The New-Look Big Ten Sets The Tone
The nine teams that stood out, good or bad, in the first week of the regular season
Man, it feels good to have games back, and the college basketball world has immediately delivered us plenty to talk about.
The women’s season opened on Monday afternoon, and after one week we had all 18 teams play at least once, with a total of 40 games across the entirety of the Big Ten. The combined record in those games? 35-5, with only 2-3 of those defeats being surprises.
While I won’t always want to cast the net as wide as I can, the first week of the season feels like it calls for it. To me, half go the Big Ten had notable results that should immediately be discussed, so let’s discuss them!
The Preseason Hoopla 40:
Note: These are vaguely in order of what I have deemed most noteworthy, but that’s really on vibes I wouldn’t think too hard about it. Also rankings are from last week’s AP Poll.
Oregon 76, No. 12 Baylor 74
Not to self: Never go to bed.
After a full week that gave me plenty to talk about, Oregon went and earned the biggest result thus far late on Sunday night, taking down 12th-ranked Baylor in a nail-biter. The Ducks led by 16 in the third quarter, but the Bears came roaring back to make this a one-or-two-possession game for much of the final frame.
In the end, it was transfer Elisa Mevius who hit the game-winning layup with 22 seconds to play. It secured Oregon a 3-0 start and a signature win that this program desperately needed to rid itself from the downs of last season.
Mevius is a player I came into the season extremely high on, and that has continued. She’s not starting, but is leading the team in win shares per 40 minutes thanks to a well-rounded stat line that includes hitting half her three attempts. Deja Kelly has been the leading the show through three games though, and I certainly feel foolish for underestimating her already. She’s up to 17.0 PPG, 6.7 RPG and 5.3 APG on 47.5-percent shooting. If her efficiency can stay in the 40s, she’s going to be one of the conference’s most dangerous additions.
Oregon’s big win earned it a No. 25 AP Poll ranking, which must just feel great for Kelly Graves after what the Ducks went through in 23-24.
Key Stat: 1.44 — Oregon’s assist-to-turnover ratio, 26th in the NCAA
No. 1 South Carolina 68, Michigan 62
Michigan 86, Lehigh 55
A loss is a loss, but rarely does a loss feel like such a win.
Michigan opened its season with a starting lineup of three freshman against South Carolina, who you may know as a team that did not lose a single game last season. The Wolverines proceeded to strike fear into said Gamecocks for 40 consecutive minutes before ultimately falling in the end.
Michigan led after the first and second quarters and never trailed by double-digits. South Carolina shot 33.0 percent from the field. The rebounds were even at 52 apiece: South Carolina outrebounded its opponents by 12.5 boards per game in 23-24. This was an extremely even battle between two teams that were not anticipated to be on the same realm this season.
How did Michigan do it? Primarily through Syla Swords and Jordan Hobbs, the true freshman phenom and the Wolverines’ most experienced player. Swords started her college career by putting up historic numbers against the No. 1 team in the country: 27 points and 12 rebounds on 9-of-19 shooting. Hobbs was less efficient (8 of 22), but was fearless and finished with 19 and eight boards.
The follow-up blowout against Lehigh was a good sign that the first game wasn’t a fluke, and it was nice to see the other five-star freshman, Olivia Olson, get more involved with 17 points and four steals. Michigan may have some up-and-down moments because of its youth, but that opening near-stunner has quickly changed my expectations for this team right away.
Key Stat: 1 — Three-pointers made by anyone besides Swords or Hobbs (on 13 attempts)
Illinois 83, No. 19 Florida State 74
Illinois 65, Marquette 53
It was a terrific start to the season for the Illini, with two relatively lopsided victories against solid competition, specifically in the opener against Florida State. There, the vets of Makira Cook (20 points), Adalia McKenzie (20) and Kendall Bostic (18) all unleashed to keep the Seminoles at bay the whole night, and I mean the whole night: Illinois went up 5-2 to start the game, and that was the last time the margin was within one-score.
