Everything turned up Dakota in last week’s opening round of Summit League women’s games.
The early standings have a clean look, with every team either 2-0, 0-2 or yet to play a game due to the weather. The four teams on the winning end of things after last week have a couple things in common: all are from the Dakotas, and all started the year at home.
But beyond that, there is more than one way to craft a perfect start. Here are the main things that have fueled the quartet of 2-0 records on the women’s side of the conference.
South Dakota State: Stars dominating the paint
Even with Hannah Cooper and Oral Roberts putting a scare into the Jackrabbits, SDSU’s first two games reinforced that they are a force to be reckoned with this year. Part of that has been early league dominance from the two most obvious places on the Jackrabbits roster: their star forward duo.
Myah Selland (17.5 ppg, 8.0 rpg) and Paiton Burckhard (13.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg) dominated the Golden Eagles in the second half of their opener, and then steamrolled Kansas City by combining to make 13-of-17 shots within the three-point arc. The experienced twosome have also helped contribute to a team that is among the best in the country on the defensive glass, and that remained the case in their first two games.
Selland and Burckhard will always give SDSU a baseline that on its own may be enough to win most – if not all – league games this year. Pair that with a high ceiling backcourt that seems to have room to grow with Paige Meyer returning to health and Haleigh Timmer capable of big performances, and you can see why the Jackrabbits and their at-large worth resume are the league favorite.
South Dakota: Behold the power of Grace Larkins
By plenty of metrics, the Coyotes have the league’s best offense over its early, two-game glimpse. USD is the current league leader in the macro (points per game), the micro (points per play) and the visually appealing (field goal percentage). While those may or may not hold as the sample size grows, one thing would seem certain to remain consistent: Grace Larkins’ star power.
The sophomore guard had 31 points against Kansas City in the Yotes’ opener, and followed that up with 17 points in limited minutes against ORU due to foul trouble. She’s arguably the hardest player to guard in the league with how she can put pressure on defenses by getting into the paint, and her production has been off the charts this season (17.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 4.2 apg).
“I think in transition she was just really hard to stop tonight,” Kayla Karius said about Larkins after her effort against the Roos. “Our ability to rebound and then find her on an outlet, and then it was off to the races, it was either her pushing it and finding someone else or taking it all the way.”
The Yotes are still growing, but they look dangerous with Larkins and a momentum-building start to league play.
North Dakota: Keeping offenses cold
Kacie Borowicz remained awesome over UND’s perfect start (24.0 ppg) and Calire Orth wasn’t far behind (15.5 ppg), but the star of the show for the Fighting Hawks was a defense that just didn’t budge. They simply flummoxed both St. Thomas and Western Illinois to the tune of a combined 26.2 percent shooting over the two-game stretch.
The defensive performance against Western Illinois was especially impressive, as the Fighting Hawks allowed precisely zero (0) points against the Leathernecks in the second quarter – a first in program history – and just 11 points total in the first half. Were there caveats? Sure, since WIU was playing on the road in a game that got bumped up by a day due to the incoming winter storm.
But UND has been stout defensively all season, allowing Division I opponents to shoot just 35.5 percent from the field, the 34th best mark in the country per
herhoopstats.com. That stingy defense and a high scoring backcourt have UND riding a seven-game winning streak, and that should pose a problem for opponents through Summit League play.
North Dakota State: Home sweet home
The Scheels Center was more than a welcome sight for the Bison after their nearly month long quest away from Fargo. Of all the four playing at home, it may have had no greater effect than on NDSU, as the Bison shrugged off their four-game losing streak and got back to what they had spent the early portion of the season doing: winning.
And the bones of what led to their 6-0 start returned as they swept UST and WIU, as NDSU was solid defensively and got balanced offensive contributions from throughout Jory Collins’ rotation. Heaven Hamling (15 ppg) yet again led the way, but the Bison had seven players average seven points or more over the two-game stretch.
Collins recently talked about
wanting his team to foul less and that remained an issue last week, but they got off to a perfect start with the type of balanced, total team game that should make them a threat throughout the league season.
#SUMMITWBB
