The 2019-20 Season in Weird Stats
The 2019-20 Season in Weird Stats
Looking back at a season full of weird and rare stats
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The Roundup
Earlier this season, I began compiling a list of the weirdest, rarest, and most interesting stats from this season in hopes of wrapping up the season with a fun retrospective. With the abrupt end to the 2019-20 season, I decided to move it up by a few weeks. So, here are those fun facts in chronological order.
Preseason
Hampton had three players on its roster who were 5-foot-5 or shorter.
Oregon State rostered four players 6-foot-6 or taller.
Tennessee, Maryland, Marquette, and Austin Peay each had only one player shorter than six feet tall.
Opening Day, November 5, 2019
Three different players recorded triple-doubles, an NCAA record for a single day.
One of those triple-doubles was Aliyah Boston’s 12-point, 12-rebound, 10-block performance in just 21 minutes. Boston became the first player to ever record a triple-double in their first career game.
One of the other two triple-doubles on opening day was Denia Davis-Stewart’s 31-point, 13-rebound, 12-block game in Merrimack’s first game in Division I.
The third triple-double came from Youngstown State’s Chelsea Olson who put up 13 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists in a game against Canisius.
November 9, 2019
Oregon defeated Team USA, 93-86, in an exhibition game in Eugene. It was the first time the national team had lost an exhibition game against a college team in over 20 years.
November 16, 2019
Sabrina Ionescu recorded the 19th triple-double of her career against Texas Southern, marking the fourth consecutive season in which Ionescu recorded a triple-double. The Oregon guard is the first player in NCAA history to record a triple-double in four seasons.
On the same day, Fordham and Charlotte played the slowest game of the season, a 76-51 win for Fordham that only used 55 possessions per 40 minutes.
December 11, 2019
Wyoming held Mississippi Valley State to just 22 points, the lowest total of the season by a Division I team. The Devilettes shot just 18.2 percent from two-point range in the game.
December 18, 2019
Baylor guard Juicy Landrum poured in an NCAA-record 14 three-pointers on 23 attempts. Not only was it an NCAA record, but it was also more threes than Baylor had ever made as an entire team in the program’s history.
December 19, 2019
Division II Catawba College defeated Division I UNC Wilmington in a 78-75 overtime thriller. The win was one of five games in which a Division I team lost to a non-Division I team.
December 22, 2019
Brittany Brewer of Texas Tech racked up 16 blocks to go along with 12 points and 14 rebounds, tying the NCAA record for blocks in a game. The only other player to record 16 blocks in a game, Sandora Irvin of TCU, also did so in a triple-double.
January 2, 2020
South Carolina put up 49 first-half points on Kentucky. The Wildcats were only allowing 48.7 points per game at that point in the season.
January 3, 2020
Drake’s Becca Hittner made all 18 of her free throws in a win over UNI, the 20th time in NCAA history that someone has made 100 percent of their free throws with 18 or more attempts.
January 4, 2020
Nearly two months after being held to just 22 points, Mississippi Valley State was locked in an up-tempo battle with Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The 80-77 Pine Bluff victory was the fastest Division I game of the year at 98 possessions per 40 minutes.
January 9, 2020
Morehead State’s Ariel Kirkwood recorded the first five-by-five game since 2016 when she totaled 11 points, eight rebounds, five assists, five steals, and nine blocks. Only two other players have recorded five-by-five games since 2015-16.
January 16, 2020
Bria Dial of Chattanooga put together one of the most efficient games of the season against Wofford. Dial shot 7-of-7 from the field and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line for a total of 23 points, a points per scoring attempt of 2.56.
February 7, 2020
Division III CCNY narrowly reached double-digit scoring in a 99-10 loss at the hands of Brooklyn. The 10 points were the lowest single-game total by an NCAA team this season.
February 12, 2020
A Trillion is when a player gets into the game and records no stats other than minutes, leading the box score to consist of minutes followed by 12 zeros. Casey Ferguson of South Alabama recorded an 18 Trillion in a game against Coastal Carolina, the longest Trillion of the season.
February 26, 2020
After beginning its season 0-27, the Hartford Hawks pulled off one of the most improbable wins of the season with a 70-67 win over AEC-leading Stony Brook. Looking at the end-of-season Her Hoop Stats rating, this was the third-largest upset of the year. Coppin State over Norfolk State and Arizona State over Oregon were the only two other upsets with a larger HHS Rating difference.
March 6, 2020
In the first round of the Division III Tournament, 25-2 Grove City took on 27-0 Hope College. The Grove City Wolverines only scored 18 points in the entire game, a shocking result for a game consisting of two tournament-caliber teams.
March 9, 2020
Just a week and a half after Hartford’s stunning win, Iowa State knocked off Baylor at home in another shocking upset. The Cyclones’ win broke a 58-game winning streak in the Big 12.
Season Trends
34 games went to two or more overtimes, and two games went to triple overtime.
Western Michigan’s Maddie Watters made 26 three-pointers and zero two-pointers.
Breauna DeLon of Louisiana-Monroe was one of a handful of players who recorded a season-long “Trillion.” DeLon’s 6.5 minutes were the most by any player to finish the season with a Trillion.
What We’re Working On
Jenn Hatfield on a very generous gift to the Vermont women’s basketball program.
Jenn also wrote about ‘After the Game’, a documentary following Division III Chapman University’s push to reach the NCAA Tournament 20 years ago.
Richard Cohen looked at the salary situation for every WNBA team in the Eastern and Western Conferences and what each team can do to complete their rosters.
Megan Gauer calculated win shares for the 2020 Wooden Award finalists to see how the nation’s top players stack up.
I used the economic principle called “Pareto efficiency” to focus on 47 of the most impressive performances in Division I over the past five seasons.
We announced the five finalists for the inaugural Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year Award last week. We will be highlighting one finalist per day on social media beginning on Monday, March 23, so make sure to keep an eye out for those threads.
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What We’re Reading
Grant Wahl at Sports Illustrated on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s recent protest and how the demand for merchandise it sparked proves the core of the team’s argument.
Antonio Morales at The Athletic talked to some of USC football’s assistant coaches to see how the team is adjusting with the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Athletic’s Dana O'Neil talked to the wives of NCAA basketball head coaches about having much busier homes while basketball activities are on hold.
All statistics via herhoopstats.com or team websites unless otherwise noted and are up to date as of March 22, 2020.