Ball State committed 18 turnovers in Sunday’s 57-51 women’s basketball win over Northern Illinois. The two teams combined for 43 turnovers. Ball State coach Brady Sallee warned not to call it an “ugly win.”
“It was an ugly game, there’s no such thing as an ugly win,” Sallee said. “That’s the way they make you play. They just really defend the heck out of you, they don’t let you cut where you want to. They don’t let you set screens where you want to.”
Northern Illinois senior Satavia Taylor had a career day against Ball State, scoring a career-high 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Taylor also went 4-4 from the three-point line.
“Taylor is a tough matchup for us,” Sallee said of the 5’11” forward. “I thought we made her take some tough shots. She was really good from the three-point line, which we were kind of hoping she’d be just OK, but she was good.”
Sallee said he knew Taylor would play well against the Cardinals; he tried to recruit her to Eastern Illinois when he was coaching there.
Ball State dominated in the paint on Sunday, scoring 28 points down low, as opposed to Northern Illinois’ eight points. A large part of that was Ball State forward Nathalie Fontaine. Fontaine led her team with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting. She also hit a 3-pointer on Sunday, just her second of the season.
Sallee said that those kind of performances are “becoming pretty consistent with her.”
“She scored a lot of different ways and played a pretty aggressive game,” Sallee said.
Her 18 points also tied a career-high. It hasn’t always shown on the stat sheets, but Fontaine has shown marked improvement since her first game in November.
“She’s just starting to get comfortable. She’s just starting to see what her strengths are,” Sallee said. “Another part of it too is I’m learning how to use her, too. Sometimes those freshmen come in and you don’t really know how to use them. She’s becoming a real matchup nightmare.”
With Sunday’s win, Ball State improved to 2-0 in the Mid-American Conference. The last time it started 2-0 in the MAC was in the 2009-10 season.