It was a great victory, and that was followed up by another respectable showing by taking care of business against Marquette. The fourth returning vet, Genesis Bryant, led the way in that one with 16 points, showing that just about any of that Core Four can take over on any given night.
I think the best part of these two victories is that Illinois didn’t even shoot it well: The Illini shot a specifically terrible 27.6% against the Golden Eagles. I’m going to consider that variance for now and assume that Illinois has an even further gear to hit when the offense smooths out, but the results so far remain extremely positive.
Key Stat: 36.5% — Percent of Illinois’ points that have come from the free throw line, 4th in the NCAA
Harvard 72, No. 25 Indiana 68 (OT)
This was a weekly mostly filled with highs, but this represents a noteworthy low.
Indiana, a team I ranked fifth-best in the Big Ten, lost a home game to Harvard and looked like the far worse team between the two. It was among the most disjointed performances I have ever seen from a Hoosiers team under Teri Moren.
In the defeat to the Crimson, Indiana shot 34.7% from the field and committed 27 turnovers. Chloe Moore-McNeil, Sydney Parish and Shay Ciezki shot a combined 4 for 20 from the field and 0 of 9 from deep. The bright spots offensively were Yarden Garzon and Lilly Meister, who each had 20 points. Meister and new transfer Caroline Striplin have both had strong starts at forward, which makes the early struggles that much more surprising as the guards felt like the team’s safety net.
The Hoosiers have had early losses, notably to Stanford last season, then didn’t lose again until mid-January. I’m hoping to see that resilience, but Harvard is not Stanford. Harvard lost its next game by 23 points to Quinnipiac.
Indiana lost Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia, but returned a trio of veteran guards, had some intriguing depth pieces that showed potential and looked, to me, like a roster that can put together yet another solid season. That’s all absolutely still on the table, but this was a performance that gave me legitimate pause at the least.
Key Stat: 21.1% — Indiana’s three-point percentage through two games, 297th in NCAA. The Hoosiers led the nation with a 39.6 3PT% last season
No. 3 USC 68, No. 20 Ole Miss 66
USC was thrown into one of the hardest first-game situations possible and managed to scrap and claw its way to a win. I think that’s worth noting.
The Trojans have *significant* buzz this season thanks to not just JuJu Watkins, but also the star-studded transfers and outrageous freshman class that has come to join her. All of those pieces just played their first game together against a Coach Yo defense. That’s brutal stuff.
And yet, USC won. Both teams shot poorly, USC made a single three-pointer, but Watkins had 27-10-4-3-5 while Kiki Iriafen added 22 points and 13 rebounds to lead the close win. True freshman Kennedy Williams also lived up to the hype plenty with 12 points and seven rebounds.
USC ran into plenty of issues — namely, 26 turnovers — but also completely stifled Ole Miss’ attack, keeping the Rebels below 30-percent shooting. It was a great “win ugly” victory to add to the board out the gates, and it showed me that the Trojans have plenty of fight, even when all the pieces aren’t perfectly connected.
Key Stat: 22.5 — Stocks (steals and blocks) per game. USC ranks 6th in the NCAA in blocks and 21st in the NCAA in steals
Illinois State 81, Northwestern 77
Lehigh 85, Northwestern 68
We’ve discussed two of the Big Ten defeats already and will not be discussing Notre Dame’s blowout of Purdue because, well the Fighting Irish are a really good team. But we must talk about the only multi-loss team in the conference
Illinois State is a solid team I thought would be a good matchup for Northwestern. Lehigh is a team that got detonated on by Michigan a few days before, well, detonating on Northwestern. The transitive property is not foolproof, but I don’t think it’s necessary to read that Northwestern women’s basketball is off to a not-good-very-bad start.
What happened? In the first game, not much. The RedBirds are a solid program that Northwestern should be able to beat, but this was a close game with not much to separate the teams. The 29 fouls committed by Northwestern weren’t a big help though.
