Rank | Team | LW | Change |
1 | Purdue Fort Wayne | 1 | – |
2 | Green Bay | 2 | – |
3 | Cleveland State | 3 | – |
4 | Robert Morris | 5 | +1 |
5 | Northern Kentucky | 6 | +1 |
6 | Youngstown State | 7 | +1 |
7 | Oakland | 8 | +1 |
8 | Wright State | 10 | +2 |
9 | IU Indianapolis | 9 | – |
10 | Detroit Mercy | 4 | -6 |
11 | Milwaukee | 11 | – |
There might be someone out there who saw Purdue Fort Wayne’s 63-54 close call at Robert Morris on Friday, coupled with Green Bay’s machine-like performance of late, and figured that maybe it’s time for the Phoenix to take over the top spot. Nuh uh. The Mastodons are here until they lose again, and maybe after that, depending on circumstances. Regardless, any clear-headed analysis will show that RMU is, at worst, the fifth-best team in the conference at the moment. In that context, a 15th straight win led by a depth player – human sparkplug Jordan Reid – who scored six straight points in the final two minutes to crack open a tight contest (including a scoop-and-score that essentially sealed the result) actually looks pretty good. The Dons weren’t stressed nearly as much on Wednesday, when Reid, Lauren Ross and Sydney Freeman almost outscored Youngstown State by themselves in a blowout win.
Green Bay welcomed Maddy Schreiber back from a wrist injury during their 66-52 victory over Cleveland State on Thursday, following a surprisingly-short absence (reading the tea leaves on GB’s public comments led me to believe that Schreiber would be out until roughly the end of the regular season). Nevertheless, her return reunited the longstanding core of a Phoenix team that probably could’ve gotten by just fine without one of its several great players. Either way, Kayla Karius’ team laid down a pair of suffocating defensive efforts against the Vikings and IU Indianapolis on Sunday, including holding both Destiny Leo and Katie Davidson scoreless. Natalie McNeal had a lot to do with those bagels, but she also led the way offensively with 24 points on 10-for-13 shooting against CSU, followed by 15 points against the Jaguars in Green Bay’s 12th straight win.
Though there remains plenty of distance between Cleveland State and everyone behind, there’s now something of a gap between the Vikings and the top two as well. After their defeat at Green Bay, CSU fell three games behind Purdue Fort Wayne in the loss column, and two behind the Phoenix, with only seven or eight games remaining for each team. After being stifled offensively for most of that GB game, the Vikings bounced back to put 89 points on the board in a win over a hot-shooting and always-tough Milwaukee team. Mickayla Perdue logged her seventh career 30-point effort in the win, which was highlighted by a team-wide 28-for-29 effort from the free throw line (the Panthers were 10-for-11, so it was one of the better foul shot games you’ll ever see in both directions). Milwaukee native Mya Moore played her best game at CSU against Green Bay with 14 points and seven rebounds, then followed up with eight points against UWM.
Robert Morris came just about as close as any team has to toppling Purdue Fort Wayne during the Mastodons’ winning streak, a far cry from only a few weeks ago when the Colonials were losing to Green Bay by 30 and Cleveland State by 21. Whatever abruptly flipped in Hoop Township, it’s always been true that RMU has played enough defense to at least be competitive most of the time, and they showed it again on Friday by limiting Ross, Freeman, and Amellia Bromenschenkel to 24 combined points, forcing the likes of Reid and Renna Schwieterman to beat them. Two days earlier, Mya Murray scored 16 points, while deep ball specialist Katelyn Chomko knocked down four threes, in a 74-53 win over Wright State. Bobby Mo has the always-dreaded Wisconsin trip on tap this week, but also a manageable slate during the stretch run, when several tightly-packed teams will be jostling for tournament seeding.
Macey Blevins became the latest Horizon Leaguer to pass the 1,000-point mark on Saturday, thanks to a season-best 24 points, but Northern Kentucky nevertheless ate a loss in a winnable game against Wright State. It’s hard to call the defeat a damaging one, given that NKU is right in the middle of a glut of incredibly inconsistent teams, none with winning conference records, but it was nevertheless a missed chance to travel from the center of that group to the top. The Norse’s mid-week game was an entirely different story, as Halle Idowu’s 17-10 double-double led the charge in a 30-point burial of Detroit Mercy. Underrated Abby Wolterman contributed 13 points and eight rebounds to that effort, while probably-also-underrated Mya Meredith scored 12 times, helping NKU essentially end the game in the first quarter.
Youngstown State remains probably the toughest “how good are they” read in the conference, so score one for every cliché you know about young teams and new coaches. Within the Penguins’ last five games, they’ve beaten Oakland and Northern Kentucky – both teams that could be argued into the top five of the HL at different points – played red-hot RMU close, and did some nice things against Cleveland State. Then, on Wednesday, YSU was never truly in its game against Purdue Fort Wayne after the Mastodons went on an 11-0 run late in the first quarter to open up a 15-3 lead. On the positive side of things, Melissa Jackson tapped into her deep Northeast Ohio roots and landed a commitment from Evelyn McKnight on Friday. McKnight is a 2026 point guard from Copley, outside of Akron, and is billed as the sort of multi-dimensional ballhandler that any team would love to have.
