Rank | Team | LW | Change |
1 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 1 | – |
2 | Green Bay | 2 | – |
3 | Cleveland State | 3 | – |
4 | Detroit Mercy | 4 | – |
5 | Northern Kentucky | 5 | – |
6 | IU Indianapolis | 7 | +1 |
7 | Oakland | 6 | -1 |
8 | Robert Morris | 11 | +3 |
9 | Youngstown State | 9 | – |
10 | Wright State | 8 | -2 |
11 | Milwaukee | 10 | -1 |
Purdue Fort Wayne head coach Maria Marchesano collected her 200th career victory on Saturday when the Mastodons survived a bit of an early scare from Northern Kentucky by putting together a 24-2 run bridging halftime. That surge annihilated a five-point Norse lead, and allowed PFW to coast to their 11th straight win by a 76-52 count. Lauren Ross stuffed the stat sheet to the tune of 23 points (including five triples), six rebounds, five assists, and three steals, while Sydney Freeman, Jazzy Linbo, and Amellia Bromenschenkel also enjoyed productive outings. However, the story of the contest just might be the Dons’ defense, which only allowed nine NKU points across more than half of the game (20:24, to be exact) between the second and fourth quarters, and 18 points over the final 26:12 of the afternoon. If a team with PFW’s firepower can also clamp down like that with any regularity, look out.
Speaking of “look out,” Green Bay has been absolutely tearing through the conference since losing in Fort Wayne back on December 7th. The Phoenix have taken eight games in a row overall, and the last six of those have involved HL opponents, with an average margin of victory just north of 21 points. The two most recent victims were a pair of quality teams too: Detroit Mercy and Oakland, who fell by 23 and 30, respectively, to join a long list of teams that have struggled to win in the Kress Center. Part of what makes the Phoenix so dangerous is that it’s impossible to predict who will do the damage in any given game, given their staggering ball-sharing ability (for the week, GB had 46 assists on 54 field goals). Against the Titans, it was Jasmine Kondrakiewicz (17 points, including the 1,000th of her career) and Cassie Schiltz (16 points, four three-pointers) who got it done, while OU got massive doses of Callie Genke (22 points, five three-pointers) and Natalie McNeal (18 points).
It’s probably a bit flawed to declare Cleveland State “back” (to the extent that the Vikings were ever gone) based on expected road wins against Robert Morris and IU Indianapolis. However, it does seem noteworthy that CSU’s defense produced consecutive shutdown efforts against the Colonials and Jaguars – the Jags, in particular, can be potent – including 21 combined steals, while limiting the two opponents to a combined 6-for-30 from three-point range, apparent corrections of what had been season-long weaknesses and inconsistencies. Mickayla Perdue had, arguably, the best single game of her life against RMU with a career-high 32 points (including five three-pointers), four assists, and four steals, while Jordana Reisma posted a 21-12 double-double at IU Indy on Saturday. Is it all for real? The Vikings travel to Green Bay in less than two weeks, we’ll know then.
Detroit Mercy’s Aaliyah McQueen and Katie Burton combined for one of the moments of the year in the HL on Saturday at Milwaukee. With the game tied 52-52 in the final 20 seconds, the Panthers were trying to hold for the last shot when Kamy Peppler, under pressure from Kailey Starks, tried to force a pass to Anna Lutz in the high post. Instead, McQueen ripped the ball away and fed it ahead to Burton, who scored a transition layup to deliver the Titans a victory in the final second of play. It was a vital result for UDM to salvage their trip to America’s Dairyland, after a surprisingly-decisive loss to Green Bay on Thursday. Kate Achter and company will get another shot at the top of the league when they host Purdue Fort Wayne this week, but for the time being, UDM only has double-digit losses to show for their attempts at taking down the teams ahead of them.
Though Northern Kentucky lost both of its games in the past week, it’s hard to move the Norse out of fifth place because, quite frankly, there’s a sizable gap after UDM, and nobody else has made a compelling case to sit behind the Titans. Certainly, few expected NKU to win at Purdue Fort Wayne on Saturday, but the more concerning result came on Wednesday, when the Norse surrendered 75 points to a Youngstown State team that often struggles offensively. The good news is that, despite the losses, it’s clear that NKU has developed a fair amount of depth. Mya Meredith has emerged as a dynamic all-around player, Kalissa Lacy has quietly been one of the conference’s best three-point shooters, Halle Idowu seems like she’s back in form after working through some minor injury issues, and, though both struggled against YSU, Macey Blevins and Kamora Morgan are both capable of blowing up for big games at any moment. Keeping Jeff Hans’ squad in fifth is a decent futures bet.
Though IU Indianapolis failed to clear 40 points on Saturday against Cleveland State, a quality scorer like Shania Nichols-Vannett shooting 1-for-11 from the floor (while the team, as a whole, connected on just 27.5 percent of its attempts) can probably be considered an aberration. The bigger picture is that the Jags have won three of their five games since Katie Davidson’s return, and four out of seven overall, a run that gives off some pretty solid “middle of the pack, possibly upper middle” vibes. Against Wright State on Wednesday, Davidson, Nichols-Vannett and Nevaeh Foster combined for 48 points on 19-for-27 shooting in what was functionally a blowout win, and Kate Bruce’s squad also boasts a win at Oakland and a close loss at Detroit Mercy in its recent run of success. The bad news is that Purdue Fort Wayne and Green Bay loom within the Jaguars’ next three games, rounding out an absolutely brutal couple of weeks that began with the CSU contest.
