One day after struggling on defense, the Northern State women’s basketball team couldn’t quite find enough offense on Saturday evening.

The Wolves managed just one point in more than two minutes down the stretch in a 69-65 non-conference women’s college basketball setback to Nebraska Kearney at Wachs Arena.

Northern was tantalizingly close, trailing by just two points, but came up empty on four straight possessions and managed just one point on another to hamper their comeback effort.

“It’s tough to come back, but we shouldn’t have been in that situation,” said NSU coach Paula Krueger. “We needed to get the ball in and keep that attack mentality. You can’t tell kids not to shoot, but at the same time knowing what to shoot and when to shoot it, that falls back on me. That’s 100 percent my fault.”

It wasn’t that the Lopers were exactly surging ahead at the other end of the floor, scoring just four points themselves, but it was enough to maintain the advantage.

Krueger traced the problem back to the start of the third quarter after the Wolves led at the break 31-27. Kearney scored the first six points of the second half and changed the complexion of the contest.

“You can’t start a half with the way we did either, with three turnvoers,” Krueger said, “and then you let them get ahead and then all of a sudden the game changes.”

With center Madelyn Bragg saddled with foul trouble, Northern’s bench responded. The reserves, led by Decontee Smith and Michaela Jewett, outscored the Wolves’ starters and kept the hosts in the game.

“Coming off a harsh loss (Friday), my mindset was just to be aggressive and attack the hoop, just play team basketball,” said Smith, who finished with a career-high 21 points.

Jewett contributed a dozen points and 10 rebounds.

“I think my one greatest strengths is I can play inside and outside … when I am on the outside, they do have come out and guard me,” Jewett said, “so that opens up the paint for other people to score.”

Bragg still finished with 15 points in limited action before eventually fouling out with 3:26 remaining.

It proved to be a rough weekend for the Wolves who lost to Pittsburg State 85-55 on Friday.

“These are two teams that we can learn so much from, just from our defense and how hard we play, and our effort and those sort of things on offense,” Jewett said. “You can’t just cut a little bit to get open, you have to cut hard and that sort of stuff, so you learn a lot.”

The good news for the Wolves is that is it still early November and the season is just getting started.

“There’s just a lot of things we need to work on still,” Smith said. “You know it’s just the start, it’s not the end. So just working on our fundamentals and getting our feet underneath us, and back to basketball shape again.”

Northern is still working on blending seven newcomers in with seven returning members from last season and that will likely be a work in progress.

“We’re all just kind of learning how can we be best for the team, not how can I be the best player, can I be the best whatever. It’s how can I be the best for the team,” Jewett said. “I think we’re all just trying to figure that out and our roles right now.”

The Wolves, picked second in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference preseason poll behind only NCAA Division II national champion Minnesota State, head west to face Black Hills State and School of Mines this coming weekend.

Krueger still believes in her players and knows the talent that they possess.

“I’m proud of the kids, and for all those people that have those expectations of us that think or thought that we’re pretty good, don’t give up, because these kids are pretty good,” Krueger said. “Just stick with them, they’re pretty good.”

To see a complete box score, click on the following link:

https://nsuwolves.com/sports/womens-basketball/stats/2024-25/nebraska-kearney/boxscore/13760