Nov. 12, 2010

Northern Illinois (0-0, 0-0 MAC) at Minnesota (0-0, 0-0 Big Ten)
 Date	Saturday, Nov. 13  •  1 p.m. CDT
 Location	Minneapolis, Minn. • Williams Arena - "The Barn"
 On the Air	Huskie All-Access (Live Audio) • 1360-AM WLBK (DeKalb)
 NIUHuskies.com	NIU Game Notes | Live Stats
 All-Time Series	Minnesota leads the series 3-2; NIU has won two of the last three

 

NIU Opens New Era at Minnesota
The Northern Illinois women's basketball team will hit the court for the first official time under new head coach Kathi Bennett, Saturday, Nov. 13 against Minnesota in the first game of the Best Buy Classic, hosted by the Golden Gophers.

The Series
Minnesota leads the all-time series between the two schools by a 3-2 count. The Golden Gophers came away with an 88-71 victory at the Minnesota Dial Classic. The Huskies won the previous two meetings, beating the Gophers in Minneapolis 98-75 in 1989 and winning in DeKalb 104-75 a year earlier. Minnesota won the first two games of the series, played in Minneapolis in 1982 and 1986.

About the Golden Gophers
Minnesota finished 2010 with a 13-17 record, and has played two exhibition games this year. The Gophers defeated SW Minnesota State, 75-48, and beat UM-Crookston, 90-58. The Gophers' leading scorer from a year ago, Kiara Buford, returns after averaging 13.1 points and 4.3 rebounds per game as a sophomore. Minnesota also brings back Jackie Voigt and China Antoine, who were the third and fourth-leading scorers on last year's team.

Last Time Out
Senior Marke Freeman scored 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds as the Northern Illinois women's basketball team fell 69-63 in an exhibition game to UW-Parkside, Wednesday, in first-year head coach Kathi Bennett's NIU debut.

The Huskies led for the majority of the first half, but went into halftime trailing after Kaitlyn Bettiga hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to put the Rangers on top 33-30 at the break. NIU hit 52 percent of its field goals in the first half, despite going just 1-of-6 from behind the arc. The Rangers hit 12-of-27 shots (44.4 percent), but nailed three treys in the period.

Senior center Ebony Ellis had the opposite performance of her team. After scoring two points on four shots in the first, Ellis found her stride over the second 20 minutes. She scored 11 points of 4-of-5 shooting, and pulled down five boards in the second half alone.

Despite Ellis' performance, the overall NIU offense slowed in the second half. The Huskies shots 41.7 percent (10-of-24) from the field, and matched their three-point shooting from the first half, again hitting 1-of-6 attempts from deep.

While NIU struggled from the outside, the Rangers connected on 6-of-10 attempts, including a 3-for-3 performance by Jadee Rooney.

Freeman's 22 points came on just 10 shots, including two three-pointers. She also went 6-for-6 from the free throw line. In her first competitive action in 20 months, sophomore transfer Kim Davis tallied a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

It was the first time Davis had suited up in a collegiate game since the end of the 2009 season, when she was a member of Eastern Michigan's team. After that season, Davis transferred to NIU to be closer to home, but did not play on any of NIU's varsity teams.

Bennett Versus The Gophers
Kathi Bennett is 4-4 all-time against Minnesota, with all eight match-ups coming when Bennett was the head coach at Indiana. Bennet also faced Minnesota twice as an assistant at Wisconsin. In her last match-up against the Gophers, the Badgers beat Minnesota in double-overtime on a last-second floater by Alyssa Karel.

Back to Minnesota
Associate Head Coach Marsha Frese returns to her old stomping grounds for this game. Frese was the assistant coach of the Gophers under her sister Brenda in 2001-02.

On the Air
Every NIU basketball game of the 2010-11 season can be heard on the Northern Illinois Sports Network, Presented by IMG. Women's games home and away can be heard on 1360-AM WLBK and Huskie All-Access at NIUHuskies.com. Home games can also be watched live through Huskie All-Access.

First Year Wonder
First year head coach Kathi Bennett is 58-51 (.532) in her inaugural years with programs, despite taking reclamation projects at every stop. Her best record was a 20-11 mark in 2000-01 at Indiana. At the four schools she has been the head coach of, Bennett's teams have been under .500 only once in her first seasons. Evansville, a program that had only won 18 games in its history, went 3-23 in her initial year.

Discounting Bennett's inaugural season at Evansville, she is 55-28 (.663) in year one. If Bennett can accomplish the same winning percentage at NIU that she has in her first years at other schools, it would be the first finish over .500 for the Huskie women's basketball program since 2006-07.

Three-Year Turnarounds
Bennett has taken teams to eight NCAA Tournaments: six at UW-Oshkosh, and one at both Evansville and Indiana. More impressively, Bennett did so in less than three years at every stop. She coached Oshkosh to the NCAA Division III tournament in her first season with the program. It took three seasons for her to take Evansville from a 3-23 squad to a 19-11 NCAA Tournament team. At Indiana, she won the Big Ten Tournament to earn a place in the tournament in just her second season.

