ESPN+. NIU is 6-6 (0-1), Miami is 2-9 (0-1). Northern lost to EMU at home Tuesday 67-49 and shot atrociously, 26% from the floor and 11% on threes. That was their first home loss as they are 4-1 at home.
Their best player, 5th year guard Chelyabinsk Kocher has not played all season with an injury. She was a second team all MAC player last year and has over 1500 career points. They also lost their 4 year starting center and the MAC’s leading rebounder to the transfer portal, so this is pretty much a different team than the last 4 years. 5-6 Sr Jayden Marable leads the team with 12.9 ppg and 4.5 assists per game. Ther leading rebounder is 6-3 center Brooke Stonebraker, who is familiar to me because she was a hs star at Versailles, which is in the same league as New Bremen. They also start Grace Hunter 8.1ppg, Tara Stauffacher, a Wisconsin transfer, 7.7ppg, and Kourtney Drake 6.4ppg.
This is a game we could win. Eastern scored inside against NIU, that is what we do best. Our biggest issues this year have been on offense. We average only 53ppg and are shooting 39% from the floor, 27% on threes, and 64% on free throws.
So it was 16 to 12 in favor of Northern after the first period. We got down 7 and rallied to chop it to a two point deficit. However, NIU then went on a 10-0 run to end the half. 35 to 23 NIU. Rebounds and turnovers are almost dead even, but the Huskies are shooting 53%, we are at 29%.
Amber Tretter has 9 points and 4 rebounds. Cori Lard hit a 3 and has 3 steals. Katey Richason, who has been poor from the line this year, is 4 for 4. Blumenfeld has 8 points off the bench and Stonebreaker has 6 rebounds, 3 steals, and is 2 for 2 from the floor.
NIU only scored 2 points in the first 8 minutes of the third period and we pounded the ball inside and caught up. At the end of 3 it is Miami up 44-42. Amber Tretter has12/9, Katey Richason has 9/6, and Jayden Scott 8/3. Lake is Edwards has been our outside threat with 11/3.
Both Tretter and Richason have 3 fouls, so does Stonebraker for NIU.
And another 4th quarter collapse as we scored only 2 points in the first 9 minutes of the 4th quarter. Final was 58 to 48. Got outscored 16 to 4 in the 4th quarter.
Listening to Coach Box on the post game interview, he is very frustrated. To be expected I would guess, when he had been coaching a top 5 nationally rated team for the past few years and he inherited a roster which had been decimated. They are going to have to recruit their way out of this situation. I see nothing wrong with the way the staff is building their program, they just started out with a roster that had to be the worst in division 1 basketball and too late in the year to assemble enough new talent. I do like that he promised that this is not what the team will look like next year and in the future.