Senior Ifeoma Okonkwo realized some of the potential that she had shown earlier in her career.  She led the team in scoring, rebounding and steals.  She also provided an athletic presence that the team was otherwise lacking.  While Okonkwo’s contributions led the team, the program benefited from the improvement of the sophomore class. 

The class does have talent, but it took a blow early when Kelly Rae Finley left the team shortly after the season ended.  Finley had missed most of her freshman year with an injury but showed that she had solid Big 10 ability before she was hurt. 

The keys to the future of the program will be starting guards Sara Stutz and Nadia Bibbs.  Stutz showed herself to be a good all-around player.  Her scoring was down somewhat, but her overall game improved.  Bibbs stepped in to the point guard spot after transferring from Boston University.  Bibbs was an adequate point, but was not as effective as Combs had hoped.  She averaged 6.2 points a game but shot only 31.1% from the field.  She finished with 107 assists on the season, but finished with 108 turnovers.   

Junior AJ Glasauer stepped up and became a consistent contributor in 2005.  In her first two seasons, she was primarily a three point shooter, but she became a key player last year.  She is a good passer and has turned herself into a better than average defender. 

Basketball is a game of numbers.  In watching them, it seemed clear that the Wildcats were a better team than in Combs’ first season.  But their statistics did not necessarily reflect that.  They were not a good shooting team, hitting only 38% of their shots.  They were outrebounded by 8 a game, compared to 6 in the prior season.  The Northwestern defense was about the same as it was in 2005.   

One area of improvement was clear.  This was the best conditioned Northwestern team in a number of years.  The players physically looked more like Big 10 players than they had under Olkowski. 

The 2006 Northwestern team was marked by inconsistency.  At times they were a decent team.  At other times, they looked very bad.  This resulted from the fact that they were a young team with no margin for error.  When one of their key players had a bad game, there was no one to take up the slack. 

They also had a major weakness in the post.  The only true post player who started was 6’ Melissa Miller.  She only averaged 5.9 points and 5.5 rebounds a game.  As a group the posts only contributed 11.2 points and 8.3 rebounds a game.