NU Hosts Illinois-Springfield For Free Exhibition Sunday

11/4/2016 10:16:00 AM | Women's Basketball

NORTHWESTERN BASKETBALL: GAME DAY INFORMATION
DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	LOCATION	BROADCAST	LIVE STATS
Sunday, Nov. 6	Illinois-Springfield	Noon	Welsh-Ryan Arena	Studio N	SIDEARM
Social: Twitter (@NUWBBall and @NU_SportsLive) \| Instagram (@NUWBall) \| Facebook

EVANSTON, Ill. – The Northwestern women's basketball team will host a preseason exhibition game against Illinois-Springfield at noon on Sunday afternoon at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

All tickets are free general admission for the exhibition contest. The game will allow fans to get their first look at head coach Joe McKeown's Wildcats. Doors will open at 11 a.m.

A live stream of Sunday's match up will be available on NUSports.com, courtesy of Studio N.

Northwestern opens the regular season on Sunday, Nov. 11, when it hosts Hampton at 3:30 p.m. Single-game tickets and season tickets are available through the Northwestern Ticket Office, online at NUSports.com or by calling 888-GO-PURPLE.

A LOOK AT NORTHWESTERN
A 29-game regular-season campaign awaits Northwestern as the Wildcats are prepared for their challenging list of opponents, which features 16 league matchups, including eight conference contests at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

The Wildcats return four starters from last year's roster, including tri-captains Nia Coffey, Ashley Deary and Christen Inman.

This year, the Wildcats welcome four new freshmen, featuring Bry Hopkins, Abbie Wolf, Abi Scheid and Byrdy Galernik. The class was ranked No. 34 by Blue Star and No. 37 by Prospects Nation.

The #B1GCats finished the 2015-16 season with their fifth postseason appearance under head coach Joe McKeown after finishing the season 18-16 overall. Northwestern won 10-straight games to open the season for the second-straight year. NU was one of just two Big Ten teams to open the season with 10-consecutive wins before dropping its first game of the year against No. 16 DePaul on Dec. 19. Northwestern closed out its non-conference slate with an 11-1 mark for the best start to a season under McKeown.

For the first time in school history, Northwestern won three games in the Big Ten Tournament. Despite the absence of sharpshooter Maggie Lyon, the 'Cats defeated Wisconsin, then pulled out upset victories over fifth-seeded Minnesota and No. 4 seed Indiana. With the wins, the Wildcats reached the Big Ten Tournament semifinals for the second-consecutive year.

A LOOK AT ILLINOIS-SPRINGFIELD
The Prairie Stars were picked to finish eighth in the GLVC east division. UIS is coming off their first season under the direction of Mark Kost, going 8-18 on the season and 2-16 in GLVC play.

The Prairie Stars return six players from last year's team, including Third-Team All-GLVC selection Shelbi Patterson. Along with Patterson, Syerra Cunningham returns in the middle, after her breakout second half of the season last year. In the final eight games, Cunningham recorded six double-doubles and had at least 11 rebounds in each of the final eight games.

The Prairie Stars welcome in eight new players to this years' team, six true freshmen and two transfers. Reje Pitchford comes to UIS from Jefferson College and Destiny Ramsey enters her first season with the Prairie Stars after spending two seasons at Illinois Central College.

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