Wildcats Host Illinois In New Year's Eve Showdown

12/29/2018 2:22:00 PM | Women's Basketball

EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern (7-5, 0-1) will host the Fighting Illini of Illinois in a New Year's Eve showdown at 2 pm inside Welsh-Ryan Arena for its Big Ten home opener. Tickets for that came can be found here.

Both teams enter the contest after hard fought conference losses. The Wildcats sparked a 16 point comeback against Rutgers Friday night led by Lindsey Pulliam but fell to the Scarlet Knights 45-41. The Fighting Illini dropped to Indiana in an overtime thriller, 85-53 at home.

Northwestern leads the all-time series with Illinois 41-34 and 10-7 in the Joe McKeown era, winning the last six games.

Sophomore Lindsey Pulliam continues to lead the 'Cats in scoring, averaging 14.8 ppg and recorded her 11^thstraight double-digit point game this season. She also ranks tenthin the Big Ten in scoring, recording 178 points so far.

Senior Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah pulled down 17 rebounds against Rutgers and has 134 boards this season. She's recorded six double-doubles in her senior campaign and leads the team with 20 blocks.

Northwestern has forced double-digit turnovers from all of its opponents this year and ranks second in the Big Ten in turnover margin at +4.2. The Wildcat defense has recorded 118 steals this season with First year Veronica Burton leading that stat with 22.

Scouting the opponent:

The Fighting Illini 8-4 overall and 0-1 in the Big Ten.
Leading scorer Alex Wittinger is averaging 17.9 ppg, ranks second in the conference in scoring and fifth in field goal percentage at .593
The team also is second in the Big Ten for blocked shots, averaging 5.7 per game and defensive rebounds with a 30.5 apg.
Illinois ranks fourth in the conference in field goal percentage with .462.

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