| Rank | Team | LW | Change |
| 1 | Cleveland State | 1 | – |
| 2 | Green Bay | 2 | – |
| 3 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 3 | – |
| 4 | Wright State | 6 | +2 |
| 5 | Youngstown State | 8 | +3 |
| 6 | Milwaukee | 7 | +1 |
| 7 | Northern Kentucky | 5 | -2 |
| 8 | Detroit Mercy | 4 | -4 |
| 9 | Oakland | 9 | – |
| 10 | IUPUI | 10 | – |
| 11 | Robert Morris | 11 | – |
Cleveland State seems to be approaching their peak just in time for the most important games of the season, as the Vikings demolished overmatched IUPUI and Robert Morris teams on the road last week to continue their ongoing drag race with Green Bay on top of the standings. Jordana Reisma enjoyed, arguably, the best game of her career against the Jaguars in a 23-point win, including 18 points and 12 rebounds, numbers that tied or exceeded her previous collegiate highs. As great of a performance as that was, it might have been bested by what CSU did on Saturday, as they held the Colonials scoreless for the entire second quarter and limited RMU to a single free throw in 13:45 of game time, a stretch that included pieces of the first and third quarters as well. The Vikings play Youngstown State and Northern Kentucky this week, and a pair of wins will secure the first regular season conference title in program history.
Green Bay held up their end of the race with a pair of blowout victories as well, bombing Oakland and Detroit Mercy at home. The Oakland game, a revenge beatdown for the Golden Grizzlies’ upset of the Phoenix last month, featured headlining double-doubles from Maddy Schreiber (15 points, ten rebounds) and Bailey Butler (ten rebounds, ten assists). Against the Titans, Natalie Andersen took her turn in the spotlight, bucketing four threes and 18 points in all, falling just short of a career high set way back in 2019 while playing at IUPUI. As with Cleveland State, the Phoenix now has two more games to navigate before being able to claim a regular season title – though the situational similarities end there, as it would be GB’s 23rd such crown. Wednesday’s game at Purdue Fort Wayne is probably the tougher of the two challenges remaining, though Milwaukee tends to save their best work for their I-43 rivals.
The Horizon League, entering the final week of the regular season, has tons more clarity than it did a month ago, and a lot of that is thanks to Purdue Fort Wayne, which has a pretty solid grip on a third-place position that had been hotly contested for most of the year. The Dons have won four straight games, and eight of ten if you zoom out a bit, including road wins at Northern Kentucky and IUPUI last week that formally locked down a home quarterfinal game (in other words, a top-four seed) in the upcoming Horizon League tournament. Amellia Bromenschenkel scored her 1,000th career point against the Jags within her team-high 17 points, a total matching her outing that helped cool off NKU. However, as is customary for the well-balanced Dons, Shayla Sellers, Audra Emmerson and Destinee Marshall also enjoyed big moments on both ends of the floor.
Wright State still has a shot at the third seed, though it would require a pair of wins this week, two losses from Purdue Fort Wayne, and the presently-ambiguous secondary tiebreaker to fall their way. More likely than not, the Raiders will enter the tournament as the fourth seed, hosting the fifth seed in a quarterfinal game. However, they received a bit of a mid-week scare from Robert Morris, which mostly went blow for blow with WSU in a contest that was tied into the final two minutes, before the Raiders managed to pull away by eight points. Alexis Hutchison was outstanding against a team that tends to limit even great players, scoring 26 points and pulling in 16 rebounds in the successful home court defense. They’ll need more of that from one of the league’s best on a trip to Oakland and Detroit Mercy this week to formally lock in their top-four placement.
Youngstown State? Fifth? Believe it. If you don’t trust me, go ahead and trust the Horizon League standings, since that’s where the Penguins currently sit, improbably in position to secure a bye in the conference tournament (though they have a tough closing week, against Cleveland State and Purdue Fort Wayne). The Guins were 3-7 on their first pass through the league schedule but have gone 6-2 since then to steadily climb over a slew of inconsistent teams after being left for dead. John Nicolais, who probably deserves a shot at YSU’s full-time head coaching job at this point, has engineered quite a turnaround during what’s often been a trying season on and off the court, a run that most recently included an 18-point come-from-behind win against what had been a red-hot Northern Kentucky team on Saturday. That rally was led by Dena Jarrells’ 25 points, including a go-ahead three.
While Youngstown State has ascended, Milwaukee missed a golden opportunity to stake a claim to that fifth spot when they went cold in the final five minutes on Saturday and dropped their senior day game against Oakland. It was the Panthers’ fifth loss in their last seven games, and with only a game at archrival Green Bay remaining on the schedule, they’ll have an awfully difficult time finishing higher than sixth, their current standings position (and they may very well drop from there without some help). Kendall Nead had 21 points against the Golden Grizzlies, following up on 16 in a midweek win over Detroit Mercy. Angie Cera’s 19 points, and a defense that held UDM to 34.5 percent shooting and forced 16 turnovers, also had a lot to do with that victory.
