Rapid Reaction: Northwestern women’s basketball suffers first loss of the season 85-70 to Missouri

Though living in a fairytale with a cruising 6-0 start, Northwestern women’s basketball’s best start in a decade ended with a fourth-quarter collapse.

Northwestern (6-1, 0-0 B1G) fell to Missouri (6-2, 0-0 SEC) 85-70 in the final game of the Elevance Health Fort Myers Tip-Off on Saturday night in Fort Myers, Fla. The Wildcats couldn’t resist and fell apart in the fourth quarter despite Grace Sullivan’s heroic effort, as the Tigers held on to hand Northwestern its first defeat of the season.

Sullivan posted her career-high 31 points and completed a double-double with 13 rebounds. Tate Lash recorded 10 points and dished out eight assists. Caroline Lau also produced eight assists while scoring eight points.

For the counterpart, Grace Slaughter led Missouri’s scoreboard with a career-high 33 points. Shannon Dowell (12), Jordana Reisma (10) and Chloe Sotell (11) also scored double-digits.

The Tigers won the first touch, but the Wildcats opened the scoring first, with Casey Harter knocking down a tripe from the right wing. Slaughter responded with a three as well on top of the key. Sullivan answered with a pump-fake jumper on the elbow, followed by Harter’s driving layup and Tayla Thomas’ jumper that earned Northwestern an early 9-3 lead.

NU kept up its prowess and scored 11 points in the first four minutes after Sullivan laid the ball in down the rim, but Missouri cut the deficit to three points after Slaughter hit her second three. Sullivan raised Northwestern up by five points after canning another contested middy at the 3:58 mark before the first media timeout.

Slaughter, facing Thomas’s coverage, powered downhill for a layup. She then did the same thing to Thomas in the next possession, drawing a foul, making it a one-point game after two shots on the line. NU failed to respond after Sullivan missed two jumpers in a row, and the Tigers took its first lead at 15-13 as Jayla Smith hit a corner three.

Sullivan returned two points from the free-throw line after recovering her missed shot in the paint and drew contact. And it came to a round of battle between two “Graces:” Slaughter added five more points, while Sullivan created space through off-ball movement and answered two jumpers. But Missouri’s Shannon Dowell surged with an and-one play in the last play of the first quarter, NU trailing 23-19 to its opponent.

A three-point play from Sullivan started the second frame, but the Tigers extended their advantage to eight after Slaughter and Smith combined for five additional points. After missing a series of shots, NU broke the drought as Caroline Lau fed Sullivan a high-arching delivery for an easy two. Sullivan herself knocked another two and made a key steal on the other end, leading to the next NU offensive possession that ended with Xamiya Walton’s three-pointer, narrowing the gap to just one point. Tate Lash followed up the momentum with a breakaway layup on a fast break, helping Northwestern retake the lead at 31-30.

Chloe Sotell rejuvenated Missouri’s offence with a stepback three, and the Tigers reclaimed the lead of four via Lisa Thompson’s two free throws. Lash utilised Sullivan’s screen and posted a jumper with space. Sotell and Slaughter caught fire with back-to-back threes to build a nine-point lead. Lau responded on the left wing with a trey. With Slaughter’s last play of the quarter incomplete, Northwestern trailed the Tigers 36-42 before the second half.

The Graces were the stars of the show in the first half, with Slaughter tacking on 21 points while Sullivan had 19 and eight boards.

Northwestern trimmed the gap to just two at the beginning of the second half. Sullivan kept up her scoring show with four points; Thomas’ powerful layup tied the score, followed by a Lau’s triple that retook the lead for Northwestern. But Slaghter didn’t want to miss out, dominating through the traffic with an and-one. She then intercepted a pass that should have gone to Sullivan and scored a transitional layup. Dowell’s two points from the line cushioned a seven-point lead for the Tigers halfway through the third period.

Northwestern then ignited with a push. Lash splashed a quick shot from beyond the arc to awaken Northwestern. Sullivan dug downhill via a post-up spin and cut the deficit to just two through a layup. Northwestern’s defense then caused an offensive turnover, forcing Missouri to call a timeout with four minutes left in the quarter.

Claire Keswick came off the bench with a three after the timeout, but the Tigers found the rhythm with six straight points while the ‘Cats were facing a defensive breakdown. Sullivan’s fadeaway jumper stopped the bleeding before NU called for a timeout as it trailed 55-58.

Sullivan continued her duty inside the perimeter and found Walton wide-opened with a delivery; the latter drilled her second three of the game to even the score. Dowell and Slaughter piled up four points in the last 30 seconds, giving the Tigers a four-point lead to enter the fourth.

After a scoreless first minute, Lash stepped up with a three-pointer fireworks to open the final frame. But Missouri then poured out four points in a minute to maintain its dominance. Dowell cleaned the space through a driving layup, extending her team’s lead to seven.

Despite keeping the ball-movement flow, Northwestern found it difficult to navigate open chances while the Tigers widened their coverage outside the perimeter, again sticking in a scoring drought. Before a Northwestern timeout with five minutes to the end, Lau ripped off the defensive line and drew a foul on a drive, nailing two points from the line.

Though switching to a full-court press, the ‘Cats couldn’t contain Smith’s hot hand, which drained another three from the right. Sullivan resurfaced with a mid-shot, but Missouri kept running the floor with four more points through transition while Northwestern failed to respond as its shots went bricked. Slaughter’s ensuring trey at the 2:12 mark established the Tigers’ largest lead of 15.

Walton scored her third triple before NU’s last timeout. But Slaughter dismantled the Wildcats’ hope with an and-one prowess. Northwestern eventually dropped 85-70 in a despairing fashion.

Northwestern will return to its home stadium and face Kansas on Dec. 3 at 7:00 p.m. CT.