Another Gillen Triple-Double, Webb Strengthens Case for POY, and More
Breaunna Gillen stuffs the stat sheet once again and Chloe Webb makes statement for Player of the Year.
37 days. Yes, 37 days away from the WAC Tournament tipping off at Orleans Arena.
Man, this 2023-24 season is flying by.
We have had triple-doubles, 30-plus point performances, and and astonishing number of double-doubles in 2023-24.
Another one of those triple-doubles happened on Thursday with the WAC Preseason Player of the Year picking one up in a road win.
Another double-double was had by multiple players.
The WAC seems to have a bunch of stat-sheet stuffers.
Women’s basketball in the Western Athletic Conference has been pretty entertaining in 2023-24. Three teams sit within a game of each other for the regular season title.
Five teams are battling for the final spots at WAC Vegas. Teams are winning despite having depleted rosters. It is just a wild time.
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Anyway, let’s get to all that happened plus a look at the week WAC Hoops Power Rankings.
SUU Splits Texas Trip with OT Win at UTRGV
While this week’s trip to Texas for the Southern Utah women’s basketball team didn’t start out on a good note, it certainly ended on one.
After dropping their Thursday game at UT Arlington by 16 points, the Thunderbirds were facing a must win for their chances of returning to WAC Vegas.
It took overtime in Edinburg against UTRGV, but Southern Utah got the 68-65 win over the Vaqueros.
Sam Johnston led four Thunderbirds in double-digit scoring with 18 points and nine rebounds.
Alexa Lord also had one of her best performances of the year with 14 points and 12 rebounds while Ava Uhrich battled foul trouble.
For a third time in five games, Southern Utah hit eight or more shots from behind the arc with Johnston hitting three.
Southern Utah plays host to in-state rival Utah Tech on Thursday.
Gillen’s Big Day Helps Utah Tech Sweep Texas Trip:
At the College Park Center on Saturday in a 72-60 win over UT Arlington, which gave the Trailblazers four wins in their last five games, Breaunna Gillen made another entry in the triple-double club this year.
Gillen, the conference preseason Player of the Year, recorded 14 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds while playing 39 of 40 minutes.
She joins Abilene Christian’s Bella Earle at the top of the leaderboard in that category, each having done twice in 2023-24.
UT Arlington’s Avery Brittingham also recorded a triple-double in the Lady Mavs win against Stephen F. Austin on January 6. Brittingham leads the conference in double-doubles with eight.
With four weeks left in the regular season, there have been five triple-doubles across the WAC this year.
Webb, Lancers Complete Season Sweep of Seattle
In Saturday’s 86-77 win at Seattle, CBU’s Chloe Webb joined Payton Hull of Abilene Christian in recording her second 30+ point game of the season.
Webb was 10-18 from the field and hit all 11 free throws while hitting a pair of shots from 3-point range and adding 10 rebounds in 38 minutes of work. Webb is tied for 2nd in the conference in double-doubles.
As of Saturday, Webb is the conference scoring leader at 21.5 points per contest.
Collegeinsider.com Poll Update
GCU and CBU continue to stay in the collegeinsider.com mid-major poll, this week finding themselves 15th and 17th in the poll respectively.
The Lopes have a bye on Thursday before embarking on a three-game road trip, which includes Southern Utah, Utah Tech and the much anticipated matchup with CBU on February 17 in Riverside.
Meanwhile, CBU visits UT Arlington on Thursday, hosts Utah Tech on Saturday, and visits Utah Valley before that game against GCU on February 17.
Weekly Awards
CBU’s Chloe Webb was selected Player of the Week for week ending Saturday after a 33 point and 10 rebound performance against Seattle in an 86-77 win. It’s her second game of 30 or more points this season.
Joining her as Newcomer of the Week is Gia Adams from UT Arlington. Adams, who recently scored her 1,000th-career point, averaged 13.0 points, 5.5 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 2.0 steals last week as the Lady Mavs split games with Southern Utah and Utah Tech.
Standings
Here are the WAC Standings with games completed through February 3.
GCU: 19-4, 11-1
CBU: 17-2, 9-1
SFA: 15-7, 9-2
Utah Tech: 13-9, 7-4
UT Arlington: 10-11, 6-5
ACU: 8-11, 4-6
SUU: 6-14, 4-7
UVU: 8-12, 3-8
Tarleton: 6-14, 3-8
UTRGV: 4-16, 3-8
Seattle: 1-19, 1-10
Power Rankings
Not a lot of movement this week as things stayed fairly settled across the conference.
A couple of games to watch this weekend are Utah Tech at CBU and UT Arlington at SFA, both on Saturday.
When the Trailblazers and Lancers met in St. George to start WAC play CBU and Utah Tech combined to score nearly 150 points and hit 23 shots from beyond the arc.
In that UT Arlington at SFA game we have Avery Brittingham’s return to the Sawmill as the Ladyjacks look to avenge an earlier loss to UTA and stay a game behind GCU and CBU in the loss column.
Mailbag
We have a couple of fan questions to tackle in a mailbag this week.
This is a really hard question to answer and I don’t think it’s one that will be answered until the night of March 9 which means the DOBO’s will have fun trying to get hotels.
ACU will finish with six of their final 10 games at home but only one of those games comes against a regular season title contender. SFA makes the trip to Moody Coliseum while ACU still has to visit CBU and GCU. The Wildcats will have to take advantage of home floor to fight their way in.
UTRGV has five of their final nine games at home but three of those games are SFA, GCU, and CBU…the teams in the fight for that regular season championship. If they can get a couple of road wins they’ll have a shot at the last spot.
Southern Utah also has five of nine at home to finish with their second games against SFA and GCU still left. They get to be at home for the final week.
Tarleton has two games left with last place Seattle and two with Utah Valley among their final nine games.
UVU has four of nine at home with games against SFA and CBU left along with two against Abilene Christian.
To answer the question I believe it’s UTRGV and Utah Valley. They have the two toughest stretch runs.
So far the Ladyjacks have gotten some pretty good scares in conference play but managed to keep themselves near the top. Leonard Bishop’s team has definitely exceeded the expectations a lot of people had when the season started.
But they struggled offensively in those two road games against GCU and CBU last week, shooting a combined 34.7 percent (29.5 percent beyond the arc) while splitting the trip.
They’ll have the advantage of being home in the second matchups against the other contenders.
I’m not counting the Ladyjacks out until the math says they can’t win that regular season title.
Despite being seventh in total field goal percentage and sixth in 3-point percentage they’re tied for second in points per game offense.
Can they get enough stops defensively is the question? SFA is sixth in scoring defense, fifth in total defensive field goal percentage and defensive 3-point percentage and eighth in defensive rebounding.