| Rank | Team | LW | Change |
| 1 | Cleveland State | 1 | – |
| 2 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 2 | – |
| 3 | Green Bay | 3 | – |
| 4 | Detroit Mercy | 4 | – |
| 5 | Robert Morris | 5 | – |
| 6 | Oakland | 6 | – |
| 7 | Youngstown State | 7 | – |
| 8 | Northern Kentucky | 8 | – |
| 9 | Wright State | 10 | +1 |
| 10 | IU Indianapolis | 11 | +1 |
| 11 | Milwaukee | 9 | -2 |
For all of the (deserved) attention given to Cleveland State’s backcourt entering the season, it’s been Jordana Reisma who has emerged as the Vikings’ fulcrum. In Friday’s 78-59 victory over Bethune-Cookman, the junior post player enjoyed an outing that ranks among the best games of her career: 25 points, seven rebounds, and four blocked shots. She’s among the national leaders in field goal percentage, rising to second place during the weekend according to College Basketball Reference’s criteria. With the Vikings’ defense rounding into form over the last couple weeks and given continued production from the likes of Mickayla Perdue and Sara Guerreiro, CSU seems like something approaching Chris Kielsmeier’s ideal right now.
Purdue Fort Wayne logged a gritty 79-71 win over rival IU Indianapolis on Wednesday. That result might not appear impressive on the surface, but the contest was a classic trap setup after the Mastodons knocked off Green Bay in their previous game, and Maria Marchesano’s charges had to overcome an early plague of turnovers and something of an off game from Lauren Ross (who nevertheless ended up with 17 points, despite going 3-for-11 from the floor). Fortunately for the Dons, Amellia Bromenschenkel had arguably her best game of the season with 19 points and seven rebounds, Jordan Reid offered 12 points and plenty of defensive intensity off the bench, and Sydney Freeman did most of the work to close things out after the visitors erased a nine-point Jags lead in the fourth quarter. Freshman Taeya Steinauer scored a career-high 19 points in a rout of NAIA team Aquinas on Saturday.
Green Bay has built a healthy share of program tradition on its typically-sound performance against high-major opposition, so it was a more than a bit stunning to see Creighton – a team the Phoenix defeated on the road last season – walk out of The Kress on Saturday with a dominating 74-52 victory. That 22-point margin represented the biggest loss that the Phoenix have suffered on their home floor since a Horizon League semifinal game against Cleveland State…in 2008. The news was a bit better on Wednesday when Maddy Schreiber (20 points, four steals), Jasmine Kondrakiewicz (16 points, six rebounds), Bailey Butler (12 assists), and company laid an absolute beatdown on archrival Milwaukee. The Panthers, of course, cost GB a share of the regular season title last year in the final scheduled game, but revenge came in the form of a 48-21 second half that turned a relatively close game into a laugher.
On Saturday, Detroit Mercy was hammered by 20th-ranked Michigan, a team that features former nemesis Brooke Quarles-Daniels, an Oakland transfer who scored 11 points in 19 minutes (for whatever that’s worth). The Titans were led by Aaliyah McQueen’s 15 points on 6-for-14 shooting, though perhaps the biggest news for the program against the Wolverines was the season debut of Katie Burton. The Buffalo transfer contibuted nine points and three rebounds in 26 minutes, offering some indication that Kate Achter has big plans for her, provided the Fishers, IN native can stay on the court. Amazingly, those 26 minutes against UM are a substantial chunk of Burton’s entire college career; across three seasons at UB and St. John’s, she played a total of 69 minutes.
In Saturday’s win over Mercyhurst, Robert Morris welcomed back Simone Morris, a long-time program pillar who had missed the first nine games of the season. Morris’ appearance was a brief one, just seven minutes, but she fired home eight points in that time. She was one of six Colonials who scored at least seven against the Lakers, an effort that was paced by Jada Lee’s 13 tallies. RMU is now 4-6 overall (1-1 in the Horizon League), and with upcoming games against Oakland, St. Bonaventure, IU Indianapolis and Northern Kentucky, it seems inevitable that they’ll match or beat last season’s six wins over the next couple weeks. Realistically, it’s probably a year or two early to call this team a contender, but success in that second stretch of conference games could substantially adjust this season’s expectations.
