Upsets Swing Momentum
Indiana and Northwestern earn big results, plus the standout players thru two weeks
Two weeks down, and we are starting to learn a little bit about what to anticipate from this Big Ten conference that had such high expectations overall.
And what am I anticipating now? Mostly very good things!
Another great week brings the conference’s combined record to 65-8, with a full dozen teams still holding a zero in the loss column. Within those 65 victories were a whole lot of blowouts against overmanned teams, but also a few fantastic results that some teams really, really needed.
Last Week’s Hoopla:
The early goings of the season, for most teams, is really to build a foundation that will matter once conference play hits. There are exceptions, namely for both the best teams and the ones with the least changes to the roster, but in the transfer portal era, beginning growing pains are very normal.
That being said, a start that’s too slow or filled with too many concerns could blow the whole thing up before it begins. We’ve felt that with Florida State in football, and we felt that more relevantly with Oregon last season while it was still in the Pac-12.
Two Big Ten teams in particular had starts that didn’t just feel slow, but also concerning, and I talked about both of them last week. Indiana and Northwestern felt like they needed a big win soon to quickly regain momentum after some disappointing early results. Both teams did exactly that this week.
Let’s start with Northwestern, because there is no context to add compared to where we left them last Monday. The Wildcats came into their only game last week with an 0-2 record after a close defeat to Illinois State and a blowout one to Lehigh. Northwestern had winnable games left in the non-conference slate, but it also just lost two of said winnable games, so a boost was beyond needed.
Enter Utah, a new Big 12 team that finished 30th in votes for the AP Poll last week, and who has won 20-plus games three straight seasons. Bart Torvik had Utah as close to a 14-point favorite in the matchup, which was generous compared to the Her Hoop Stats prediction of a 37-point Utes win.
Northwestern 71, Utah 69
Wow, wow wow wow, this game.
With 4:07 left in the third quarter, Utah went up 51-37 and that felt like that. Bart Torvik had the Wildcats at a 1.9% win probability. But then, a flurry of Northwestern buckets by Melannie Daley and Grace Sullivan led the Cats on a 15-2 run to end the frame and make it a one-possession game entering the fourth.
The entire fourth quarter stayed at a one-score game until there was 1:55 to go, when a Casey Harter and-one put Northwestern up 69-63. The Utes struck back and brought it within three with under a minute to play, before Things Started Happening.
Utah called a borderline perfect out-of-bounds play to get Maty Wilke an open three look, but Wilke missed the opportunity. Northwestern then gets the rebound, immediately turns it over, then the Wildcats foul Gianna Kneepkens behind the arc, and I would argue it was about 10 feet behind the arc, so not a great play. Kneepkens hits all three free throws to tie the game, and it looked like this all could be for naught.
Enter, Caileigh Walsh. On the ensuing Northwestern possession, Walsh makes a fantastic move in the post to get the game-winning bucket. Utah did get a good look inside to tie it, but it hit rim, giving the Wildcats their first win of the season in the most dramatic of fashion.
Northwestern was led all game by Daley (23 points) and Sullivan (16), and both of them had huge buckets down the stretch to bring the Wildcats back. Credit as well to Caroline Lau, who dished out 10 assists in the contest. Her shooting has not found its form this season, but that hasn’t stopped her from tying the NCAA lead with 9.0 assists per game.
As Northwestern continues to work itself back to the form it was in a few seasons go, the program desperately needed a tone setter like this one. Next, the Wildcats play Harvard, who itself has a stunning upset win over… hey wait a minute!
Indiana 79, No. 24 Stanford 66
Yeah, remember where we left the Hoosiers last week? It was a tough home performance against the Crimson, and things only got worse after Indiana put up just 44 points in a defeat to Butler that has not had a winning season since 2019-20.
All of that is not forgotten, but what am I to say after Indiana overcame all of those bad vibes for a near-wire-to-wire victory over a ranked Stanford team?
Sure, this is a Cardinal team without its two best stars from last season, as well as head coach Tara VanDerveer, but Stanford was also 4-0 with four dominant wins, including a 31-point thrashing of Gonzaga. Bart Torvik had the game at a near-coin flip, while Her Hoop Stats gave Stanford an 83.1% chance to win in Assembly Hall.