Then, Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks hit an obscene 18 of their 33 three-point attempts, while Northwestern shot 3 of 13 from deep. That’s a chasm the Wildcats couldn’t overcome, but there really wasn’t even a fight to do so. Lehigh was up double-digits the entire second half.
Wins won’t get easier from here, especially not against Utah on Thursday. But Northwestern needs to find a spark, and even some fight against the Utes could do that, but that second defeat on the week is a brutal hit to the morale.
Key Stat: 19.5 — Northwestern’s assists per game, 30th in NCAA. A bright spot for the unit thus far
Iowa 71, Virginia Tech 52
A game I saw live!
The Hawkeyes and Hokies battled it out for the second straight year in Charlotte for the Ally Tipoff, and once again it was Iowa who came out on top, this time in a blowout.
Both of these teams are wildly different than the ones who came to the Spectrum Center in 2023, but I felt like I learned a lot about what Iowa is going to look like, and I mostly enjoyed what I saw.
Lucy Olsen is a difference-maker. She had 20 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists against Tech and really took charge of the offense. If the defense was causing issues, Olsen showed the ability to get to the rim or take a tough midrange and do it with reasonable success, which is exactly what Iowa will need from her.
The Iowa bigs were maybe the largest story for me out of this game. Hannah Stuelke had 16 points on 6-of-17 shooting, but looked solid inside and continues to grow. The 18 points in 26 minutes on 9-of-9 shooting from Addison O’Grady, however? That’s notable to me and will keep O’Grady as a big piece in this rotation despite the new faces.
Iowa’s defense also really impressed me. Virginia Tech could not get it going in this one and the Hawkeyes slowly and methodically took advantage. That might be the key for this year’s unit compared to the fireworks of the Clark teams, but it has shown great signs of early success.
Key Stat: 60.9% — Iowa’s 2-point FG%, 14th in the NCAA
Wisconsin 79, Georgetown 61
Wisconsin exits the first week undefeated thanks to a terrific second half against Georgetown, a team that felt pretty even with the Badgers on paper.
The Hoyas won 23 games a season ago and held a lead for much of this contest. Then, Wisconsin flipped some sort of switch and completely blew Georgetown out down the stretch. The Badgers outscored the Hoyas 32-11 across the final 12:30 of the game to end with a big 18-point victory.
I focused a large portion of my energy toward Wisconsin on getting the most out of Serah Williams, and she’s been great once again to start this season. But I must shout out Ronnie Porter who has been equally as essential to this 2-0 start. Porter had 26 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals against the Hoyas and is averaging 22.5 PPG thus far, just behind Williams’ 23. That type of help for Williams could lead the Badgers to some big things if Porter can stay on anything resembling this pace.
Key Stat: 9.0 — Wisconsin’s turnovers per game, 7th-fewest in the NCAA
Rutgers 94, NJIT 84
Rutgers is 3-0! It’s been against inferior competition, yes, but all wins are big wins as the Scarlet Knights continues to grow the program back up to their old heights.
That said, I am including Rutgers here primarily to make sure I get to talk about Destiny Adams in this space. After a modest 14-point, 8-rebound effort to open the season, here are Adams’ last two games
30 points, 14/24 FG, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks
36 points, 10/20 FG, 22 rebounds, 2 blocks
FOURTEEN of those 22 boards against NJIT were offensive. That stat is offensive if you ask me.
The heroics were not limited to Adams, though. The NJIT win was our best look at what Kiyomi McMiller could become, as she finished with 25 points on 11-of-22 shooting. I’m not expecting Adams to put up consistent 30-15 stat lines, but she has shown the capability to put up some obscene numbers on this Rutgers team. If McMiller can find some consistency in her freshman season, that duo is going to be able to pull some upsets on the right day.
Key Stat: 61.0% — Rutgers’ total rebound rate, 15th in the NCAA
(Sorry for the lack of What to Watch this week, but this Hoopla is already Too Large)
Photo Credit: Eric Evans Photography, Oregon Athletics
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