Weekly Roundup: December 22, 2019
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The Roundup
In last week’s Roundup, I mentioned that our Morgan Reeder wrote about the Triple-Double Queen, Sabrina Ionescu. Since then, Ionescu has recorded triple-doubles in her last two games to bring her career total to 21. That is impressive in its own right, but there’s more… Ionescu is the only player in NCAA women’s basketball history with one or more triple-doubles in four seasons, and she is only the second player to record consecutive triple-doubles three times in a career.
Ionescu wasn’t the only player with impressive stat lines this week. Texas Tech’s Brittany Brewer recorded a whopping 16 blocks to go with 12 points and 12 rebounds in a triple-double against Louisiana-Monroe. That ties Sandora Irvin’s NCAA-record 16-block performance in 2005, which also happened to come in a triple-double. Florida State’s Kiah Gillespie also notched a triple-double with 14 points, 13 boards, and 10 assists in a big win over Michigan.
What We’re Working On
Our weekly AP Top 25 Analysis courtesy of Morgan Reeder looked at which teams moved the most in a week where, on the surface, nobody moved much. Link
Calvin Wetzel wrote up a quick debrief following Juicy Landrum’s record-setting performance against Arkansas State. Link
In his first story at HHS ( 🎉), Derek Helling wrote about South Carolina’s incredibly talented freshman class and how they have been key to their strong start this season. Link
Weekly Series
We have had two podcast episodes drop since last week’s Roundup, including a great interview with Penn head coach Mike McLaughlin. You’re going to want to tune into this one, as coach McLaughlin has tons of experience in the basketball world, including his time facing off against the Harlem Globetrotters as a member of the Washington Generals. In the other podcast episode this week, Megan Gauer and Ben Dull talked Pac-12 hoops in this week’s Unplugged episode.
Since people are busy with the holidays this week, we decided not to send out a full-length write-up of our Top 25 ballot this week. That doesn’t mean the poll is taking a week off, so I figured I would use this opportunity to talk about some tricky decisions I have to make for this week. The elephant in the room is Stanford—How far should they fall after losing to the unranked Texas Longhorns? You have to drop them below Oregon State and UConn, both of whom are still undefeated with strong wins on their resume. South Carolina has wins over Baylor and Maryland, and their loss to Indiana is far superior to a loss against an unranked team. Right now, I think Stanford sits at No. 4, just ahead of Oregon, with their wins over Mississippi State and Gonzaga.
The other area where I have to make some tough decisions is in the bottom half of the rankings. The following five teams ranked No. 17 through No. 24 lost last week—FGCU, Michigan, Michigan State (twice), Missouri State, and South Dakota. Michigan is likely to drop out, as will Michigan State after their third and fourth losses of the season over the past few days. Missouri State will be safe, but South Dakota and FGCU are right on the edge of falling out as well. This leaves upwards of four open spots that will need to be filled. Arkansas, Miami, and Minnesota are the obvious candidates, but the teams behind them based on the AP Poll (Rutgers, Colorado, Arizona State) don’t quite have the resumes to edge out teams like Michigan or Michigan State.
Due to the holiday break, this week’s Games to Watch from Marissa Sisk will be released later this week, so keep an eye out for that on social media. When games resume on Dec. 28, Big Ten play opens with all 14 teams in action, and the SEC and Pac-12 begin their conference schedules the next day.
Housekeeping
In last week’s Weekly Roundup, I talked about how Debbie Antonelli was offering to sponsor five new subscribers to our website. That promotion is now over, but we’re happy to announce that @robbymack87 is sponsoring two subscriptions for anyone who subscribes on or before December 24. Just subscribe using the button below, and we will refund two random subscribers.
You can support our work by subscribing to herhoopstats.com. For just $20 per year, you’ll get access to in-depth, easy to access statistics for women’s basketball. A subscription is perfect for coaches and players of all levels, SIDs, broadcasters, and fans.
What We’re Reading
The founder of HHS, Aaron Barzilai, wrote about ‘Pace and Space’ for The Athletic in his first of a series of monthly pieces. Link ($)
High Post Hoops’ Nick Niendorf dug into the data and looked at how the Big Ten stacks up before conference play begins. Link
Swish Appeal’s Eric Nemchock wrote a great (and very well-timed) profile of Texas’ Joyner Holmes as part of his year-long series on 2020 WNBA Draft prospects. Link
And finally, although it isn’t a story, we wanted to make sure everyone sees the touching moment when Holly Rowe surprised Pitt’s Kyla Nelson before her first game since returning from cancer surgery. Holly has been a frequent topic of discussion in our HHS Slack channel in the past week. As good as she is at her job as a reporter, the discussion often revolved around her impact as a person.
All statistics via herhoopstats.com and are up to date as of December 15, 2019.