Indiana gained a two-point lead to end the first quarter and never trailed from that point forward. The lead was trimmed to single digits for a few minutes of the third quarter, but Stanford was never closer than 10 points throughout the whole fourth. This was not a close game, and it proved what Indiana still is capable of with so much season to go.
Yarden Garzon has been the Hoosiers’ most consistent scorer so far, and she was great in this one as well with 18 points and eight boards. The X-factors here were Chloe Moore-McNeil and Shay Ciezki, who had not been delivering as expected prior to this game. Here though? A crisp 40 combined points on 14-of-24 shooting. Moore-McNeil also added four steals.
Two key team areas improved for Indiana in this one as well: The team shot 49.0 percent from the floor after shooting 34.7 and 34.0 percent in the defeats. Most notably to me though? Eleven team turnovers, down from the 18, 27 and 16 turnovers in the first three games. That’s the number that absolutely needed to be better, and it was.
Teri Moren is an excellent coach, so it’s not a full-on stunner she figured out a way to regroup this team quickly. That said, to do it this quickly, against a good team after two losses of that caliber, is really remarkable.
Terps and Bucks Survive Close Calls
Going to start with Maryland here because, uh, well I messed up last week. I had the Terps in my notes, then apparently deleted them when figuring out which half of the conference to talk about. That was the wrong decision!
Maryland is 5-0, and last week took down then-No. 11 Duke 85-80. It was a really complete performance against a real tough team to play, especially for a team that has so many new pieces that are getting their first action together.
As Maryland enjoys doing, the non-conference tests continued three days later with a road face-off against Syracuse. It’s hard to say how the Orange will look this season without Dyaisha Fair, but it’s still an ACC opponent fresh off an NCAA Tournament appearance, and they gave the Terps a fight.
Syracuse led by as much as 10 in the first half, and Maryland’s lead was cut to four in the back half of the fourth quarter. Eventually, it was Kaylene Smikle and Saylor Poffenbarger who closed out the game with big buckets, and big free throws, to make it an 84-73 victory.
Speaking of Smikle, my goodness what a start to her Maryland tenure. She’s averaging 18.6 PPG while shooting 52.6 percent from the field and 70.6 PERCENT FROM THREE (12 of 17). She’s also hit 21 of her 22 free throws. She’s been one of the best players in the conference to this point.
So far, I’m just really impressed by how sustainable Maryland looks, even in spite of those unsustainable Smikle shooting numbers. Brenda Frese has a clear seven-player rotation that is currently all playing between 27.0 and 21.4 minutes per game, as well as four more rotation options playing 13.9 to 6.4 minutes per game (with some missed games).
Outside of Smikle, Maryland’s six other key rotation players are all averaging between 10.6 and 8.2 PPG. That is remarkable balance, and it’s going to make them oh so annoying to deal with in conference play.
We’ve only seen the Buckeyes for three games, but they also had a close-call win this week. It was not against an ACC opponent, but instead against Belmont, a sneaky mid-major program that has 10 straight 20-win seasons and is consistently in the NCAA Tournament picture for automatic bids.
So, yeah, should Ohio State have had to truly escape death with a 67-63 win that had the Buckeyes trailing by nine points in the fourth? No! But I see how the Bruins were a team capable of giving this Ohio State team some real fits.
The Buckeyes shot really poorly in this game: 33.8% overall and 52.0% from the free throw line will lose games against better competition. But it was also the first real struggles faced by true freshman Jaloni Cambridge and new transfer Chance Gray, who shot a combined 6-of-24 with 10 total turnovers.
While the additions had some growing pains, it was really nice to see the core stars come through and get the win. Cotie McMahon had 21 points on 8-of-19 shooting with five rebounds. Most importantly to me though, was McMahon had one personal foul and one turnover in a game that saw her play all 40 minutes. I still really want to see Taylor Thierry hunt for more shots, but she was 4-of-5 with 11 points and 7 rebounds on a day where Ohio State really needed her to capitalize on those looks.
I should also note that despite the struggles, Gray hit a massive three to cut the deficit to four, then hit the layup that gave Ohio State a late lead. Then, after Belmont tied it in the final minute, it was Jaloni Cambridge who hit the game-winning shot.
