#HLWBB Power Rankings — Week 10

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

It’s become a bit tough to write Green Bay’s entries in these posts, because the Phoenix have hit a level of boring dominance that makes it tough to identify the news at times. GB swept its trip to Oakland and Detroit Mercy by 15 and 21 points over the weekend to improve to 8-0 in the conference, a full two games in the loss column clear of the pack (and, without a clear leader of said pack, those teams are likely to continue to beat each other, which only helps the Phoenix). Jenna Guyer, arguably the frontrunner for the Horizon League Player of the Year award at this point, starred in both games with strikingly-similar stat lines: 20 points and nine rebounds against OU, followed by 21 and ten against the Titans. The first game was also a successful return to the O’rena for former Golden Grizzly Maddy Skorupski, who torched her old team for 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting, and eight assists.

Northern Kentucky? Northern Kentucky. The Norse are still just 8-11 overall, but also 5-3 during Horizon League play, good enough to tie for third in the standings within that extremely crowded group after Green Bay. So why are they second here? After opening the HL slate with losses to the Phoenix, Robert Morris, and Cleveland State, NKU has stormed back to win five straight. That streak includes road wins over Purdue Fort Wayne, and, during this last week, Youngstown State and the Colonials in a rematch. Just as impressive as that list are the disparate ways Jeff Hans has done it; on Thursday, Abby Wolterman and Maddie Moody won their battle against YSU’s highly-talented frontcourt, while Taysha Rushton and Karina Bystry bombed the Norse past RMU on Saturday.

As well as NKU is playing right now, Youngstown State probably walked away from their loss to the Norse in the Beeghly Center feeling like they left points on the court. After all, the Penguins were just 3-for-28 from three-point range in the contest, and those shots are a vital counterpoint that keeps opponents from suffocating the likes of Sarah Baker and Sophia Gregory. That number “improved” to 3-for-15 against Purdue Fort Wayne on Saturday, but it worked out okay because the Mastodons – who might rely on deep balls even more than YSU – went 8-for-31 and shot only 32 percent overall. As a result, the Guins went 1-1 in the pair of rock fights, adding the PFW victory to their earlier result against Cleveland State to form the foundation of their case as a serious title threat.

No team in the conference needed a light week more than Cleveland State, which responded with what could probably be called a get-right 87-75 win over Wright State on Wednesday to snap a three-game losing streak, and stay in touch with the congested group of teams just ahead. It wasn’t a perfect effort, given that the Raiders scored 46 second-half points and only turned the ball over 11 times, but Chris Kielsmeier was willing to forgive those numbers after the Vikings completed a stretch of four games in ten days battered, but intact. On the bright side, CSU got strong three-point production from Sarah Hurley, Ella Van Weelden, and Jada Leonard, and their ability to stay consistent in that area will be vital to keeping Izabella Zingaro relatively clean. Macey Fegan (16 points, ten rebounds, six assists) was the team’s best player in the victory.

It’s a bit tough to figure out what to make of Robert Morris at this stage, as the Colonials have a way of staggering impressive results and clunkers. That was certainly true over the past week, when RMU blitzed favored Purdue Fort Wayne on Thursday, then gave up the first 11 points of the game at home against Northern Kentucky two days afterwards. Though they later made things interesting, the Colonials never fully erased a deficit that reached 35-18 at one point. Aislin Malcolm was just about unstoppable in both affairs though; across the pair, she shot 14-for-26 from the floor and scored 43 points. She, Myriam Traore, and Jada Lee were 8-for-14 from three-point range against the Mastodons, a performance integral to RMU’s biggest win of the season so far.

Second place through sixth place in the conference are extremely close right row, and Purdue Fort Wayne draws the unfortunate assignment as that group’s caboose. It’s not entirely unearned, however, given that the Mastodons are now 0-3 against the others in the traffic jam, thanks to being swept in their weekend trip to Robert Morris and Youngstown State. The defeat to the Colonials was particularly excruciating, as Lili Krasovec struggled with foul trouble, and RMU simply couldn’t miss during the contest’s leverage point. Without a doubt, reserve guard Rylee Bess was the brightest spot for PFW. The freshman was the team’s leading scorer in both games, including a career-high 20 points against the Penguins, on 6-for-10 shooting from three-point range. Overall, Bess is firing at a staggering 43.4 percent rate from deep.

