WBB: Thursday Thoughts
A month in let's take a look at some of the goings on around the WAC in the first issue of Thursday Thoughts
Back in my days as a Southern California high school volleyball ref for the Inland Volleyball Officials Association our instructors had something we called Thursday Thoughts.
Instead of officiating thoughts though these will be observations and notes about what has happened throughout the week.
Grand Canyon:
GCU is off to a good start behind a hungry group of returners led by Trinity San Antonio, Laura Erikstrup and Tiarra Brown, eager to end the WAC era in style.
Alyssa Durazo-Frescas has picked up right where she left off after leaving defending Mountain West champion UNLV, averaging 3.29 3-pointers made per game for a Lopes side with a pair of quality road losses at Oregon and Middle Tennessee.
They are, however, 2-0 against the Big 12 with a neutral floor win over Arizona State and a true road win at Arizona.
San Antonio led the way in Tucson with a season-high 26 points, 12 rebounds and four assists. Laura Erikstrup added 14 points and seven rebounds while Alyssa Durazo-Frescas chipped in with 13 points.
Thus far GCU has lived up to the top billing they were given in October for a second straight year. Will they be there when the clock strikes zero on March 8?
Utah Valley:
Despite losing three out of their last five games the Wolverines are off to a good start in 2024-25 at 6-3.
Two of those six wins were decided in the last minute on an Ally Criddle basket in San Diego to defeat Alabama A&M and previously a Saige Gibb basket with 3.1 seconds left at Kennesaw State to defeat the Owls.
Last year, the Wolverines featured one of the conference’s upper echelon defenses, but struggled to score for the most part…except for that 92 point outburst in Orem against CBU.
That isn’t the case this year as Utah Valley is averaging 69.7 points per game, a nearly ten point per game improvement in that category.
Danja Stafford-Collins has been a nice addition, averaging 11.4 points and 8.4 rebounds per game over a five game stretch in the middle of last month and adding depth in the post behind Tessa Chaney and Gracie Sorenson.
ACU:
We’ve always known that the Wildcats can put points on the board and in rapid fashion. But this year the ACU defense has been impressing about as much as, if not more than their heralded offense led by Bella Earle and Payton Hull.
ACU, through Wednesday night’s game against UTGV, has forced 248 turnovers in 10 games and finds themselves ranked 14th nationally in that category. That’s an improvement of 8.83 turnovers per contest year over year.
In turnover margin the Wildcats are currently at 5.3, which is just outside the top 50 nationally.
And in scoring defense the Wildcats, giving up 60.2 points per contest currently, will be in the top 125 in that category. That’s a 5.9 point per game improvement thus far.
If ACU can continue to show that kind of defensive prowess over the course of a 16 game conference schedule they should be contenders for a title.
Tarleton:
So far in 2024 the Texans defense has done its job, holding opponents to just 56.9 points per game which is just inside the top 70 nationally.
However, offensively it has just been a struggle for Tarleton to put points on the board.
Arieona Rosborough has made an impact averaging just under 12 points per game. No other Texan is averaging more than 7.3.
Tarleton is ranked 337th in scoring offense at 52.3 points per game, 305th in 3-point percentage, 324th in total field goal percentage, and 345th in assists per contest.
With the number of quality offenses in the WAC the Texans are going to have to find more points to keep up during conference play.
Utah Tech:
With Macie and Maddie Warren taking medical redshirts the biggest question in St. George was could the Trailblazers keep up offensively and score at the clip we are used to seeing?
A month and nine games into the season they’ve answered that question with a resounding yes. Two of JD Gustin’s newcomers in Chardonay Hartley, a Niagra transfer, and Aalyiah Ibarra, a junior college transfer, are in the conference’s top 10 in scoring and three Trailblazers in total with Emily Isaacson.
The Trailblazers are currently second in WAC scoring offense and second in 3-point percentage.
I expect the Trailblazers to contend for a top four finish and play spoiler to someone’s regular season title hopes like last year’s team did on Senior Day against SFA.
Can they win a title? That will depend on how much improvement they show defensively during the stretch run in non-conference play.
UT Arlington:
Shereka Wright’s team has struggled from beyond the arc early in 2024-25, shooting just 15.9 percent.
However, the Lady Mavs are still scoring 64.9 points per game, led by a pair of fifth year players in Avery Brittingham and Koi Love, who are averaging nearly 30 points per game.
If UT Arlington can get on track from beyond the arc expect them to contend for a regular season title.
Even without that component of the offense clicking the Lady Mavs were able to defeat Houston on Wednesday and had a lead after a quarter at SMU.
Seattle U:
With a retooled roster some struggles might’ve been expected early in the season for the Redhawks.
And they’ve shown early, failing to score 60 points in their first four contests before back-to-back efforts of 75 points or more.
In the Redhawks 79-76 win over East Texas A&M we saw what Seattle U’s offense could look like when it is all clicking. They shot 13-32 from 3-point range with Tai Kozlova hitting a quartet from beyond the arc while adding 32 paint points and playing with a pace that was missing last year.
Southern Utah:
2022-23 WAC champion Southern Utah has struggled in the early part of non-conference play, going winless against Division 1 competition, losing by an average of nearly 16 points per game.
They’ll have two more opportunities to get wins against Division 1 competition before WAC play starts just after New Years and both will be in the AFEC. On December 16 they complete WAC/CUSA challenge play against Sam Houston State and 12 days later they host Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Sydney Gandy, Ava Uhrich, and Daylani Ballena are all averaging between 10 and 11 points per game for the Thunderbirds, scoring an average of 60 points per game so far.
If the TBirds can get clicking over the course of these last few non-conference games expect them to have a solid bounce-back year.
CBU:
A tough start for our defending champions got tougher this week with the news that Khloe Lemon and Filipa Barros will miss the remainder of the campaign while dealing with foot injuries and use medical redshirts.
That is nearly 24 points per game the Lancers will have to replace in addition to losing Kinsley Barrington, Nae Nae Calhoun and Chloe Webb to graduation.
Grace Schmidt has picked up right where she left off at Christmas Break last year, averaging 13.7 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. Also, out of the portal, Emma Johansson has proven to be a nice addition, averaging 10.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game over her last four contests.
A CBU offense that is used to being among the WAC leaders, is struggling with the injuries, ranking eighth in scoring, ninth in free throw percentage, and eighth in 3-point percentage.
However, the shorthanded Lancers have battled in their mid-major games against Pepperdine, San Diego State, Portland, Saint Louis, FGCU and Penn.
They had a 12 point lead after three quarters against the Quakers, led last year’s ASUN champs in FGCU after a quarter, and were competitive against last year’s WNIT champion Billikens and Mountain West runners-up in SDSU.
CBU has games remaining at Saint Mary’s, at CSUN, home against UCSD, Middle Tennessee State to complete WAC/CUSA challenge play, and Texas Southern to complete non-conference play.
Don’t write off the Lancers in terms of playing spoiler on someone’s bad day but the road to defending a championship got a lot tougher.