Some Fun Big Ten Stats From Last Season
This post is (unofficially) sponsored by Her Hoop Stats
In three weeks, we will officially be moving to the 2022-23 Big Ten season with the first team preview. As a reminder, I will be posting this week and the next on Monday, then will be out for the Thursday (June 9) and Monday (June 13) posts. Then, June 20 is the first team preview.
But let’s look at last year with one more lens: stats.
This is going to be less about deep analysis, and more about some fun tidbits I found while scouring the Her Hoop Stats website. Here’s what I got:
Dynamic Duos
As covered plenty in this newsletter, Caitlin Clark scored a whole lot for Iowa last year. By the end, she averaged 27.0 points per game, tops in the NCAA, men’s or women’s, by 1.7 PPG.
Looking just at the points leaders on the women’s side, the Hawkeyes are also represented by Monika Czinano, whose 21.2 PPG ranked 12th in the country. That is, by far, the highest ranked scoring duo in the country. No two players from the same team rank higher, with one of the next closest… also being a Big Ten team.
That would be Ohio State’s duo of Jacy Sheldon and Taylor Mikesell. Sheldon scored 19.7 per game, 26th in the nation, while Mikesell’s 18.6 PPG is 45th. The only other team I found that had two players within the top 50 scorers is Mississippi State, who had Rickea Jackson (20.3 PPG) and Anastasia Hayes (18.6) ranked 19th and 48th, respectively.
Both of these Big Ten pairs were electric offensively, and did it in very different ways: Czinano led the NCAA with a 67.9 field goal percentage and Mikesell led with a 47.5 three-point percentage. The best part? All four of them will be back for next season.
Rise of Kiser
Emily Kiser recently announced that she would indeed be returning to Michigan after previously entering the transfer portal. Without Naz Hillmon, this is a massive deal for the Wolverines.
Kiser went from a role player to a key starter last season, and her stats went up exponentially in the process.
2020-21 Kiser: 2.4 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 38.5 FG%
2021-22 Kiser: 9.3 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 44.4 FG%
But the box score stats only tell part of the story. Kiser was a key cog in what made Michigan one of the best defensive teams in the Big Ten. Her 2.4 defensive win shares ranked fourth in the conference, coming behind three elite defensive guards in Veronica Burton, Nicole Cardano-Hillary and Grace Berger.
By the numbers, she was the best defensive forward in the conference, and she often was tasked with covering dominant paint presences to keep Hillmon out of foul trouble.
Everything is aligning for Kiser to have an incredible final year for the Wolverines, and her return gives Michigan a core that should be right back toward the top of the Big Ten.
Ava Learn, Ava Develop
The top three in Points Per Play (when finished with shot, free throws or turnover) certainly make sense:
Monika Czinano, Iowa (1.31)
Mackenzie Holmes, Indiana (1.14)
Taylor Mikesell, Ohio State (1.13)
Czinano and Holmes dominated inside, Mikesell shot historically well from three, all stayed low on turnovers, all were some of the best players in the conference.
Monika Czinano, Iowa (1.31)
Mackenzie Holmes, Indiana (1.14)
Taylor Mikesell, Ohio State (1.13)
Ava Learn, Purdue (1.08)
Then there’s Learn, a true freshman who played 12.3 minutes per game across 22 contests. Unlike Czinano and Holmes, Learn is a 6-1 guard. Unlike Mikesell, Learn was 0 for 7 from three. Unlike all of them, Learn’s 17.5 percent turnover rate was pretty mediocre (59th percentile in the NCAA).
What Learn was, though, was extremely efficient. Her 4.8 points per game came while shooting 61.3 percent from the field and 67.6 percent from inside the arc, the latter of which was fifth-best in the country.
Maybe most impressively, the vast, vast majority of Learn’s minutes came against Big Ten competition. She played a grand total of 12:35 in non-conference regular season play, then played 21:21 in Purdue’s two WNIT games. The other 236ish minutes came in conference play.
Learn didn’t have any true breakout games, with her best two coming back to back against Illinois and Rutgers, where she scored 12 and 13 points, respectively, while shooting 6 of 9 from the field in each contest.
There is a whole lot to be excited about with Learn’s freshman season, and if she can avoid foul trouble, which she most certainly did not last year (8.7 fouls per 40 minutes, 10th-worst in the nation), Learn may be a future star for the rising Boilermakers.
The Fascinating Post-Burton Wildcats
Northwestern was Veronica Burton’s team through and through last year. Now, Burton is gone, as is Lauren Satterwhite through the portal.
But, considering how insanely active the transfer portal is these days, one move either way through it shows some remarkable cohesion within this Wildcats group.
While I was looking through Her Hoop Stats, I went to see the conference’s top three-point shooters. To my surprise, with no minimum attempts in the picture, Northwestern had three of the top four: Hailey Weaver (60 percent), Jess Sancataldo (50 percent) and Anna Morris (50 percent).
Yes, these three combined to make a total of six threes last year. But hey, it was on just 11 attempts, so that’s pretty good!
Northwestern's team is full of “hey, maybe!” players that have some fun stats in an extremely small sample size. Mercy Ademusayo played 3.2 minutes per game as a freshman. But, the 6-4 forward managed 10 blocks in limited action for a truly unfathomable 8.3 blocks per 40 minutes.
Will that translate when Ademusayo gets more minutes? Almost certainly not, but I will be hoping for it!
Even with just two players gone, it’s hard to know what Northwestern is going to look like because of how substantial Burton’s presence was. It could be led by Courtney Shaw, who is returning with her extra year of eligibility. She is one of the Big Ten’s best rebounders (10.1 per game), specifically on offense (4.6 per game), and should see more action as a scoring threat.
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