From outward appearances, Oakland could probably be considered the fifth-best team in the Horizon League. After all, the Golden Grizzlies are 5-4 in conference play, one of only five teams with a winning record, and one of those victories, against Cleveland State on January 3rd, was decidedly a needle-mover. However, just about everything that’s happened since then has cast doubt on OU’s credibility. Two days after beating the Vikings, the Grizzlies were thumped by 40 against Purdue Fort Wayne, and they followed that up with losses to both IU Indy and Detroit Mercy, before being stuffed in a locker at Green Bay on Saturday. Despite that ugly slide, OU won one of the best games of the season on Thursday at Milwaukee, when Maddy Skorupski forced overtime with a ridiculous step-back 30-footer, before Macy Smith buried the winning points of a see-saw extra period.
After a five-game losing streak (which included Detroit Mercy, Green Bay, and Cleveland State, to be fair), Robert Morris finally got back in the win column on Saturday with a solid 67-61 victory over turnpike neighbor Youngstown State. Though Noa Givon’s 20 points and five rebounds (while playing all 40 minutes) led the Colonials, the game also showed off RMU’s depth a little bit as nine different players featured for at least 13 minutes. Naomi Barnwell delivered nine points and seven rebounds, while Jada Lee scored 11 times. Lee’s bucket gave the Colonials a 52-37 lead late in the third quarter, which proved to be just enough to survive a subsequent 10-0 YSU run – thanks largely to a couple massive plays by Jennica Suggs down the stretch, including a three-pointer and a turnover. Next up for RMU is the Detroit-area trip to see Oakland and Detroit Mercy. That’s a tough assignment, but it’s also one that doesn’t seem out of reach for this group, given that their first meetings with those schools involved single-digit outcomes.
It’s something of a cliché to lament the inconsistency of a young team, but in the case of Youngstown State (ha, “Youngs-town,” I just put that together), it holds true. On Wednesday, the Penguins delivered what might be their best victory of the season in completing a season sweep of Northern Kentucky by a 75-66 count. Veterans Jewel Watkins and Malia Magestro were both on target against the Norse, combining for 36 points, while Sophia Gregory (who, frankly, would be my pick for the HL’s Freshman of the Year right now) had 15 points, eight rebounds and three steals. A staggering crowd of 3,172 packed the Beeghly Center for the encore against Robert Morris on Saturday, and though all three of those players were good once again versus a strong defensive team, the Colonials shot 53.1 percent from the field, a number that doesn’t result in losses very often. Like IU Indy, the Guins have a brutal upcoming schedule, including Cleveland State, Green Bay, and Purdue Fort Wayne in their next four games.
It’s fair to say that IU Indy has been playing some solid ball lately, but nevertheless, Wright State suffered a clunker of a loss to the Jaguars on Wednesday. The Raiders trailed 54-28 midway through the third quarter, and while they did rally late for some improved optics (and juice in the NET and other ranking systems, for whatever that may matter), the game was essentially over after a 13-0 Jags run just before halftime. Makiya Miller, a former member of the HL’s all-freshman team who tore her ACL last season, enjoyed one of the best games of her career with 18 points (on 8-for-15 shooting) and four steals. For a WSU team that has a good amount of talent but lacks consistency, the idea of a fully-healthy Miller fulfilling that early promise for the rest of her career is exciting.
You may think you had a brutal week, but Milwaukee probably had a worse one, given that the Panthers were on the wrong end of two bonkers finishes against the sort of teams where a win would have resulted in measurable momentum for their season. First came Skorupski’s bomb, which erased a 96.8 percent ESPN win probability for the Panthers, as well as a career-high 30 points (alongside nine rebounds) by Lutz. Statistically speaking, what happened against Detroit Mercy on Saturday wasn’t as stunning as the Oakland conclusion. Still, there was something extremely visceral about it, given that Milwaukee had possession with the presumed last shot in the fourth quarter of a tied game, a situation where most expect overtime to be the worst-case scenario, then turned the ball over and surrendered Burton’s winner. The Panthers have now lost 11 of their last 12 games, and will try to get going with a trip to Northern Kentucky and Wright State this week.
Player of the Week
Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
In a week with several passable candidates, but no true standouts, the honor might as well go to Perdue, whose 32 points at Robert Morris on Wednesday represented the second-highest total by a Horizon League player this season. When Colonials coach Chandler McCabe said that CSU had “a couple Power 5 players” after that contest, she was undoubtedly including the former Division II semifinalist.
Also considered: Katie Davidson (IU Indianapolis), Anna Lutz (Milwaukee), Lauren Ross (Purdue Fort Wayne), Callie Genke (Green Bay)
Past winners:
January 12: Natalie McNeal (Green Bay)
January 5: Sydney Freeman (Purdue Fort Wayne)
December 29: Maddy Skorupski (Oakland)
December 22: Aaliyah McQueen (Detroit Mercy)
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)