Milestone Victories
Since joining the NCAA ranks in 1982-83, the Huskies have gone 399-413 (.491). That, of course, means NIU's next win will be the 400th victory as a member of the NCAA. Overall, the Huskies are 573-563 (.504). Since joining the AIAW, the women's athletics precursor to the NCAA, in 1971-72, the Huskies have won exactly 500 games, while totalling 523 losses.

Four Away
Bennett is just four wins away from joining her father Dick among the ranks of 300-game winners. With a record of 296-178 (.624), Bennett has averaged 17.4 wins per year over her career. She has totalled double-digit wins 15 times, and has been over .500 in 12 of her 17 seasons as a head coach.

Freeman Named Preseason All-MAC
Senior point guard Marke Freeman has been named to the Preseason All-MAC West Team. Freeman was a MAC All-Conference Second Team performer in 2009-10, an award that includes players from both divisions. She led the Huskies in scoring with 16.8 points per game, scored at least 20 points on 10 separate occasions, and surpassed the 30-point mark three times. She also ranked second in the league in steals with 2.7 per contest.

Healthy Ellis Back for Senior Year
Senior Ebony Ellis also returns for her final season, giving the Huskies two All-MAC performers. Ellis missed 10 games of 2009-10 with a foot injury, but was an All-MAC Honorable Mention honoree in 2008-09. Ellis averaged 12.0 points and 9.8 rebounds per game while shooting .500 from the floor. Now healthy, Ellis figures to be a major factor in the NIU gameplan this year.

Eight Ball
Ellis is currently averaging 8.6 points and 8.0 rebounds for her career. If she keeps that pace, she will be the first player to average at least 8.0 and 8.0 since Jennifer Youngblood put up 12.4 points and 8.6 boards per game from 2000-04.

Something to Work With
Bennett takes over a team that not only returns two All-MAC performers, but won 10 games and lost nine games by eight points or less. In terms of wins, the 2009-10 Huskies were the best team to have a new coach the following season since the 1993-94 squad went 24-6 in Jane Albright's final year before retiring. The next season Liz Galloway-McQuitter went 17-14 and made a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Since, Carol Hammerle took over a four-win team in 1998-99, and Carol Owens coached a team that was 7-21 in the year prior to her arrival. All told, six out of the seven NIU women's basketball coaches to take over someone else's program have improved upon their predecessor's final season.

New Sensation
Redshirt sophomore forward Kim Davis has impressed Bennett and her staff, despite taking 2009-10 off from competitive basketball. Davis played her freshman season as a walk-on at Eastern Michigan, where she started 10 games and played in 24 contests. She left the team after her freshman year to transfer to a school that was closer to her home of Evanston, Ill. Davis ended up at Northern Illinois University, where she attended classes but was not a part of the basketball team in 2009-10. Bennett discovered Davis after Huskie freshman Jenna Thorp went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the summer, and convinced Davis to join the Huskies. In the exhibition game, Davis registered a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

"We combed the campus, asked questions about whether anyone had any playing experience," Bennett said. "She is a glue type player, and she has really surprised everyone. Kim is someone who is going to contribute, and we are really happy we found her."

On the Road Again, and Again, and Again
The Huskies will be living out of suitcases for the first two months of the season. NIU plays only once at home in its first 11 games and has only three total non-conference home games. That is the fewest amount of non-league home games in a season since 1998-99, when head coach Carol Hammerle took her team on the road in 7-of-10 non-conference match-ups.

Northern Illinois will play five times away from home, including four "true road games" and one neutral site contest, before opening at home against Chicago State, Nov. 27. It will then be five more roadies for the Huskies before they host Loyola (Dec. 28) and Illinois State (Jan. 3) to wrap-up the non-league schedule. Bennett was hired in May, too late to make any drastic scheduling changes, but acknowledges that the bevy of away games will likely make her team stronger.

"It's a non-conference schedule that is definitely going to test us, and it's definitely going to make us stronger," she said. "It's going to get us ready for the MAC, because the MAC is a very good league with some very powerful teams."

Assist-Rebound Duos
With 35 more assists, Marke Freeman will become the 16th Huskie to reach 250 in her career. It will also mark the first time in four years that a member of both the NIU 250-Assist Club and 600-Rebund Club have played on the same team. Ellis passed the 600-board milestone last season, and has now totaled 615, 15th most in NIU history. The last pair to play together as members of the two clubs were Kristin Wiener (629 career rebounds) and Stephanie Raymond (497 career assists) in 2006-07.

Team Captains Named
Seniors Ellis and Bianca Brown, along with junior Courtney Shelton were named team captains in late October. The trio was picked by a combination of player vote and the coaches' decision.

Chasing 1,000
Both Freeman and Ellis could be chasing their 1,000th point by the end of the season. Freeman is just 227 points shy, and would need to average 7.6 points per game over the Huskies' 30 assured contests to reach the milestone before her career is up. If she does so, Freeman will become the first player to reach 1,000 points in just three seasons since Stephanie Raymond reach the mark as a junior in 2005-06.

Ellis is 337 points off, and would need to average 11.2 ppg in NIU's 30 guaranteed games to reach a grand. Ellis averaged 12.0 points per game last season, despite battling a foot injury for the bulk of the year. If both Ellis and Freeman join the esteemed club, it would be the first time two Huskies passed the milestone in one season since Kristan Knake and Jennifer Youngblood did so in the 2002-03 season.