Good teams bounce back from tough losses, just ask the Northwestern Wildcats.

The Wildcats ran into a brick wall made of NIU women’s basketball players in white jerseys Tuesday night.

The Huskies, 3-1, routed the Wildcats 99-74 in front of 828 people and one Phoenix Suns Gorilla at Chick Evans Field House, and erased the doubts anyone might have had after NIU lost an overtime heartbreaker (87-84) on Sunday to the 16th-ranked Lady Gamecocks of the University of South Carolina in the title game of the Fastbreak Fest.

“I don’t think the loss to South Carolina meant anything to us,” Northwestern coach Don Perrilli said. “Maybe the fact that we beat them four years in a row—that has something to do with it.”

Whatever NIU had on its mind, they took it out on Northwestern. The 99-74 score is closer than the game actually was. NIU put the Wildcats, now 3-1, and their undefeated record to shame. The Huskies outrebounded the Northwestern squad 60-28, they outshot them 94-63 and as the Wildcat coach put it, they outplayed the Big 10 team in every phase of the game.

“It was like going into an alley and being totally beaten up,” Perrilli said.

The beating started on the inside as the NIU post players dominated the paint. Carol Owens, the game’s leading scorer with 23 points, toppled the 1500-point mark in her Huskie career with her seventh point of the game. Owens also ripped down 14 rebounds and added 5 steals. Tammy Hinchee netted 22 points, while grabbing 13 boards and Tracy Mondek added insult to injury as she came off the bench and pulled down 11 rebounds added to 7 points. The most rebounds that a Wildcat player was able to get was five.

“We were really insulted that a team came into our gym and outrebounded us on Sunday,” Albright said. “I told them that we had to outrebound them to win and I guess they had their ears on when I said that.”

“Our post players were non-existent,” Perrilli said.

Three other Huskies scored in double figures for the game. Lisa Foss scored 14, Denise Dove hit for 11 and Toby Meeks added 10. Another milestone was reached when Dove dished off her third assist. She went over the 250 assist mark for her career at NIU.

“An ultimate team effort is what you saw tonight,” Albright said. “We were physically and mentally hungry.”

Dee Dee Jeske got into the act with two buckets and Kris Weis put the icing on the cake as she scored the 98th and 99th points as the buzzer sounded. The rest of the Huskies and the fans wanted Weis to put up a three-pointer, so NIU could reach the century mark.

“We were thinking about it,” Albright said. “One-hundred point games are always fun.”

Even without the 100 points, it was fun for all of the Huskies, especially the seniors. The win marked the first time any of the players beat Northwestern. The last time the Huskies beat the Wildcats came during Albright’s first year as head coach in 1984-85 by an 84-83 mark.

“It’s a big factor because we’ve never beaten Northwestern since I’ve been here,” Owens said. “Every year I don’t think they were a better team than we were, so it is probably one of the highlights of my season.”

“It was great,” Dove said. “The whole team played excellent—we were really together.”

“That was awesome,” Albright said. “We got beat on Sunday and I’ve had a knot in my stomach since then. I was extremely pleased with our performance today and I hope we keep that intensity.”