One more note for Ohio State: McMahon is shooting 46.2% on 4.3 three-point attempts per game. If that is a sign for things to come, opponents should prepare to buckle up.
Player Spotlight
Going to try and have this every week to talk about specific players I wasn’t able to touch on above. The amount of detail here will depend on how much I rambled above. Today, it’s going to be rapid fire, with full season stats listed:
JuJu Watkins, USC — 1.0 WS, 21.5 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 4.8 APG, 3.8 SPG, 3.0 BPG, 42.0 FG%
Lauren Betts, UCLA — 1.0 WS, 21.5 PPG, 11.5 RPG, 3.3 APG, 0.8 SPG, 2.3 BPG, 72.2 FG%
A quick Watkins v. Betts update as the two favorites for conference Player of the Year. It feels especially fitting since they are also the only two players above the 1 Win Share threshold and both are even on PPG so far. A nice showcase of what each player brings to the table, and I’ll let you judge which stat line you think is better so far.
Destiny Adams, Rutgers — 0.9 WS, 27.0 PPG, 14.0 RPG, 1.5 SPG, 1.5 BPG
So far, Adams would be the best competitor to the top two. Rutgers is 4-0, and Adams is tied for the nation lead in PPG and in the top five for RPG. It’s been a truly remarkable start for the North Carolina transfer in year two with the Scarlet Knights.
Moriah Murray, Penn State — 0.9 WS, 20.4 PPG, 2.0 SPG, 47.3 3PT%
Gracie Merkle, Penn State — 0.7 WS, 19.6 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 2.4 BPG, 17.6 MPG
Hey so I don’t mean to alarm you, but Moriah Murray leads the country with 26 threes made. She has been a revelation in her true sophomore season thus far, especially alongside new transfer Gracie Merkle, who has been thriving despite playing less than 18 minutes per game. The Penn State competition has not ramped up yet, but these Nittany Lions are flying around during their 5-0 start.
Julia Ayrault, Michigan State — 0.9 WS, 13.6 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 2.8 APG, 2.0 SPG
Grace VanSlooten, Michigan State — 0.9 WS, 16.8 PPG, 9.0 RPG, 3.0 APG, 61.5 FG%
Yeah, this pairing is working so far for the Spartans. Michigan State is the only team with two players in the Top 10 for win shares so far, and that’s because Michigan State has won every game by 37+ points to get to 5-0. Harder games are coming, but this team hasn’t even pretended to sweat yet.
Natalie Potts, Nebraska — 0.7 WS, 17.5 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 69.4 FG%, 72.7 3PT%
Potts is looking like Nebraska’s next true star so far. She has earned at least 14 points and six rebounds on 55+ FG% and 50+ 3PT% shooting games in all four games so far. She was a 25 percent three-point shooter last year, so regression may be coming, but that won’t stop me from freaking out over what I’ve seen so far.
What To Watch
Rutgers at Virginia Tech, 11/19, 6 p.m., ACC Network
The Scarlet Knights get their first true test, and we can compare how they did to Iowa’s big win over the Hokies.
Iowa at Kansas, 11/20, 7 p.m., BTN
Iowa vs. Washington State, 11/24, 4 p.m., BTN
I’ve been impressed with the new-look Hawkeyes, but a road battle against Kansas followed by a home battle with Washington State should tell us a lot about the potential this roster holds.
No. 23 Oregon vs. Auburn, 11/20, 9 p.m., B1G+
The Grand Canyon matchup intrigues me as well, but an SEC foe should really let us see how different this Ducks unit is to the one we saw last year.
No. 21 Nebraska at Creighton, 11/22, 5 p.m., FloHoops
Hate that this one got its way to FloHoops because it should really be a fantastic matchup. Creighton has struggled to start the season, but should show up big against an in-state rival.
Penn State vs. Georgia, 11/23, 2:30 p.m., Peacock
As said above, Penn State has looked awesome against its inferior foes. Georgia isn’t a powerhouse, but if the Nittany Lions can keep it going here, that will be a great, great sign.
**No. 3 USC vs. No. 6 Notre Dame**, 11/23, 4 p.m., NBC
Do I need to say more?
**No. 5 UCLA vs. No. 1 South Carolina**, 11/24, 4 p.m., FS1
DO I NEED TO SAY MORE???
Photo Credit: Northwestern Athletics
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