The Weekly Roundup: Sheer Dominance by a Pair of Wolverines and This Season’s (Complicated) Story of Free Throws
Breaking down Naz Hillmon’s clutch performance vs. Maryland, Josie Williams’ ridiculous rebounding rate, and the status of free-throw shooting
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March Madness is just around the corner! Conference races are heating up as programs jockey for conference tournament seeding. Teams play with an extra sense of urgency, understanding the limited time and opportunities they now have to build their resume for the NCAA tournament committee. A few major conference teams accomplished this last week by capturing conference regular-season crowns. A regular-season championship has always impressed me more than a conference tournament title. The former requires a team to demonstrate its superiority over a 14-to-18-game schedule, whereas the latter only involves a comparatively shorter stretch of success. Don’t worry, I’m not going all pre-2017 Ivy League on you, I just think such a significant accolade deserves proper recognition.
As such, congratulations to South Carolina and NC State for clinching a share of the regular-season titles from their respective conferences and to Stanford for winning the program’s 25th regular-season Pac-12 championship. Their loss in late December to Missouri but a distant memory, the Gamecocks have since rolled to a 13-1 record in arguably the country’s toughest conference. North Carolina’s thrilling 66-65 win over Louisville combined with NC State’s 95-53 drubbing of Syracuse resulted in the Wolfpack earning their first regular-season ACC title since 1990. While Stanford has clinched its conference regular-season crown, the Cardinal are still looking to become the first Pac-12 team since their 2011-12 squad to finish the conference regular season unbeaten.
Things are a tad less certain in the Big 12 and Big 10. Three Big 12 teams (Baylor, Iowa State, and Kansas) are within one game of the conference lead with four games remaining. Indiana’s recent 1-3 slide has generated a massive logjam that has five teams (Michigan, Ohio State, Maryland, Iowa, and Indiana) all within a half-game of the Big Ten’s top spot. With so many contenders in the mix in both conferences, it will be fascinating to see how the regular season’s final week or two and the conference tournament unfold.
What’s the deal with free throws?
Pop quiz. In the 41 seasons of Division I women’s college basketball since the inception of the NCAA tournament in 1982, where would this season rank in terms of free-throw percentage if it ended today?
Number one. Yes, the NCAA’s 356 teams have collectively made 70.4% of their attempts at the charity stripe, which would be an all-time high. However, there have been some reports that proficiency at the free-throw line is down this season. Clearly, the previous two statements are at odds with each other, and while the first statement is correct, there exists a grain of truth in the second. Suffice it to say, the story of free-throw shooting this season can best be summed up with one of Facebook’s relationship status options: it’s complicated.
The erroneous generalization that NCAA teams are struggling at the foul line could be informed by the performance of higher-profile teams. Stanford, the No. 2 team in the country, hits only 67.9% of its free throws, which ranks in the bottom 30% of all Division I programs. South Carolina, the consensus No. 1 team, is even worse. The Gamecocks convert only 66.5% of their attempts, placing them in the bottom 20% of the country. We can take this notion further by analyzing the free-throw percentages of squads in the top 25 and top 50 of Her Hoop Stats rating.
The graph above reveals a moderate dip in free-throw percentage since last season among the country’s higher-tier teams. In fact, this season’s Her Hoop Stats top 25 and top 50 have collectively posted the lowest free-throw percentage (71.9% and 71.6%, respectively) since the 2015-16 season.
So, what gives? Why have the nation’s top teams seen decreases in their performance at the free-throw line, while the NCAA collectively has experienced an increase? For one, it’s important to remember that despite shooting a lower free-throw percentage compared to recent seasons, the HHS top 25 and top 50 still hit their free throws at a much higher clip than the rest of the NCAA. Unfortunately for my prospects as a collegiate basketball player, free-throw percentage and team success are not inversely related! One possibility is that higher-ranked teams typically play their road games in front of larger audiences (by virtue of their own popularity and, ordinarily, participation in major conferences). The return of fans to games this season could be creating a raucous environment to which these teams haven’t fully acclimated. It also might be just statistical noise or random variation. Given the razor-thin margin between success and failure in the latter stages of the NCAA tournament, one thing for certain is that this phenomenon may play a significant role in determining which team is raising the trophy come April 3.
Power Six performance of the week: Naz Hillmon, Michigan
Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games, or so the saying goes. That adage rang true Sunday afternoon when Naz Hillmon recorded her ninth 20-point double-double this season, her 12th double-double of any kind and 46th of her career, leading Michigan to a 71-59 win over Maryland that catapulted the Wolverines into the Big Ten’s top spot. In addition to the conference seeding ramifications, Hillmon’s 29-point, 11-rebound effort helped Michigan right the ship after two straight Big Ten losses.
