Five mid-major teams to watch this season
Five mid-major teams to watch this season
Check out some mid-major hoops this women's college basketball season.
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There’s a lot of good basketball that’s going to be played over the next five months. While much of that will come from big-name teams like South Carolina and UConn, there’s also going to be a lot of great ball at the mid-major level. Everyone who watches women’s college basketball should pick a couple of mid-major teams to follow every year — it makes it so much more fun to have a favorite WAC team, for instance.
Below are five mid-major teams that women’s college basketball fans should keep an eye on this season. These aren’t necessarily the five best teams but are five compelling basketball teams to watch.
Gonzaga won’t be a mid-major much longer, as the team is set to join the rebuilt Pac-12 in 2026, though I suppose that rebuilt Pac-12 might wind up being a mid-major conference instead of a power conference based on how it eventually shakes out.
For now though, Gonzaga remains in the WCC and looks poised for another strong season, led by defending Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Yvonne Ejim. Last season, Ejim averaged 19.7 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. Gonzaga outscored opponents by 15.4 points per 100 possession with Ejim off the floor, but the net rating with her on the floor was an absurd +36.8 per CBB Analytics.
One thing that makes the Bulldogs so fascinating this season is seeing how they build the team around Ejim. The second, third and fourth-leading scorers from last season are gone, but Maud Huijbens could step into a larger role after shooting 53.0% from the floor last season.
The Stags may have been the most surprising team in the country last year, going 30-2 against Division I opponents. The first loss was by three to Vanderbilt and the second came against Indiana in the NCAA Tournament. In between those two losses, Fairfield won 29 straight games and finished the year with the fifth-best defensive rating in the country, allowing 80.1 points per 100 possessions.
The path to 30 wins might be tougher this year, as Stags’ non-conference slate includes road games against Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Wake Forest. Fairfield also plays host to Villanova in December. However, that kind of battle-testing might just make Carly Thibault-DuDonis’s team even stronger once the postseason rolls around.
Fairfield is one of just two teams to land multiple players on the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award watchlist, with Meghan Anderson and Janelle Brown earning a spot. Both players shot the ball really well, which helped the team have an offensive rating of 107.4 when the two shared the floor.
FGCU was one of the country’s most intriguing teams last season, as the Eagles shot a lot of threes and got a lot of offensive boards, which led to a lot of free throws. The Eagles led Division I in free-throw rate and ranked second in 3-point rate. Since 2009, just 12 teams have ranked top five in both stats. Five of those were just different Florida Gulf Coast seasons.
Emani Jefferson will look to have a big season for the team. She was one of just two players last season to average at least 2.5 offensive rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
Watching head coach Karl Smesko’s team play is always a treat. Last year, the team upset North Carolina during the regular season and played Oklahoma close in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, losing by just three points.
We get at least one more season watching one of college basketball’s best point guards, Drake’s Katie Dinnebier. Last season, the Bulldogs star averaged 18.1 points per game on 53.9% shooting and ranked fourth in the country in assists per game.
Dinnebier helped Drake rank eighth in points per game as the team pushed the pace and distributed the rock. The Bulldogs had a lot of turnover issues, ranking 244th in turnover rate, but were a respectable 41st in assist-to-turnover ratio thanks to dishing out 19.9 assists per game, third best in Division I.
There aren’t many point guards in the country who can score like Dinnebier while also passing like her, but this team is more than just one player. Drake won 29 games last year, and while the team has to replace second-leading scorer Grace Berg, it returns Anna Miller, who averaged 13.3 points, 9.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game. Pairing those two together reminds me a bit of when the Bulldogs were fueled by the inside-outside duo of Sara Rhine and Becca Hittner in the late 2010s, a team that won 20-plus games for five consecutive seasons.
Okay, so the four teams above could all make some national noise. This team probably can’t, but I always like to highlight a lower-major team that’s worth watching, even if that team’s ceiling is likely a first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament.
This year, the team I’m highlighting is Lamar.
Last season, Lamar won the Southland regular season title and looked poised to make its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2010. But for the fourth time since that season, the Cardinals won the conference regular season title and then failed to cap it off with a conference tournament title.
This year, Lamar returns its two best players from last year’s squad, Akasha Davis and Sabria Dean. Davis averaged a double-double last season while shooting 58.5% from the floor. She was also an offensive rebounding machine, pulling down 5.0 per game, the third-best mark in the country.
Dean averaged a career-best 13.8 points per game last year despite a huge drop in her 3-point efficiency, from 38.4% per game the year before down to 25.9% last season. If she can get her shooting touch back from deep, this Lamar team has a shot to just completely run through the Southland. Last year, the team was 18-2 in conference play, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see the Cardinals go undefeated in the Southland.
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