The Forward Making Ohio State's Four-Guard Lineup Work
Plus a bad week at the top and, you guessed it, Nebraska posting
The Big Ten had some big games against ranked opponents this week, and they did not go very well for the conference. Because of that, only four of the 14 teams remain undefeated three weeks into the season.
The Rebirth of Rebeka
Ohio State is one of those four undefeated teams, sitting at 5-0 with five blowouts against overmatched teams.
We won’t find out much about the Buckeyes until they play Indiana on Dec. 12, but that doesn’t make what they are doing right now uninteresting. Ohio State is going with the four-guard lineup I had hoped, though I certainly hoped Madison Greene would be available.
Alas, injuries suck and Kateri Poole has filled in at point guard for a lineup of Poole-Jacy Sheldon-Taylor Mikesell-Braxtin Miller-Rebeka Mikulasikova. This lineup, in theory should shoot you out of the gym regardless of how much you want to rebound or score inside.
In some aspects, that is what has happened. Sheldon leads the team with 19.0 points per game and is shooting 60.8 percent from the floor, 46.2 percent from three and 93.1 percent from the free throw line on 29 attempts. Mikesell has been blistering from deep, hitting 19 of 32 (59.4 percent) from behind the arc thus far.
But the team’s conference-high 89.4 points per game is not just due to guard play. Mikulasikova, playing as the team’s lone starting forward, has been a revelation early on in this season.
Coming to the team out of Nitra, Slovakia, Mikulasikova immediately gave Ohio State great size inside at 6-4, but it was her impressive shooting that made her a talent to watch. As a freshman, Mikulasikova shot 25 of 54 from deep. That 46.3 three-point percentage was tops on the team and 19th-best in the country.
But the sophomore slump was very real for Mikulasikova. Almost every single one of her statistics went down, most notably her deep ball, which was just 4 of 22 (18.2 percent) on the season. After being in the 99th percentile in three-point percentage among all Division I players in 2019-20, she was in the 5th percentile as a sophomore.
After a season like that, I had assumed that the starting forward role would go to either Tanaya Beacham – a sixth-year senior with more of a focus on rebounding – or Gabby Hutcherson – a sophomore coming off an encouraging first year.
Instead, Mikulasikova has gotten all five starts, and she has not let the Buckeyes down. It started off unassuming with a four-point, two-rebound effort in the opener against Bucknell. After that:
19 points, 6 rebounds, 8/13 FG, 22 minutes
19 points, 5 rebounds, 8/13 FG, 21 minutes
13 points, 6 rebounds, 6/9 FG, 17 minutes
19 points, 1 rebound, 7/8 FG, 18 minutes
In Ohio State’s last four games, Mikulasikova has averaged 17.5 points and 4.5 rebounds per game while shooting 67.4 percent from the field in just under 20 minutes per game. These are numbers that dramatically dwarf anything she had done with the Buckeyes in her first two seasons. This improvement has come in only slightly more minutes than she saw as a freshman, where she averaged 16.3 MPG and finished with 7.7 PPG.
How has this happened? Besides some easy competition, it appears that a change in mentality has been key. Mikulasikova still isn’t quite back to her freshman form from deep, hitting 33.3 percent of her three-point attempts. The difference is that she has only attempted nine shots from deep so far.
In her first year with Ohio State, 30 percent of her shot attempts came from three. As a sophomore, even with so few falling, 34.9 percent of Mikulasikova’s attempts were from behind the arc. Currently, that rate sits at 17.0 percent.
The result is a player that ranks seventh out of 3,023 Division-I players with 32.1 points per 40 minutes this season. Mikulasikova also is 41st with a player efficiency rating of 36.9, and 25th with 0.52 win shares per 40 minutes. Only Sheldon ranks higher in the latter two categories, with her 0.69 win shares ranking third in the nation.
Mikulasikova has been one of the most valuable players in college basketball when she has been on the floor, and the only question now is if she will continue to be that when conference play begins. The rebounding is still an area of concern, but if the shots continue to fall even close to this rate, Ohio State will continue to thrive with its small ball setup.
(Most of) the Titans Fall
As I mentioned above, it was a tough week for the supposed juggernauts of the conference, though it is not time to panic on the strength of the Big Ten just yet.
