Rutgers outlasts Northwestern; Gophers seniors say goodbye; attendance record

Rutgers women's basketball has relied so much for so long on star guard Kaylene Smikle in this, her freshman season.

The Scarlet Knights' 63-59 victory over Northwestern at Target Center on Wednesday in the Big Ten tournament proved her seven other teammates could win without her.

Eleventh-seeded Rutgers moved on to face sixth-seeded Illinois on Thursday night.

Smikle fouled out against 14th-seeded Northwestern on an offensive foul with 2 minutes, 32 seconds remaining and her team leading by four points.

She is her team's only player to score 20 points or more in a game this season, and she's now done it 14 times, the most recent time coming Wednesday, when she had 21 points by halftime and ended with 26. She scored that many despite foul trouble that limited her playing time earlier in the game and then left her watching at the end.

"I was a little upset, but I had faith in my teammates without me being out there to finish the game off," Smikle said.

Her teammates did it by outmuscling Northwestern for rebounds and making their free throws. Once trailing by double digits, the Wildcats rallied to tie the score at 51 with 6:17 left, but were outscored 12-8 the rest of the way.

The announced attendance for Wednesday's two-game session was 4,890, which is the highest for the Big Ten women's basketball's opening session since it was expanded to a five-day tournament in 2015.

The Gophers' 72-67 loss was the final college game for a handful of players on the roster, including Destinee Oberg, Angelina Hammond and Isabelle Gradwell. Mi'Cole Cayton, a grad transfer guard, did not play Wednesday after injuring her knee in the regular season finale.

After the game, Gradwell — who played her first four seasons at Cleveland State before transferring to the Gophers for a final season — was very emotional about her college career ending.

"Despite our record, this was one of my favorite years as a collegiate player,'' said Gradwell, who averaged 11.3 points over her final three games. "Just from my teammates, the coaches, just believing in me as a player, as a person, and really caring about me.''

Said coach Lindsay Whalen: "I cannot thank our seniors enough for what they've done and for how they played this year. We'll carry that moving forward with this group we have.''

The 13th-seeded Nittany Lions advanced to a second-round game against fifth-seeded Michigan on Wednesday. But Penn State will almost certainly be without Shay Ciezki, who went down with what looked like a painful right ankle injury with 2:15 left in the third quarter and Penn State leading by 11.

Ciezki, who finished second on the team with 16 points, was helped off the court and was on crutches after the game. Penn State coach Carolyn Kieger didn't say whether she expected Ciezki would be able to return during the tournament.