Rutgers Women's Basketball had its back against the wall in the Big Ten standings, with the wall only getting larger after the Scarlet Knights (10-16, 2-13) fell 69-59 to Northwestern on Monday night at Jersey Mike's Arena.
The Wildcats (9-15, 2-11) took a 4-2 lead with 8:34 remaining in the first quarter and never looked back, taking advantage of Rutgers' poor offensive first quarter and holding off the Scarlet Knights at every turn to notch their second Big Ten win, this one in near wire-to-wire fashion.
Awa Sidibe had her best game of the season, finishing with a team-high 16 points and nine rebounds - both season-highs and just short of career-highs at Rutgers - showing off her signature mid-range prowess and slashing ability to generate some offensive action.
Sidibe was one of three Scarlet Knights in double figures, as Destiny Adams finished with 15 points and seven rebounds despite being hampered with second-half foul trouble, and JoJo Lacey scored 11 points with another seven rebounds. Chyna Cornwell finished with 7 points and a game-high 13 rebounds before fouling out in 26 minutes.
Freshman star Kiyomi McMiller did not play for the third straight game, as a program spokesperson said her status remains day-to-day.
Northwestern saw five players in double figures, led by Sparta, New Jersey native Caileigh Walsh's 13 points. Kyla Jones and Taylor Williams each scored 12 points, while Casey Harter and Melannie Daley finished with 11 points.
JOIN TODAY AND GET 30 DAYS FREE! | THE ROUND TABLE FORUM | RUTGERS FOOTBALL 2025 RECRUITING CLASS | RUTGERS HOOPS RECRUITING
Rutgers struggled mightily to start the game, trailing 25-12 after the first quarter without any consistent flow on offense.
This was in large part due to the Scarlet Knights' eight turnovers offensively. 10 of the Wildcats' first 12 points came off turnovers, with four takeaways in just the opening two minutes.
Rutgers did a better job taking care of the ball as the game went on, finishing with seven turnovers in the final three quarters combined, but the damage had already been done as the Scarlet Knights got blitzed to open the game.
"The turnovers," Rutgers head coach Coquese Washington said on what went wrong in the opening quarter. "We just didn't have good ball security that first quarter, and we kind of got behind in that first quarter and we were playing catch-up the rest of the way."
The Scarlet Knights played a much better second quarter, holding Northwestern without a field goal for seven minutes - snapped by Walsh's buzzer-beating layup - but still trailed by nine points going into halftime thanks to a late 4-0 run in the final minute of the half.
Adams had her best quarter of the game in the second, scoring 9 points on 3-for-5 shooting with four rebounds after a 1-for-7 start in the first quarter. She also picked up all three first-half fouls in the frame, with the second and third coming less than a minute apart late in the quarter.
Foul trouble was not only a Rutgers issue, particularly in the second quarter. The Wildcats were whistled for 10 fouls in the quarter alone, with all but one Northwestern player picking up at least one foul, with Williams and Tayla Thomas each being whistled for two fouls. The Scarlet Knights had six fouls called against them, with Adams' three and a trio of other players with a foul.
Rutgers again played well defensively in the third quarter, outscoring the Wildcats and holding them to 5-for-17 shooting in the frame. Adams picked up her fourth foul less than two minutes into the second half, sidelining her for the rest of the third quarter. It came on a relatively late whistle where Adams attempted to get out of the way of Jones driving to the basket, but her momentum was too much and the officials deemed it a foul, visibly frustrating the senior forward.
The Scarlet Knights did not have a dominant stretch of defense like the second quarter, instead holding steady and trading baskets.
With the deficit hovering between seven and 11 points for the entire quarter, simply keeping even with Northwestern was not enough to get back within arm's length and Rutgers was unable to string together a big scoring run to test the Wildcats in the third quarter and trailed by eight points going into the final 10 minutes.
The Scarlet Knights seemed like they were close to making the big run and completing the comeback in the fourth quarter, but the effort fell just short. Rutgers pulled to within four points with 4:41 mark after two free throws from Adams, but Williams went on a personal 6-0 run over the next two minutes - three of her four fourth-quarter baskets - and the Scarlet Knights' offense went cold with a three-minute scoring drought, giving Northwestern another 10-point lead wiith under three minutes to play.
Rutgers was able to pull back to within five points again with under a minute left, but the Wildcats hit key free throws to salt the game away.
One positive takeaway was the fight the Scarlet Knights showed later in the game, continuing to fight back from the first-quarter deficit and putting serious pressure on Northwestern.
"I thought we had good fight," Washington said. "We tried to play through the foul trouble, you know, Destiny sitting for long stretches, JoJo sitting for long stretches, kind of crept into our ability to create momentum. But I thought we did a good job of trying to fight and play through that."
The loss puts Rutgers in a precarious position in terms of the Big Ten Tournament, sliding down to 17th place in the conference after the game. Losing the head-to-head tiebreaker to Northwestern is a crucial result in the standings and could decide one of the final spots in the conference tournament given that only the top 15 teams qualify with the bottom three being eliminated.
The Scarlet Knights are tied in the win column with the Wildcats (2-11) and Purdue (2-12), but have two more losses while sitting one spot ahead of Penn State (1-14). The March 2nd Senior Day home matchup against the Nittany Lions now looms even larger than it already did, needing a win to secure a head-to-head tiebreaker to at least be one spot away from making the tournament.
Before that game comes Rutgers' Pacific Northwest trip with two games in four days against Oregon and Washington on the road. Neither team has reached the level of their Los Angeles counterparts, but both the Ducks and Huskies are safely in the Big Ten Tournament and will be fighting for postseason competition, with Oregon representing one of the Last Four Byes and Washington being the last team in the NCAA Tournament field, according to ESPN's latest Bracketology updated on Monday..
Though the bottom four - with Wisconsin not too far ahead at 3-12 in conference play - have played a different number of games, the goal has remained clear since Rutgers' gauntlet to start Big Ten play: Win against the bottom, hope for a surprise against the top.
On Monday against Northwestern, however, the surprise came in favor of the visitors from Evanston.
RHOOPS PLAY OF THE DAY
Awa Sidibe goes coast-to-coast for a three-point play.
UP NEXT?
The Scarlet Knights kick off their West Coast trip with a matchup at Washington in Seattle on Thursday at Alaska Airlines Arena.
The game will tip off at 9pm EST and will be streamed on Big Ten Plus, with radio broadcast available on WRSU.
--------------------------------------------------------------
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
