The Northern Illinois University women’s basketball team looks to ride the momentum of its two wins in the final week of the regular season when it takes on the Kent State Golden Flashes in the Mid-American Conference Women’s Basketball Championship quarterfinals Wednesday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
The NIU-Kent State game is the fourth and final quarterfinal of the day Wednesday with an approximate tip-off time of 5:30 pm CT, or 30 minutes after the Ohio-Ball State game. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ as well as 94-9 WDKB and the NIU Huskies and Varsity Network apps.
NIU (15-15, 8-10 MAC) enters the tournament as the six-seed after winning on the road at Western Michigan last Saturday 66-64. The Huskies tied Ohio for sixth place in the MAC regular season and earned the seed via the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Huskies scored the last five points in the game and got two key defensive stops to win their fourth road game out of the last five.
Brooke Stonebraker (Versailles, Ohio/Versailles) led NIU with 18 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. It was her ninth double-double of the season. Stonebraker led the league in rebounding in MAC games with 9.6 per league contest. She leads NIU in scoring entering the MAC Tournament at 11.5 points per game. Her effort on the glass last Saturday helped the Huskies outrebound the Broncos by 19, 42-23, NIU’s second-largest rebound margin of the season. NIU has outrebounded nine of its last 10 opponents.
Three other Huskies scored in double figures at Western Michigan. Jayden Marable (Bolingbrook, Ill./Bolingbrook) had 13 points, six rebounds and four assists. Grace Hunter (Monroeville, Ind./Bellmont) was 4-for-5 from the field for 11 points off the bench. Brooke Blumenfeld (Northbrook, Ill./Glenbrook North) added 10 points.
NIU enters the tournament allowing 65.7 points per game. It is just the third time in the last 10 seasons that NIU has allowed under 70 points per game and the lowest since the 2014-15 season. The Huskies are 8-0 this season when holding the opposition under 60 points. NIU has held an opponent under 10 points in a quarter 11 times this season. That has happened twice in the last two games, holding Miami to three points in the first quarter on March 6 and Western Michigan to nine points last Saturday.
Kent State (18-10, 13-5 MAC) finished the regular season in third place after an 83-61 loss at Toledo last Saturday. Mikala Morris led the Golden Flashes with 18 points. Katie Shumate added 10 points and five rebounds. Shumate leads Kent State with 15.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. The Golden Flashes won the lone meeting this season between the two teams 73-48 on Jan. 14. This is the second straight year NIU and Kent State will meet in the MAC quarterfinals.
The NIU-Kent State winner will face either Ohio or Ball State in the semifinals on Friday, March 15 at approximately 11:30 a.m. CT.