By David Boyce
BOLIVAR, Mo. – Northwest Missouri State women’s basketball team dug itself a big hole and never climbed out of it Thursday evening at Southwest Baptist.
Because of a 67-47 loss, Northwest, 8-19 overall and 4-14 in the MIAA, needs to win at home on Saturday against Central Missouri to advance to the conference tournament.
“I want to see a little dignity, a little pride,” Northwest coach Michael Smith said of the final regular season game. “We kind of lost that a little bit. I don’t know what has happened the past few games.”
Both teams entered Thursday’s game needing a victory to extend its season beyond the regular season. Baptist played with that type of desperation, hustling up and down the court.
Northwest struggled to get into an offensive flow the entire game. The green Bearcats scored 24 points in the first half and then gave up the first five points in the second half for a 45-24 deficit.
Northwest didn’t score its 45th point until 1:46 left in the game and by that time, Baptist held a 65-45 lead.
“You are going to have games where you are not going to make a lot of shots, but there is no excuse for putting on a Northwest uniform and not playing with pride and passion,” Smith said.
“The paw always means pride to me. I feel like we haven’t done a good job of representing that of late. We had opportunity tonight and we let one get away.”
The good news is Northwest still has an opportunity to make the conference tournament. But the green Bearcats will have to turn in one of their best performances of the season against Central.
“We got a chance,” Smith said. “We have to win the last game of the season at home against one of the hottest teams in the league. I hope our kids understand that we are not only playing for ourselves, our community, but for our three seniors. We are going to honor them before the game.”
Northwest, though, should have some confidence. Northwest beat Central 61-60 in Warrensburg on Jan. 17.
In a must-win situation, Northwest came out cold and it didn’t help that the purple Bearcats were doing a great impression of the Showtime Lakers in the first half. Baptist scored numerous fast break baskets on the way to a 40-24 halftime lead.
Northwest held a 4-1 lead a couple of minutes into the game and then it went bad for the green Bearcats. They gave up the next eight points for a 9-4 deficit. Northwest never got on track after the Baptist’s run.
By the midway point, Northwest was down 22-10 and then it grew to 33-17. The only player to have success offensively was freshman Tanya Meyer, who went 4-for-7 from the field and scored 10 points. Nobody else scored consistently for the green Bearcats, who were 9-for-29 from the field for 31 percent.
Northwest struggled just as much on defense, allowing Baptist to go 15-for-28 from the field for 54 percent.
— Northwest Sports Information —