University of Missouri
Northern Illinois
Bond's Career-High 25 Leads Mizzou to Debut Win
11/19/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 19, 2004
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Junior G LaToya Bond (Urbana, Ill. / Urbana HS) had a game- and career-high 25 points, and the Tigers blocked 11 shots as the Missouri women's basketball team registered a season-opening 68-61 win Friday afternoon in the first round of the KCRG TV-9 Hawkeye Challenge.
Bond shattered her previous career best of 20 points set vs. Iowa last season at the Hearnes Center on the strength of 12-of-15 shooting from the free-throw line. Both totals also were the highest of her career, and her six buckets tied her best set at Evansville last season.
Sophomore F EeTisha Riddle (O'Fallon, Ill. / O'Fallon HS) also set career highs with 11 points and a team-leading seven rebounds to join Bond in double figures for Missouri (1-0).
"That was something. If we had played five minutes longer, we wouldn't have won," said Head Coach Cindy Stein of a slow but steady NIU rally down the stretch. "We had a lot of people standing around in the second half. In the first half, we had a lot of people play well, but in the second half we had people back off a little bit. We just got really complacent. We're going to have to play a lot better if we're going to beat Iowa or Southern Illinois."
Bond got Mizzou's first three baskets, including a 3-pointer with 15 minutes, 52 seconds left in the first half, to tie the game at 7. Northern Illinois (0-1) countered with a 9-3 run, in which MU's only points came on a 3-pointer by senior F Megan Roney (Independence, Mo. / Truman HS).
After the teams traded baskets going into the 8-minute media timeout, the Tigers used an 8-0 run to storm to a two-point lead. Freshman G Kassie Drew (Anna, Ill. / Anna-Jonesboro HS) nailed her first collegiate basket on a 3-pointer, and Riddle hit another to tie the game at 18 with 5:48 left.
Mizzou took the lead for good on a Riddle jumper with 4:39 remaining in the half, and then sophomore G Blair Hardiek (Effingham, Ill. / Effingham HS) started a personal 9-0 run for the Tigers with 3:38 left when she canned a 3-pointer. Two minutes later, she hit all three free throws after being fouled, then hit another trey on Mizzou's next possession for a 29-21 lead. A Bond 3-point play with 26.8 seconds and a Bond steal and layup by freshman G Crystal Howard (Omaha, Neb. / Central HS) four seconds later gave Mizzou a 34-21 lead at the half. In all, the Tigers held Northern Illinois to just three free throws in the final 8:45 of the first half.
When Bond escaped a triple-team and sliced through the lane to begin the second half, it capped a 13-0 run over a period of just 1:47 spanning halftime as the Tigers took a 36-21 lead. The Tigers would boost the margin to 16 points on three separate occasions - the last time with 14:57 to play - before the Huskies slowly chipped away at the Mizzou advantage. NIU trimmed the Tiger lead to single digits with 8:30 to go, but the Tigers never let the lead get smaller than seven points in improving its all-time record in season-openers to 24-7. MU has won its last nine lidlifters.
The Tigers await the winner of the 5:30 p.m. game between Southern Illinois and the host Hawkeyes to determine its opponent and game time Saturday. Iowa will play at 1 p.m., while SIU will follow at 3:30.
NOTES: Missouri blocked 11 shots Friday afternoon, the most since blocking 12 at Bradley in last year's season-opener. Last season, Mizzou blocked a school-record 191 attempts and was fifth in the nation in at 6.4 bpg ... junior C Christelle N'Garsanet (Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire / Illinois Central College) led the Tigers with a career-high five blocks ... Riddle broke or tied career highs in five of 11 categories. In addition to her 11 points and seven rebounds, she was 5-of-11 from the field, topping a 4-of-8 outing vs. Texas Tech last year. She also swatted a pair of shots to tie her high set five times last year.