Maddy Skorupski erupted for 38 points, a career high and the most by any Horizon League player in a game this season, as Oakland downed Detroit Mercy 77-63 to split the regular season series between the conference’s Metro Detroit schools. It was an entertaining contest in some respects, as the Golden Grizzlies jumped to a 15-point first half lead, blew it, then went on a 14-0 third quarter run to rebuild it. Macy Smith contributed 12 points, five rebounds, four assists, and four steals to the effort, while Madison Royal-Davis hauled in 12 rebounds. Given the Titans’ current spiral (see below) and Oakland’s wider picture (losses in six of seven games heading into the meeting with UDM), it’s hard to take the result for more than its face. But, if nothing else, Oakland is back in the win column before playing Purdue Fort Wayne, Cleveland State, and Green Bay in consecutive games.
Given that their victory over Detroit Mercy on January 8th hasn’t aged particularly well, it’s possible that Wright State earned its best win of the season on Saturday, a 75-67 outcome against archrival Northern Kentucky. Amaya Staton led the way with her seventh double-double of the season, a 16-point, 13-rebound effort that also featured three blocked shots. Quietly, the grad transfer from Merrimack is putting together an all-conference type season, given that she’s one of the Horizon League’s five best players for rebounds and blocks, while also averaging over ten points per game (and her per-40 numbers only make her look even better). Those efforts helped limit Idowu to a 4-for-13 day, while Wright State’s perimeter defense held a potent NKU deep attack to 6-for-21 from behind the arc. The Raiders still have to travel to Purdue Fort Wayne and Cleveland State, but otherwise have a manageable remaining schedule.
IU Indianapolis had a pretty rough couple of games, including the expected throttling by Green Bay on Sunday after a much-less-expected 66-62 home loss to Milwaukee in the middle of the week. The good news for the Jaguars? They’re now completely done with the Phoenix, Purdue Fort Wayne, and Cleveland State, a nice little schedule edge during what should be a highly-competitive stretch run for just about everyone beyond the conference’s clear top three. As mentioned above, Davidson was held without a point in the GB game, though she paced IU Indy against Milwaukee with 24 points, including lines of 7-for-11 from the field and 8-for-8 at the free throw line. However, it has often been the case that the Jags can’t get all of their best players going at once, and that happened again in both games, as Azyah Newson-Cole’s 11 points against the Panthers and Faith Stinson’s 12 versus Green Bay were the team’s only other double-digit efforts.
If you haven’t been paying close attention to the conference, you might not realize that Detroit Mercy has actually been pretty bad lately. In fact, the Titans have lost seven of their last nine games, and while they had to play each of the HL’s big three during that skid, their efforts this past week included decisive losses to Northern Kentucky and Oakland – teams that, on paper, they should beat, or at least compete closely with. On Wednesday, the Norse went on a 15-0 run to produce a 29-6 lead at the end of the first quarter and never looked back in an eventual 30-point rout. Three days later, UDM was blowtorched by rival Oakland and Skorupski’s career best effort to formally cede fourth place to the Grizzlies. It’s been a pretty stunning collapse for a team that looked to be the clear-cut conference number four only a couple weeks ago.
It’s admittedly tough to keep putting Milwaukee last in these posts, because nothing about the Panthers reads as a 5-19 (2-11 HL) team when watching them play. UWM defends well, works relentlessly in the paint and on the glass, and has several capable scorers. One player who excels at all those things is Anna Lutz, whose 15 points helped the Panthers snap a six-game losing streak at IU Indy on Wednesday, a game that also included strong efforts from Payton Rechlicz and Jorey Buwalda. Though her substitute, Izzy Pugh, played well on Saturday against Cleveland State, Lutz’s foul trouble was key to Milwaukee’s 89-81 loss to the Vikings, a result that spoiled a good shooting afternoon, highlighted by Kacee Baumhower’s 21-point effort, including five three-pointers. If the Panthers are to go on a late-season run, home games against Youngstown State and Robert Morris this week are close to must-wins.
Player of the Week
Jordan Reid (Purdue Fort Wayne)
You have to love the story of Reid, an NAIA transfer (and, as every broadcaster in the league has pointed out, a state football championship-winning kicker in high school) who was something of an afterthought among Purdue Fort Wayne’s other additions this season, a group headlined by Lauren Ross and Sydney Freeman. However, Reid’s energy and knack for shifting momentum has resulted in an increased role with the Mastodons as the season has proceeded, and she earned a moment in the sun this past week with 16 points against Youngstown State, along with a series of decisive plays late versus Robert Morris.
Also considered: Natalie McNeal (Green Bay), Maddy Skorupski (Oakland), Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
Past winners:
January 26: Raissa Nsabua (Robert Morris)
January 19: Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
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)