Don’t look now, but first-year coach Keisha Newell has Oakland playing some pretty decent ball of late. It’s still premature to call the Golden Grizzlies anything beyond (arguably) the best team in the conference’s third tier, but OU upset Robert Morris a couple weeks back, and acquitted itself very well hosting the Wisconsin teams over the weekend. “Winning” the fourth quarter against Green Bay and “only” losing by 15 was pretty small consolation, particularly with former Grizzly Skorupski on the other sideline, but Oakland responded by absolutely thumping a Milwaukee team that had been playing well on Saturday. Against the Panthers, freshman Makenzie Luehring starred with 17 points, nine rebounds, and four assists, continuing her strong case for the HL’s all-rookie team.

IU Indianapolis clocked in a nice wire-to-wire victory over Wright State on Sunday, a contest that saw the Jaguars get inside almost at will on the way to shooting 54 percent from the field. Olivia Smith’s 16 points led all scorers, but it was a pretty well-balanced effort with Neveah Foster (12 points, six rebounds, three assists), Destini Craig (eight points, seven rebounds), and Ariana Williams (ten points, ten rebounds, four blocks) all factoring in prominently as well. The win was a nice turnaround for Kate Bruce’s squad, which had eaten back-to-back blowout results against Northern Kentucky and Purdue Fort Wayne, but now finds itself tied with half of the league – that’s not an exaggeration, it’s a five-way tie – at 2-5 in conference play. However, to stay in that position, the Jags will need to navigate a brutal upcoming stretch that includes the Norse again, as well as Robert Morris and Youngstown State.

Milwaukee, just a couple days ago, seemed to be a team possibly on its way. The Panthers shocked Cleveland State on January 4th, then clobbered Detroit Mercy on Thursday behind a fantastic outing from Grace Lomen, who virtually couldn’t miss on the way to 21 points and one of the best games of her career. For a UWM team that had only managed Division I wins against miserable Northern Illinois and Valparaiso outfits before that point, those victories presented tangible momentum. However, the quest for a certifiable winning streak ended emphatically on Saturday, with a 66-45 drubbing by an Oakland team that had a worse record than the Panthers entering the day. Meetings with Northern Kentucky and rival Green Bay are slated for this week, so it’s not about to get any easier for Kyle Rechlicz’s squad.

It’s tough to see a clean path forward for Wright State, which has some very good players, but also some ceiling-lowering liabilities that require too much strategic bandwidth, particularly when it comes to rebounding (the Raiders’ rebounding rate ranks 342nd in the country right now) and defending down low (WSU’s block rate is 330th, and they’re 342nd in free throw attempts allowed). The absence of Chloe Chard Peloquin has a lot to do with all of that, but without her, Raiders opponents routinely take over the middle of the floor. That includes both Cleveland State and IU Indianapolis last week, as the Raiders dropped their ninth and tenth games of their last 12. On the bright side, Ellie Magestro-Kennedy enjoyed an outstanding run in the two defeats, including 31 total points on 42.3 percent shooting.

Detroit Mercy has now lost seven of its last eight games, continuing an unexpected spiral that began right after the Titans began Horizon League play 2-0, including a win over Cleveland State. UDM’s opponents last week were the UWs at home, and while dropping a contest to Green Bay is certainly understandable, the Milwaukee loss is a bit less forgivable. The final ended up as 74-61, after the Titans had a huge score-affected fourth quarter, but they spent most of the evening getting their brakes beaten off by a Panthers team that entered the game 5-11 overall (with two of those wins against lower-division teams). Former All-HL pick Kailee Davis is finally healthy and back on the floor after missing all of last season at Northern Kentucky, as well as the beginning of this year. She can provide a nice boost if she gets re-acclimated in time.

Player of the Week

Aislin Malcolm (Robert Morris)

Though Green Bay’s Jenna Guyer and Northern Kentucky’s Maddie Moody have compelling arguments as well, Malcolm probably offers the best combination of consistent top-level production across her games, paired with a high degree of difficulty. RMU is one of the league’s deeper and more balanced teams, but having the Pitt transfer at her best consistently could give the Colonials a leg up on some other contenders.

Also considered: Jenna Guyer (Green Bay), Maddie Moody (Northern Kentucky), Rylee Bess (Purdue Fort Wayne), Macey Fegan (Cleveland State)