I’ll start off with Indiana, where there really should be no panic at all. The Hoosiers lost to No. 4 Stanford 69-66 in a game that came down to the wire. It’s a loss you learn from, but not one that changes much of anything about expectations. They even followed it up with a 53-51 win over Miami (Fla.) two days later, though that one should have been much more lopsided.
Indiana is fine and remains a fringe top-five team in the country (ranked No. 6 in the latest AP poll) if all five starters remain healthy. An incoming matchup with No. 2 NC State will solidify that one way or another, though.
The other titan that went down was Maryland, who lost to both NC State and Stanford by 18 points. On the surface, this is a bad look for a Terrapins team expected to be on of the best teams in the nation. But Maryland was also playing with just seven players in both games, and was missing key pieces like Diamond Miller and Katie Benzan.
Those two players make a world of difference in those games, so it’s not time to give up on Maryland, now ranked eighth, just yet. In the long run, it could be beneficial for the Terps, as highly touted freshman Shyanne Sellers got 76 minutes of action against a pair of top 10 teams.
Which titan didn’t fall? Folks, you know I am talking about the 7-0 Nebraska Cornhuskers, who again took care of business. Nebraska won a tournament in San Diego by taking down Drexel and San Diego on back-to-back nights. Neither team is a juggernaut, but both rank in Her Hoops Stats’ top 115, and winning a tournament is always a challenge.
Speaking of challenges, a matchup against fellow 7-0 team Wake Forest looms next week. It should be a banger.
What to Watch
So, so much.
It is Big Ten-ACC Challenge week, and then it is the start of conference play. You should look at the schedule above, because there are certainly more than five matchups worth watching.
Also, I already mentioned Nebraska-Wake Forest (7 p.m. on 12/1) and Indiana-NC State (7 p.m. on 12/2), easily top-five games, but I wanted more variety.
Minnesota vs. North Carolina, Wednesday (12/1), 9 p.m. – BTN
The Golden Gophers started out with a demoralizing loss to Jacksonville, but have since won 6 of 8, only losing to UConn and Oklahoma.
On the other hand, North Carolina is 6-0 with a plus-35.3 margin per game, third best in the country and received some AP votes. It is a tall task for Minnesota, but at home, it does not seem impossible, and it could be a substantial boost for this younger roster.
No. 12 Michigan @ No. 10 Louisville, Thursday (12/2), 7 p.m. – ESPN
The game of the week not named Indiana-NC State. The Wolverines have battled injuries to core players on the roster and are still sitting at 10-0 heading into this elite showdown with a top 10 team.
Leigha Brown seems to be back, and Amy Dilk could be back for this gigantic matchup against the Cardinals, who are an OT loss to No. 7 Arizona away from also being perfect on the year.
This will be a matchup between two of the nation’s best defenses and best rebounding teams in the country. I would expect a low-scoring brawl that goes down to the wire.
No. 8 Maryland vs. Miami (Fla.), Thursday (12/2), 8 p.m. – BTN
Who knows how healthy Maryland will be going into this game, but it should be a strong bounce-back opportunity regardless.
Miami has proven capable of being a difficult opponent and nearly pulled off a historic comeback against Indiana, but the Terps should be favored by a whole lot here unless something is wrong past players being out.
No. 18 Ohio State @ Purdue, Sunday (12/5), 2 p.m. – B1G+
I don’t expect Syracuse to be much of a fight for Ohio State, but on the road against Purdue to open up the Big Ten slate certainly is no gimme.
It has been a solid start for new head coach Katie Geralds, who has the Boilermakers out to a 5-2 record. The team also has two strong wins against Illinois State and, most recently, Florida State.
Purdue has certainly faced more tests early than the Buckeyes, and both teams spread the ball around with their scoring. It could be a real entertaining start to the conference schedule.
No. 9 Iowa vs. Michigan State, Sunday (12/5), 4 p.m. – BTN
Both of these teams have excellent ACC opponents (Duke and No. 24 Notre Dame, respectively), but I will choose the matchup between the Hawkeyes and Spartans instead.
I don’t know how much I have to sell you on watching Iowa: Caitlin Clark isn’t even shooting well through four games and it hasn’t mattered yet. But Michigan State also was hyped up in the preseason, and a 6-2 record thus far, while not bad, is not what the team expected with the matchups on the schedule.
This is a great chance to rebound, and it will be against a Hawkeyes squad with less games to work out the kinks. This is another matchup I expect to be closer than the rankings would say.
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