MARYVILLE, Mo. – For the first time in 2015, the shots failed to drop consistently for Northwest Missouri State and it resulted in a 70-64 loss to Washburn Saturday at Bearcat Arena.
The loss snapped a six-game winning streak and dropped Northwest to 12-3 overall and 5-2 in the MIAA. Washburn improved to a 9-9 and 4-3.
“They were just tougher than us tonight,” Northwest senior Matt Wallace said.
Northwest lost its offensive rhythm late in the first half and never got on track in the second half.
The Bearcats were in reasonably good shape when the second half started. They trailed by just one point.
Washburn scored the first six points in the second half for a 35-28 lead. Freshman Justin Pitts finally scored for Northwest, ending a 15-0 run by Washburn.
“We had some turnovers and missed some shots and didn’t get to the paint as much as we needed to,” Wallace said. “That hurt.
“I don’t know if we thought we were going to blow them out like the last few games. It didn’t work out for us today.”
Pitts’ basket did not ignite a run. Northwest had trouble putting together consecutive baskets.
Washburn did a great job taking away points in the paint, and the three-pointer wasn’t falling with any consistency for the Bearcats.
Because of the missed shots, Northwest needed to rebound well, but Washburn pulled down 15 more rebounds than the Bearcats.
Another thing that hurt Northwest was the number of fouls called that prevented any flow from starting. The Bearcats operate best when the action is not stopped nearly every minute. There were a total of 49 fouls call, 28 of them on the Bearcats.
“It definitely hurt our rhythm,” junior Conner Crooker said. “We had to stop and then set up. They (Ichabods) did a good job of taking away things. We just have to be more focused.”
The Bearcats, who haven’t had foul trouble much this season, saw Zach Schneider, Justin Pitts and Grant Cozad all foul out.
To his credit, Wallace placed the blame on the loss on the Bearcats for not playing hard enough to earn the victory.
“To me, it felt like they wanted it more than us,” Wallace said. “They showed they weren’t going to go away and maybe we thought they would give it to us instead of taking it away from them.”
Northwest played so well in its previous three games that it would have been hard to maintain that level the rest of the season.
The Bearcats will look to bounce back 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at home against Southwest Baptist.
Northwest definitely want to forget the last 5 minutes of the first half on Saturday. Northwest offense bogged down and that allowed Washburn to score the last nine points and go into halftime with a 29-28.
It was the first time in 2015 that Northwest trailed at halftime. For much of the first half, it looked like the Bearcats was going to have the lead at the break.
After five lead changes, Northwest took an 11-9 lead on a three-pointer Schneider. Schneider broke an 11-11 with his patented four-point play. He does it once a game.
Slowly, Northwest grew its lead to 26-15 and then the Bearcats hit their first significant cold spell of the new year.
Still, Northwest shot 52 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, but allowed Washburn to shoot 55 percent.
— David Boyce, Northwest Athletics —