On Monday, Oakland was hit with the stunning news that long-time head coach Jeff Tungate was retiring because of his recurring health issues, effective immediately, and that Deanna Richard would serve as the Golden Grizzlies’ interim boss for the rest of the season. There’s never a particularly good moment for a program to make major changes once the season starts, though Richard and OU’s players probably don’t mind that that Tungate’s departure came during a 12-day idle stretch following a December 6th victory over Wright State that turned out to be his farewell. The Grizzlies’ next task is a trip to Robert Morris this coming Wednesday, a fairly important game given that their following three HL contests are at Northern Kentucky, then home against Cleveland State and Purdue Fort Wayne.
Youngstown State’s Haley Thierry and twin sister Taylor created a lifetime memory when they were able to play against each other in YSU’s contest at Ohio State on Saturday. The Buckeyes thoroughly dominated the game, cracking things open with a 29-4 second quarter, but that expected result shouldn’t really impact what’s mostly been a positive trajectory for Melissa Jackson’s program over the last couple weeks. On the flip side, injuries are beginning to mount for the Penguins. They recently got Malia Magestro back after a brief absence, but the Warren Tribune-Chronicle’s Neel Madhavan reports that that the team will be without three-time Horizon League Freshman of the Week Sarah Baker indefinitely, thanks to a lower-body injury. With fellow rookies Dani Cameron and Ashlynn Van Tassell already out for the year, YSU is missing out on some valuable game experience for its young players during a “let’s find out” season.
Is Northern Kentucky the best 2-9 team in the country? That’s sort of a pointless and/or ridiculous question to ask, though it is worth mentioning that the Norse have played what (as of this writing) ranks as the 76th-toughest non-conference schedule in the country. The latest opponent to contribute to that metric was Ball State, and, despite a 14-0 NKU run that briefly cut the margin to six early in the third quarter, the MAC favorites ultimately showed their pedigree with a 77-51 thumping. Jaci Jones led the Norse with a career-high 16 points and has emerged as one of the conference’s better point guards since transferring from IU Indianapolis. Star players like Halle Idowu, Macey Blevins and Kailee Davis all remain sidelined (as does Allison Basye, though her injury is a confirmed season-ender), lending some validity to the idea that NKU has a higher ceiling than what they’re showing right now.
Like Oakland, Wright State was last in action during Tungate’s final game on the sidelines, before ten straight days off scheduled around finals week. At last check, Kari Hoffman has not yet retired, so there hasn’t been a ton of off-court news around the Raiders during that time either, save for Lexi Bugajski’s recent departure from the team. On the flip side, Amaya Staton is quietly putting together a stellar season for the Raiders, as the grad transfer has averaged 11.6 points and 8.4 rebounds per game so far, both career highs. Perhaps just as impressively, Staton is logging those number across just about 20 minutes per game, as she sometimes struggles with foul trouble.
IU Indianapolis was something of a tough-luck loser on Wednesday against Purdue Fort Wayne, as the Jags looked like anything but a 1-9 squad for most of the 40 minutes, particularly on the defensive end. They led one of the conference’s best teams 64-55 with eight minutes remaining, then abruptly couldn’t take care of the basketball, committing a whopping eight turnovers during a late 15-0 PFW run that flipped the result. The sudden case of butterfingers undid a spectacular effort by Shania Nichols-Vannett, who went 6-for-7 from three-point range on the way to a game-high 24 points. Nichols-Vannett scored 37 points – still the most by any HL player in a game this season – back on November 16th against SIU and should be considered one of the conference’s most explosive players.
Milwaukee put forward a pretty solid effort against Marquette on Sunday, hanging within One Good Run of the Golden Eagles well into the fourth quarter, before fading late and losing 69-51. Nevertheless, the Panthers are 3-10 overall, and the better of their two Division I wins was Valparaiso, a team that presently sits 276th in the NET rankings. Teams like Youngstown State, Wright State, Northern Kentucky and IU Indianapolis can at least point to injury troubles, youth, and substantially re-shaped rosters when they struggle, but none of those really apply to the Panthers to any large extent, which is certainly concerning. On the bright side, redshirt freshman Izzy Pugh is quickly emerging as a very good post option for Kyle Rechlicz; the New Zealand native scored eight points against MU and has seen a slight uptick in her usage of late.
Player of the Week
Jordana Reisma (Cleveland State)
Reisma’s entire case is the Vikings’ win over Bethune-Cookman, though it was a light week for the entire league, including two teams that were out of game action entirely. Nevertheless, the Wisconsin product has been repeatedly stacking “possibly the best night of her career” outings since late last season, and Friday’s effort might have topped the list.
Also considered: Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne), Shania Nichols-Vannett (IU Indianapolis), Natalie McNeal (Green Bay)
Past winners:
December 8: Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne)
December 1: Halle Idowu (Northern Kentucky)
November 24: Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne)
