to the Central Michigan University Chippewas (13-7, 7-3 MAC) by a score of 75-70 to extend its losing streak to three.
“It’s going to haunt me,” said NIU women’s basketball head coach Jacey Brooks. “I’m probably going to lose some hours of sleep thinking about how we can continue to get better rebounding and get better at the free-throw line.”
The biggest difference in Saturday’s matchup was the rebounding margin, with Central Michigan hauling in 42 rebounds to NIU’s 17.
The Chippewas also dominated the offensive glass, bringing in 20 offensive rebounds leading to 22 second-chance points.
“They had 22 points off those 20 offensive rebounds,” Brooks said. “Its the difference in the game. We know they’re bigger, they’re the best offensive rebounding team in the conference and that’s something that we’ve been focusing on in practice, and we just have to continue to get better at it. We’re not going to grow overnight.”
The two teams combined for 47 turnovers in the game with NIU winning the turnover battle, committing 20 turnovers to CMU’s 27.
Coming into Saturday’s action, CMU averaged 18.1 turnovers a game and the Huskies averaged 17.6.
The Huskies were able to total 15 steals on Saturday off of CMU’s 27 turnovers, with graduate student guard Nadechka Laccen and junior forward Navaeh Wingate leading the defensive charge.
Laccen, who stands at 5’6”, had a season-high two blocks in the game, good for second on the team, and had four steals.
“Whatever my team needs, I’m going to do my job,” Laccen said. “That’s what happened, I do everything for my team and I’m just going to continue to do that.”
Despite losing their 17th game of the season, the Huskies were able to shoot above 50% from the field and from three in Saturday’s loss.
Shooting just 38% from the field and 27% from three this year, the Huskies shot 51%, 25/49, from the field and 53%, 9/17, from downtown on Saturday.
“There’s a lot of positives out of this game,” Brooks said. “We competed for 40 minutes and we shot the ball well. We also forced them to 27 turnovers. I was really proud of our effort, I’m really really happy with that, and that’s why it hurts so bad because we played well in so many areas, offensively and defensively.”
Despite having a good shooting game from the field, the Huskies left multiple opportunities at the free throw line, converting 11 shots in 20 attempts from the charity stripe.
The Huskies also boasted four double-digit scorers.
Freshman Emilie Sorensen led the charge with 18 points on 7/10 shooting and 4/7 from three.
Laccen followed up her defensive performance with a 17 point performance, adding one rebound and four assists to her final line.
Sorenson and Laccen both played all 40 minutes for the Huskies in Saturday’s loss.
“I just felt there wasn’t an opportunity to take her (Laccen) off the floor,” Brooks said. “If there was a time to get them off, I would, but I just couldn’t find a time for either one of them to get off. I have a lot of trust in those two offensively and defensively.”
Wingate added 10 points of her own to go along with three rebounds, two assists and a team- leading five steals.
Senior guard Maria Serracanta was the last member of NIU’s starting five to score in double figures, putting up 10 points while dishing out a team-high six assists.
UP NEXT
The Huskies next matchup will be at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in Muncie, Indiana to take on Ball State University. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
