BOSTON — Northeastern won’t have to wait until mid-February for a conference win this year.
A season after starting their CAA slate 0-12, the Huskies got the monkey off their back in their fourth game of conference play this time, defeating Monmouth 72-67 to notch their first in-league victory of the season and hand the Hawks their first defeat in CAA play.
Northeastern took to the court Sunday afternoon less than 48 hours after dropping a double overtime thriller to NC A&T, and got out to the same hot start they had in Friday night’s game, outscoring Monmouth 23-8 in the first quarter. The Huskies held the Hawks to 2-of-11 shooting from the field and went 7-for-13 from the floor themselves, in addition to perfect 8-for-8 shooting from the free-throw line.
But like in that NC A&T game, Northeastern quickly let the visitors get right back in it in the second quarter, getting outscored 24-13 by the Hawks in the frame. There was a sizable disparity in field goal attempts in the quarter, with Northeastern going 4-for-8 and Monmouth going 10-for-20 from the floor. That was made possible by the Hawks’ efforts to get second chances on the glass, collecting six offensive rebounds, as well as their full-court pressure that generated five steals in the quarter alone.
The Huskies went into the halftime break up by four, but surrendered the lead just a minute into the third quarter, and the game seesawed from there. A turnaround shot in the paint from junior forward Divine Dibula put Monmouth up four, which would be their largest lead of the game, before Northeastern sophomore forward Maya Summerville responded with four quick points to tie it at 44. With three minutes left in the quarter, sophomore guard Camryn Collins found herself open on the right wing and nailed a three-pointer, improving to 3-for-4 from deep on the afternoon and retaking the lead for the home team.
Northeastern opened up the fourth quarter on a quick 7-0 run, expanding their advantage to eight points, but the Hawks did not go away. A stretch of four scoreless minutes for the Huskies combined with a pair of made threes by senior guard Alexis Andrews tied the game at 61 with two minutes to go in regulation. Then, on the next possession, Collins again found herself open on the wing, and knocked down her fourth triple of the day to give the Huskies the lead for good. Collins would finish the day with 19 points, tying a season high, and was responsible for all four of the Huskies’ made threes in the game.
With both teams in the bonus, the Huskies needed to make their free throws down the stretch, and they did, going 8-for-10 from the line in the final minute to seal the deal. Northeastern went 24-for-30 (80%) from the charity stripe through the game.
“They have a team goal to be 80 percent from the free-throw line, and today we were 80,” said Huskies head coach Priscilla Edwards-Lloyd. “They spend a lot of time working on free throws because we talk about the margins and how important every free throw is, so [I was] really excited to see them make free throws today.”
This weekend saw the return of sophomore center Alyssa Staten for the first time since late November, as well as the home collegiate debut for Summerville after being sidelined by injury for her first year and a half at Northeastern. Outside of injured redshirt senior guard Natalie Larrañaga, nearly all of the key pieces for the Huskies are active, something that had eluded them for the past two years.
“It’s a huge boost,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “I mean, you saw it today. Alyssa came in, played great minutes against a really good post player in Dibula. And Maya’s just tough. When we recruited her, we knew what she could be, and I’m just really excited to see her back on the floor and being able to play with her teammates.”
Despite the victory, there are still plenty of areas for improvement for Northeastern. They struggled to break Monmouth’s backcourt pressure for a good portion of the game, and seemed to panic when the Hawks brought a double team once they entered the frontcourt. Edwards-Lloyd was waving her hand from the sidelines throughout the game, imploring her team to get the ball up the court quickly. The Huskies were able to do a better job of that towards the later stages, especially when they used ball movement.
“[We] just talked about, if you pass it to each other, you have a good chance of winning,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “So sometimes it’s as simple as just pass the ball to each other; take a deep breath and pass the ball to each other.”
Northeastern can certainly exhale now that they have that first game in the win column in CAA play following a few tough losses, and will look to build on this performance as they continue into the conference slate.
“Any win, any chance we have to have success is a good thing for us,” Edwards-Lloyd said. “This group works incredibly hard and the record doesn’t show how much better they’re getting game by game, but you can see it in their efforts, and how they show up, and how they improve. So they’re excited about getting their first win, but they’re hungry for more.”
The Huskies will be right back at the Cabot Center Friday night as they take on Campbell. Jordan Walsh will have the call at 7 p.m. on WRBB Sports+.
Jordan Walsh is a fifth-year student at Northeastern who has been with WRBB Sports since 2021, primarily covering men’s and women’s basketball. You can read all of his articles for WRBB here and find him on Twitter/X here.