#HLWBB Power Rankings — Week 16

Rank	Team	LW	Change
1	Green Bay	1	–
2	Purdue Fort Wayne	2	–
3	Cleveland State	3	–
4	Robert Morris	4	–
5	Northern Kentucky	5	–
6	Wright State	9	+3
7	Youngstown State	10	+3
8	Detroit Mercy	7	-1
9	IU Indianapolis	6	-3
10	Milwaukee	8	-2
11	Oakland	11	–

After beating Cleveland State and Milwaukee this past week, Green Bay will sit around and wait until Saturday before Purdue Fort Wayne shows up at the Kress Events Center. The Mastodons play Milwaukee on Thursday first, but absent a stunning upset at the Klotsche Center, the Phoenix and PFW will both carry 18-1 conference records into Saturday’s contest – making it, essentially, a winner-take-all affair for the Horizon League regular season championship and the top seed for next month’s tournament (a significant distinction, given the large gap that has existed all year between third and fourth places). In Saturday’s 68-45 victory over the Panthers, Green Bay’s 18th consecutive victory, Maddy Schreiber led the way with 18 points, including the 1,000th of her career. Schreiber also scored a team-high 16 in a gritty road win over the Vikings, while Bailey Butler and Natalie McNeal joined in with good nights.

As mentioned, Purdue Fort Wayne still has to clear Milwaukee before setting up that showdown with the Phoenix, but there’s very little indication that it will be a major issue for the Mastodons after a strong mid-week road win at Northern Kentucky and a Senior Day obliteration of Detroit Mercy on Sunday. PFW’s graduating players were particularly effective in the 91-62 win against the Titans, including Lauren Ross, who has begun to put some final touches on her Horizon League Player of the Year case with 20 points, four rebounds, two assists, and two steals. Classmates Sydney Freeman, Audra Emmerson, and Amellia Bromenschenkel also touched double figures in the contest, while another, Jazzlyn Linbo, had eight rebounds and six assists. The Norse did a decent job defending PFW’s three-point barrage on Thursday, but the Dons were 25-for-40 from inside the arc, led by Freeman’s 17 points.

There is only one team in the Horizon League locked into its final position heading into the last stretch of the regular season, Cleveland State. Appropriately enough, the Vikings ended up there after a week that saw a loss to one of the two teams ahead of them, Green Bay, as well as a decisive victory over Robert Morris, the school immediately behind them. That 85-53 Senior Day romp over the Colonials on Saturday was led by Mickayla Perdue, who went for 24 points and six assists, including a 4-for-6 effort from three-point range that broke the point guard out of a bit of a slump, given that she was 9-for-42 from deep over her previous seven games. Macey Fegan was a big help too, as the sophomore known mostly for defense set a new career high with 14 points, including three triples. The Vikings will close with the other two Ohio HL schools while hoping to prepare for another deep tournament run.

Despite that blowout loss to the Vikings on Saturday, Robert Morris remains 7-3 in its last ten games, with the only losses coming to CSU, Purdue Fort Wayne, and Green Bay. Ten games represent one full lap around the Horizon League, of course, meaning that the Colonials have won their most recent meeting with every other team in the conference. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that they sit in fourth place and have a great shot at a home quarterfinal, or at least a first-round bye, though Northern Kentucky, Detroit Mercy, and Wright State are each within striking distance. The good news for Chandler McCabe’s charges is that the closing week of the regular season brings games against Youngstown State and Wright State, while the Titans and Raiders still have a game remaining against the top three. Katelyn Chomko, one of the HL’s underrated three-point snipers, went 5-for-11 from distance against Cleveland State and is shooting 35.5 percent from behind the arc this season.

Almost precisely when it appeared that Northern Kentucky was set to seize what has been a wide-open race for fourth place all season long, the Norse began to stumble, including three straight losses after what could have been a defining upset of Cleveland State. Thursday’s home loss to Purdue Fort Wayne can probably be considered acceptable damage (even if beating CSU made dreams of better realistic), but on Saturday, NKU blew a 16-point third quarter lead and lost a rivalry game against Wright State. Those results washed out efforts like Halle Idowu’s outstanding game against the Mastodons, including 14 points, eight rebounds, and three steals, as well as Abby Wolterman’s 13 boards against WSU. The good news in Highland Heights is that the Norse’s final two games are against Detroit Mercy and Oakland – teams in free fall at this point – and with a little bit of help one the Raiders and Robert Morris, fourth or fifth place is very much attainable.

Wright State? Yes, Wright State. And why not? The Raiders, who suffered a ten-game losing streak earlier this season, have spent plenty of time at the bottom of the standings and of this post, and remain last among Horizon League schools in the NET rankings, have suddenly become one of the more consistent teams in the conference. WSU is 7-5 since the losing streak ended, including a three-game winning stream highlighted by victories over Oakland and archrival Northern Kentucky this past week. The NKU result was particularly notable, given that the Norse led for virtually the entire game, including by 16 points late in the third quarter. However, the Raiders only allowed 16 points over the last 13:40, including a 14-2 run immediately from that game-high deficit to pull within striking distance. The Raiders then closed the afternoon on an 11-0 run, spanning 3:09, to pull off the stunner. Reigning HL Player of the Week Amaya Staton made a good case to keep the award for another seven days with her 11th and 12th double-doubles of the season – the last six of those consecutively.