After three straight weeks of “where the heck did these guys come from,” Northern Kentucky fell back to Earth a bit last week in dropping home games to Purdue Fort Wayne and Youngstown State. The underlying realities are a bit friendlier for the Norse than the sports binary allows though. For example, NKU led the Penguins 25-7 in the second quarter before allowing a massive comeback in a game that YSU never led until 64 seconds remained. Three days prior to that, third-place PFW limited reigning HL Player of the Week Khamari Mitchell-Steen to 3-for-16 from the floor in a 12-point defeat. With Mitchell-Steen and Carter McCray coming in under their season scoring averages across both games, Macey Blevins picked up a lot of the slack with 34 tallies for the week.
It’s been a bit under the radar, given that this season must be considered a massive success for Detroit Mercy on balance, but the Titans have really struggled of late. Since toppling Cleveland State on January 27th, UDM has dropped six of their last seven, besting only lowly Robert Morris during that stretch. A lot of that can be chalked up to “close games against good teams” (see: Wright State, Youngstown State, and Purdue Fort Wayne) but it became something else on Saturday, when the Titans were absolutely shredded by Green Bay. Kate Achter’s squad has a manageable pair of home games this week against the Raiders and IUPUI, and they’re still in position to host a first-round tournament game (though that could change with a rough week), but they’ll need to rediscover their form quickly to get much further beyond that.
Oakland picked up its biggest win since upsetting Green Bay on January 20th with a surprising victory in the Klotsche Center on Saturday. Brooke Quarles-Daniels and Alexis Johnson went off for 19 and 18 points, respectively, 56 percent of OU’s final total. Despite those nice numbers, it was the Golden Grizzlies’ defense that took over in crunch time. After a Jorey Buwalda bucket gave Milwaukee the lead with 5:00 to play, Oakland allowed just two points the rest of the way, closing the game on an 11-2 run. All in all, it was a pretty satisfying way to wash away the revenge-game thumping by the Phoenix to open the Wisconsin trip. The Grizzlies close the regular season at home against Wright State and IUPUI, and a pair of successful games in the O’rena could improve their final seeding by a couple spots.
Along with the team immediately beneath them, IUPUI is one of just two conference teams formally locked into a final standings position, tenth place. That, of course, means a first-round matchup with the seven-place finisher – which would be Detroit Mercy today, but could be any of about five teams by the end of the week. Best of luck to Jaguars DOBO Hannah Blake on the travel arrangements. The good news is that IUPUI has shown to be more than capable of competing with their opponent (whoever it may be), with wins over the Titans, Northern Kentucky and Youngstown State this season, as well as a close loss to Oakland. Last week, the Jags were decisively downed by Cleveland State and Purdue Fort Wayne, though Katie Davidson had a nice bounceback effort against the Mastodons with 21 points.
For a team that, objectively speaking, is one of Division I’s worst (they’re 328th of 360 in NET, don’t kill the messenger), Robert Morris has showed a surprising amount of life late in a lost season. Two weeks ago, the Colonials nearly stunned Green Bay, then on Wednesday, they took Wright State to the wire as Simone Morris, Danielle Vuletich and Naomi Barnell all had solid evenings. There’s been plenty of ugliness too, of course, as RMU followed those close games up with a 20-point defeat at IUPUI and a 39-point loss to Cleveland State, the latter standing as their 16th setback in a row. The Colonials are a program with an extremely murky future; Scott Schneider is probably less likely to stay beyond this season (which is mercifully down to, in all likelihood, one regular season game, then one more in the HL tournament) than fellow interim coach Nicolais, and this offseason’s player movement will probably reflect that. Nevertheless, all involved have shown a lot of character through a brutal reality.
Player of the Week
Amellia Bromenschenkel (Purdue Fort Wayne)
Appropriately enough, this season of #HLWBB Power Rankings posts will end right where it began: with a Player of the Week nod for Money Millie. Bromenschenkel stands out over a crowded field because of her 1,000th point milestone, solid performances over multiple games (strong contenders Dena Jarrells and Alexis Hutchison played just once last week) and, of course, a pair of Purdue Fort Wayne wins that have the Mastodons on the inside track to finish in third place.
Also considered: Dena Jarrells (Youngstown State), Alexis Hutchison (Wright State), Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State), Bailey Butler (Green Bay), Maddy Schreiber (Green Bay)
Past winners:
November 28: Amellia Bromenschenkel (Purdue Fort Wayne)
December 5: Maddy Schreiber (Green Bay)
December 12: Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
December 19: Danielle Vuletich (Robert Morris)
December 26: Alexis Hutchison (Wright State)
January 2: Cassie Schiltz (Green Bay)
January 9: Katie Davidson (IUPUI)
January 16: Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
January 23: Brooke Quarles-Daniels (Oakland)
January 30: Jasmine Kondrakiewicz (Green Bay)
February 6: Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
February 13: Natalie McNeal (Green Bay)
February 20: Khamari Mitchell-Steen (Northern Kentucky)
