| Rank | Team | LW | Change |
| 1 | Cleveland State | 1 | – |
| 2 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 2 | – |
| 3 | Green Bay | 3 | – |
| 4 | Detroit Mercy | 4 | – |
| 5 | Youngstown State | 7 | +2 |
| 6 | Oakland | 6 | – |
| 7 | Robert Morris | 5 | -2 |
| 8 | Northern Kentucky | 8 | – |
| 9 | Wright State | 9 | – |
| 10 | Milwaukee | 11 | +1 |
| 11 | IU Indianapolis | 10 | -1 |
Cleveland State didn’t do anything particularly spectacular this past week; the Vikings withstood Wright State’s three-point barrage on Monday, then won two games that they were supposed to win at the Puerto Rico Clasico, against Morgan State and a severely overmatched University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez squad that participates in NCAA Division II. Still, there’s a lot to be said for the boring consistency that’s come to define CSU over the last three seasons, including the 11-2 overall record that they’ll carry into the second half of the regular season. Jordana Reisma has continued building her all-conference resume with 47 points and 20 rebounds across the three games, while remaining among the national leaders in shooting percentage. Filippa Goula earned tons of praise from Chris Kielsmeier for how she ran the Vikings’ systems in Puerto Rico, and she’s become a reliable option to spell Mickayla Perdue.
In something of a Lauren Ross revenge game, Purdue Fort Wayne took care of Western Michigan on Saturday, building an 18-point halftime lead and withstanding a Broncos comeback for an 83-75 result. Ross scored 27 points against her former school, though it was arguably a different transfer, Sydney Freeman, who stole the show. Freeman poured in 25 points of her own, and also offered an eye-popping six steals to the effort, while Amellia Bromenschenkel narrowly missed a double-double with ten points and nine rebounds. All in all, the Mastodons seem pretty far removed from their disastrous Thanksgiving MTE at Georgia State, and have now won five in a row (including, crucially, their opening three conference games) to improve to 8-5 overall.
Green Bay plays an extraordinarily tough schedule every year, so the Phoenix can certainly be forgiven for pumping the brakes a bit during Christmas MTE week, instead staying home to beat up on a couple of lower-division schools. Ripon College and UW-Parkside helped UWGB sell a few tickets and raise a few dollars (the Parkside game supported pregnancy and infant loss awareness), with each then eating their expected 33-point loss. Oft-overlooked Jenna Guyer scored a career-high 18 points against the Rangers, leading four Phoenix players in double figures. The Red Hawks were primarily done in by Jasmine Kondrakiewicz (14 points, 13 rebounds), Natalie McNeal (15 points), and Callie Genke, who hit the Phoenix’s only two three-pointers. Despite a couple bumps in the road, Kayla Karius’ squad is 9-5 overall and seems more than ready for a return to conference play.
If there’s ever been a team-wide case study for “they don’t ask ‘how,’ they just ask ‘how many,’” it might be Detroit Mercy. But, to use another cliché, winning ugly is winning, and at 8-2 overall, the Titans’ record trails only Cleveland State in the conference. UDM’s latest effort was a stirring double-overtime victory at Valparaiso – a lower 200s NET team – that saw the Titans survive a Beacons three-pointer at the end of regulation that rimmed out. Aaliyah McQueen was essentially unstoppable, however, throwing in 30 points on 11-for-15 shooting, while grabbing a team-high 11 rebounds, and that, Kailey Starks’ career-high 16 points, and shutdown defense in the second extra period were enough to get the job done. McQueen added 24 more points to a mid-week comeback effort against Youngstown State, a game the Penguins led 29-13 midway through the second quarter.
Though they’re inconsistent, as young teams almost always are, there’s plenty to like about a Youngstown State team that continues to exceed preseason and early-season expectations. The Penguins would certainly like a do-over on that UDM game, but they nevertheless sit at 2-1 in the conference and have won three of their last five games (a modest run to be sure, though YSU’s game at Ohio State is included in it). That’s a far cry from how things looked only three weeks ago, when the Guins had recently put up 36, 43 and 34 points against Bucknell, Xavier, and Southern Indiana, then followed those games up with a loss to previously-winless Towson. In a win against Division II school Point Park on Saturday, Sophia Gregory jumped all the way into any conversation about the HL’s best freshmen, as she posted a monstrous 28 points (on 12-for-16 shooting) and 13 rebounds against the Pioneers.
