Another disappointing season is in the books for women’s basketball, which finished with less than 12 wins for the third time in four years.

The Huskies finished the season losing their last four games and eight of their last 10. They ended with an embarrassing 42-point loss to Western Michigan University in the first round of the MAC Tournament on Monday. The loss summed up just about everything from the Huskies’ season.

It was NIU’s largest loss in nearly 10 years — the team’s last loss by more than 40 points came when it lost by 44 points to the University of Iowa in the 2007-08 season. Eleven of the Huskies’ 19 losses this year were by double figures, a number that will need to be lowered if the team plans to have any success.

“It’s a disappointing end to a season in which you look back on some positives both individually and collectively, understanding the circumstances that we had going into it,” said head coach Lisa Carlsen after the blowout loss, according to an NIU Athletics news release. “We knew what our challenges would be this year but this is a disappointing way to end the season because we are better than we showed tonight. Ally [Lehman] is someone we can put pieces around next year. She has the mentality of someone this team needs from a leadership standpoint. Hopefully the underclassmen will continue to learn from her but I’m looking forward to next year with her on this team.”

Lehman has been a huge bright spot for NIU this season – the junior only averaged 13.4 points per game but has had a ton of impressive performances. She also averaged 11 rebounds, leading the Huskies in both categories. Lehman tied the NIU record for points in a single game and broke the NIU record for rebounds in a single season with 323. She had 15 double-doubles in 30 games, leading the way for a team that struggled for the final two months of the year.

The Huskies also have young talent that has had its moments – sophomore forward Kelly Smith averaged 10.6 points and 5.6 rebounds and freshman guards Mikayla Voigt and Courtney Woods both contributed more than 10 points per game. A lot of NIU’s problems came at the defensive end. They ranked far too low in too many defensive categories and have to give better effort on that end of the floor. The team won’t get better until it keeps teams from having high scoring outings on a regular basis. Giving up almost 100 points in a tournament game is unacceptable for any team, regardless of where it ranks in the conference.

The team’s first goal should be finishing a season at .500, which it hasn’t done since 2008. Having high expectations too quickly would be unrealistic, and you can’t expect to go from an 11-win team to a team that wins 20-plus in just a year. The Huskies have a lot of work to do, from working with their current talent to recruiting better talent for the future.