Chances are, this Youngstown State season will end unremarkably, at least in terms of on-court results. But there’s little doubt that year one of the Melissa Jackson era has been extremely productive in most of the future-oriented ways, including a massive freshman class that has shown capable of leading the program forward. The headliner of those rookies has been Sophia Gregory, who looks like the clear frontrunner for the HL’s Freshman of the Year award. The Alliance, OH native logged a pair of double-doubles to lead the way for the Penguins in a sweep of the Detroit-area trip, including a dramatic 52-51 victory over Oakland on Saturday. Thirty-five points and 13 rebounds in two games is good for any post player, but what truly separates Gregory are her court vision and passing, skills honed as a high school point guard. Veterans Haley Thierry and Jewel Watkins also had nice games against the Titans and Grizzlies, respectively.

Once considered the clear fourth-best team in the conference, Detroit Mercy has just about collapsed over the second half of the season. Since beating IU Indianapolis on New Year’s Day, the Titans are just 3-11, with the three victories coming against Milwaukee (twice) and Oakland. A 67-59 home loss to Youngstown State on Thursday, followed by Purdue Fort Wayne’s absolute romp on Sunday, did little to alter that narrative, though Emaia O’Brien did manage her 1,000th point against YSU, while Katie Burton scored a career-high 13 against the Mastodons. Perhaps the craziest aspect to UDM’s situation right now is that the Titans have two attainable games over the final week of the season (Northern Kentucky and IU Indianapolis), and two victories would make a first-round bye extremely likely. Of course, should recent form hold, Kate Achter’s squad might plummet to playing a first-round road game.

Unfortunately for IU Indianapolis, the Jaguars were unable to take full advantage of a schedule that saw them clear the so-called Big Three before the other teams in the brutal, eight-way battle for things like the last home quarterfinal spot, a first-round bye, or, at least, a first-round home game. The Jags’ only game this past week was a 77-70 loss at Milwaukee on Wednesday, IU Indy’s seventh defeat in their last nine tries. Katie Davidson gave the Jaguars a 68-67 lead with 3:34 to go, but then the Jaguars simply…stopped scoring. By the time Davidson broke the drought with four seconds remaining, things were well settled, and the Jags are now forced to have a good final week against Oakland and Detroit Mercy to earn a workable tournament seed. On a brighter note, Wednesday also witnessed a groundbreaking ceremony for James T. Morris Arena, IU Indy’s new arena projected to open during the 2026-27 season, and one that will undoubtedly be the class of the Horizon League’s facilities.

Milwaukee is going to have an awfully hard time finishing anywhere other than 11th place, given that the Panthers are 1.5 games behind everyone else and have just one contest remaining – against Purdue Fort Wayne. That sort of belies the fact that, debatably, UWM has been the sixth-best team in the conference over the last month or so, following a catastrophic 4-18 start. The Panthers were body bagged at archrival Green Bay on Saturday (a revenge game for the Phoenix, given that Milwaukee cost them a share of the regular season championship on the final day of the schedule, in last year’s version of the fixture), but registered a nice win over IU Indianapolis on Wednesday. Kamy Peppler likely had the best game of her career against the Jaguars, including a personal-best 26 points (on 9-for-16 shooting), and she flirted heavily with the first triple-double by an HL player in five years, eventually settling for eight rebounds and eight assists. It will be tough for UWM to get much done at the tournament from the 11th seed, but they’re among the more dangerous last-place teams in the country.

Despite chances in two very winnable games this past week, Oakland was unable to snap its lengthy slide against Wright State or Youngstown State. The Golden Grizzlies have now lost six in a row, and 12 of their last 14, streaks that were unfathomable 15 games ago, when OU upset Cleveland State. At that moment, the Grizzlies were 4-0 in conference play and potentially on the way to some pretty lofty goals, but now, they’ll need to find a way to beat IU Indy or Northern Kentucky this week just to avoid going on the road for a first-round tournament game (generally, the kiss of death for realistic hopes of a deep tournament run). That said, if Oakland can manage to find a win somewhere and get a home game, then advance to the quarterfinals, the duo of Maddy Skorupski and Macy Smith is good enough to scare any team in the league. Smith and Skorupski each had 17 points against the Penguins, the first time this year that OU lost with both players in double figures, following eight consecutive wins with that production.

Player of the Week

Maddy Schreiber (Green Bay)

As tempting as it was to give this award to YSU’s Sophia Gregory, a true freshman, Schreiber’s 1000-point milestone, the magnitude of her wins, and the rare opportunity to actually find a Green Bay player who led the Phoenix in two straight games proved too much to turn down.

Also considered: Amaya Staton (Wright State), Sophia Gregory (Youngstown State), Kamy Peppler (Milwaukee)

Past winners:

February 16: Mickayla Perdue (Cleveland State)
February 9: Katie Davidson (IU Indianapolis)
February 2: Jordan Reid (Purdue Fort Wayne)
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)