Though the second half quickly went sideways, Oakland only trailed Indiana by eight at halftime on Sunday, thanks largely to Dani Grim, who stepped up with 16 points on 6-for-11 shooting, on an afternoon where Maddy Skorupski was uncharacteristically off target. It’s probably flawed (in more ways than one) to turn a 35-point loss into a statement like “there’s more under the hood with this Golden Grizzlies team than anyone thought,” but that still seems at least partly true. They certainly showed that as well on Wednesday, by winning a tough road game against an ascendant Robert Morris program to improve to 2-0 in the Horizon League – a mark equaled only by Cleveland State, Purdue Fort Wayne, and Detroit Mercy. Skorupski had 19 points against the Colonials, including a crucial three-pointer late in the third quarter to bring the game back within range, after the hosts had pulled ahead by nine.
Though Robert Morris let that game against OU get away from them, despite a big outing from Danielle Vuletich, Chandler McCabe’s team responded well by pounding St. Bonaventure on Saturday by a 65-41 count, for its third win in four games. It was Isys Grady’s turn to lead a surprisingly diverse (the Colonials have had six different players lead the team in scoring for a game this season) attack with 16 points and six rebounds, though Noa Givon (another of the super six) matched Grady’s 16 tallies. It’s admittedly a little tough to figure RMU out so far – the Colonials pass the eye test in a few ways, though they still don’t have a “hey, these guys are for real” win. They’ll have a pretty decent opportunity to get one right after the Christmas break though, as they host Detroit Mercy on December 28th.
Halle Idowu returned to the Northern Kentucky lineup for the Norse’s trip to the UC San Diego Winter Classic, which provided enough of a shot in the arm for the team to snap a seven-game skid with a 58-50 victory over the hosting Tritons on Thursday. However, most of the credit should for the win should probably go to an NKU defense that held UCSD to 33.3 percent shooting, and helped power a 12-0 second quarter run that changed the tone of the game. Mya Meredith, who played easily her best game since transferring from Western Kentucky with 16 points, 13 rebounds, three steals, and three assists, certainly deserves some flowers as well. Though the Norse dropped their second game in California, against La Salle, to fall to 3-10 overall, Kalissa Lacy stepped up with 19 points. NKU still has the feel of a team that can turn a pretty large corner when it gets Macey Blevins back.
Of the four Horizon League teams that participated in Christmas MTEs this week, it’s probably fair to say that Wright State had the worst time of the group. The Raiders went 0-3 at the GCU Have Fayth Christmas Classic, falling to the hosting Lopes, Georgia Southern, and Florida Atlantic. Though a win against Grand Canyon would have been a huge upset, those other two games were certainly attainable – particularly that GSU contest, given that the Raiders led by 18 points at halftime, before the Eagles roared (screeched?) back. That outcome seemed to carry over into the next day, when FAU separated with a 19-0 run across the first and second quarters, and never looked back. The trip out west overshadowed a sublime effort by Rylee Sagester on Monday against Cleveland State, as the redshirt freshman fired home eight three-pointers in 13 tries, producing a career-high 24 points.
It’s tough to know what to say about Milwaukee at this point, as the Panthers lost to Central Michigan on Sunday for their sixth straight defeat, and their ninth in the last ten attempts. The Chippewas are improved from the sub-300 meatball they had been for a few years, though they’re still a team that a middle or upper-tier Horizon League team should be able to handle, and Milwaukee seemed like a squad in those categories as the season started. Kamy Peppler was UWM’s best player in the defeat, with a reasonably-efficient 19 points and a manageable number of turnovers (three). Kyle Rechlicz’s team still seems like one that can be extremely competitive when all of its components are firing at once – case in point, Kacee Baumhower and Anna Lutz combined to shoot 4-for-18 against CMU – and the good news is that they can start working their way back into a still-early conference race at the end of the week.
If it wasn’t Wright State that had the roughest ride at an MTE this past week, it was definitely IU Indianapolis, which dropped games to East Tennessee State and North Carolina A&T at the FGCU Holiday Classic. Those defeats – the Jaguars’ tenth and eleventh in a row, after a season-opening victory over Evansville – dropped Kate Bruce’s squad to (obviously) 1-11 overall. If there’s reason for hope in the Circle City, it’s that the Jags are absolutely crushed by injuries right now, and are essentially down to seven players. That list of absences has most notably included Katie Davidson since early in the season, but now also features solid contributors like Jada Patton and Kendall Wingler. All things considered, Nevaeh Foster had a really nice week in Fort Myers, as the Western Kentucky transfer scored 31 points across the two games, almost exactly one-third of IU Indy’s total.
Player of the Week
Aaliyah McQueen (Detroit Mercy)
Just watch the tape.
Also considered: Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne), Sydney Freeman (Purdue Fort Wayne), Jenna Guyer (Green Bay), Sophia Gregory (Youngstown State), Mya Meredith (Northern Kentucky)
Past winners:
December 15: Jordana Reisma (Cleveland State)
December 8: Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne)
December 1: Halle Idowu (Northern Kentucky)
November 24: Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne)