Hillmon is my selection for Performance of the Week. Yet, it speaks volumes about her level of dominance this season that she has posted such a Performance of the Week-worthy stat line (i.e., at least 29 points and 11 rebounds) on three other occasions. Hillmon, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, leads the conference in win shares and player efficiency rating, ranks third in scoring with 21.7 points per game, and is fourth in the Big Ten with 9.3 rebounds per contest. Such outstanding play has Michigan on the precipice of its first conference regular-season title in program history.
Mid-Major performance of the week: Josie Williams, Utah Valley
Josie Williams scored 24 points on 9-for-11 shooting from the field to go along with 19 rebounds in Utah Valley’s 99-59 rout of Dixie State on Saturday afternoon. That’s impressive. The fact that she put up those numbers in 24 minutes is jaw-dropping. Williams grabbed 44.2% of all rebounding opportunities. How good is that total rebounding rate? Only one other player this season has eclipsed the 44% threshold and just nine other players have accomplished the feat since the 2009-10 season. While not a massive surprise coming from the nation’s No. 3 rebounder (12.3 boards per game), it’s nonetheless remarkable. Williams also joined an exclusive list of eight centers who have scored at least 20 points and averaged 1.60 points per play in a single game this season.
Williams, a member of the Western Athletic Conference’s first team last season, has been a paragon of consistency for the Wolverines. It’s typically a good sign when it’s easier to count the games in which a player does not post a double-double than those where she reaches that milestone. That’s the case for Williams, who has recorded double-doubles in 19 of her 24 appearances this season. Only Aneesah Morrow (24) and Aliyah Boston (20) have more such games. It’s a level of reliability Utah Valley needs from its star center if it hopes to qualify for a second straight NCAA tournament.
Basketball Jones
Can we all just marvel at the physical strength it took Haley Jones to even get this shot anywhere close to the rim? For those unaware, Jones actually made this shot to break a 60-60 tie in the final minute of Stanford’s nailbiter at Oregon, enabling the Cardinal to escape with a 66-62 victory. What a moment, and major kudos to photographer Thomas Boyd for capturing it.
Adam’s Top 25
Here’s my top 25, which as always is based on the criterion of who would currently win in a hypothetical neutral-court matchup.
Her Hoop Stats content in case you missed it
The Her Hoop Stats team released the following podcast content this past week:
Calvin Wetzel joined Megan Gauer on Unplugged to give a crash course on NCAA women's basketball betting.
On Courtside, Gabe Ibrahim and Christy Winters Scott discussed Virginia Tech’s resurgence as a contender in the ACC, chaos in the Big Ten, the newest members of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, and the latest news coming out of WNBA free agency.
One has recorded 21 consecutive double-doubles. Another ranks second in the country in assists per game. They’re both on Aneela Khan’s list of this season’s top five freshmen. Who are these two and who else made the list? Check out Aneela’s breakdown to find out!
In his weekly recap of the Big Ten, Derek Willis highlighted the contributions of Michigan State freshman guard Mathilda Ekh and how the standings are shaping up as we head into the home stretch of the conference regular season.
Aside from Stanford clinching the conference regular-season title, the Pac-12 tournament picture largely remains unclear. In her weekly Pac-12 column, Kim Doss explained how things could shake out in the final two weeks of the conference regular season.
Robert Mummery offered five takeaways from the World Cup Qualifying Tournaments recently held in Belgrade, Serbia; Washington, D.C.; and Osaka, Japan.
Which ACC teams are locks for the NCAA tournament and which have more work to do to ensure their name is announced on Selection Sunday? James Hyman provided his thoughts in his weekly review of the ACC.
Other recommended content
For Global Sport Matters, Alex Kirshner described the physical and psychological impacts of long COVID on athletes.
Guard vs. center. Team performance vs. individual numbers. Traditional vs. advanced statistics. For Bleacher Report, Jackie Powell broke down the various facets of the Aliyah Boston-Caitlin Clark National Player of the Year debate.
Khristina Williams profiled Tianna Hawkins’ journey from pursuing a career with the Secret Service in college to her recent comeback in Athletes Unlimited after being waived by the Atlanta Dream.
For Sports Illustrated, Wilton Jackson chronicled Aliyah Boston’s remarkable career progression from her formative years in the U.S. Virgin Islands to her recent dominance at South Carolina.
Trivia question of the week
While no one in NCAA history has recorded a triple-double in the Final Four (either the national semifinal or title game), two people have accomplished the feat in the Elite Eight. Name one of the two players.
Note: Performances of the week are based on games played from February 15, 2022 through February 20, 2022.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.