Drive to Detroit: #HLWBB garners national acclaim as league play tips off
Lance Rinker
Drive to Detroit is a series that prepares fans for Motor City Madness. Each article will take fans behind the scenes of a team’s journey or preview what fans can expect when they arrive in Detroit. This installment focuses on the top performers on the league's women's hoops side, featuring four teams ranked in the College Insider Mid-Major Top 25, which is tied for the most of any conference.
By Joey Yashinsky
Horizon League Contributor
Green Machine Running at Full Throttle
There were 31 ballots cast in the most recent College Insider Women’s Mid-Major Top 25 poll. Kevin Borseth’s Green Bay Phoenix gobbled up every first-place vote. And they’re starting to creep up the national rankings, too.
Winners of 19-straight regular-season conference championships, Green Bay has broken from the starting blocks at a full sprint in 2017. The Phoenix are a sterling 10-1 and have earned a spot in the national rankings — #19 in the AP Poll and #20 in the Coaches’ Poll. Tack on the fourth-best RPI in the entire country and you’re looking at not just a contender for yet another Horizon League title, but a squad the whole nation better keep an eye on come NCAA Tournament time.
Borseth’s group is deep and unrelenting. Seniors Jessica Lindstrom and Allie LeClaire are the leaders of the pack, and they get plenty of help along the way. Redshirt freshman Karly Murphy put together an excellent non-conference campaign and Jen Wellnitz is hounding opposing ball-handlers to the tune of 26 steals in 11 games. Think she’s gunning for that HL Defensive Player of the Year award?
But Green Bay will find out in its very first Horizon League contest that a 20th straight title won’t come easy.
Raider Nation
That’s because the Phoenix’s conference opener will occur at Wright State, recent winners of six consecutive games, with each victory coming by double-digits. The Raiders are currently slotted #11 in the Mid-Major Top 25 and could see that ranking skyrocket with a home win over Green Bay to kick off league play.
Head coach Katrina Merriweather oversees an experienced team with a host of scoring options, the most dangerous of which is senior guard Chelsea Welch. The sharpshooting Welch was voted the Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year and has been named conference Player of the Week twice already in this campaign.
How’s this for production? Welch is averaging better than 21 points, five assists, and four rebounds on the season while shooting a blistering 53 percent from downtown (17-of-32) and a near-automatic 86 percent (66-of-77) at the foul line. Juniors Mackenzie Taylor and Emily Vogelpohl bookend Welch to form one of the most lethal backcourt trios in America.
IUPUI Unafraid of New Surroundings
There are certain situations in life when getting acclimated to something new can be quite difficult and stressful. Then there are instances when that perceived hurdle is leapt over by ten feet, with speed only picking up as the race progresses. Meet IUPUI, a newcomer to the Horizon League, but a team already grabbing headlines and praise from across the basketball landscape.
Austin Parkinson’s unit was pegged just seventh in the preseason conference polls, but early returns suggest that a gross miscalculation may have been made. The defensively-minded Jaguars are 8-3 heading into Horizon League play and sit at #23 nationally among mid-majors. Trying to score on a Parkinson-coached team is the equivalent of a hoops migraine — it’s a painful experience and one that doesn’t just go away in 40 minutes. In the Jaguars’ eight victories this season, not a single opponent has reached the 60-point mark.
The new kids on the block have been paced by one seasoned vet and one fresh-faced rookie. Danielle Lawrence is a tough-as-nails senior guard averaging just under 17 points per game. Her partner in crime has been the Horizon League’s top freshman thus far, Macee Williams. Williams has poured in almost 12 points a night on an almost-unfathomable 67.5-percent shooting from the field. She pulls down 7.5 boards a game, too. Williams just snagged her third Freshman of the Week award, and it could be a photo finish with Green Bay’s Murphy for top newcomer status at year’s end.
Panthers On The Prowl
The Milwaukee Panthers stumbled out of the gate, losing their first two contests. That’s a distant memory now. Seniors Steph Kostowicz, Jenny Lindner, and Bailey Farley steered the resilient Panthers to victories in nine of the next ten games and they, too, have now earned a spot in the Mid-Major Top 25 (#24). (The Horizon League’s four Top-25 teams are tied for the most of any conference, sharing that distinction with the Mid-American Conference.)
Kyle Rechlicz had her club flying high during Motor City Madness last March and it appears that momentum has carried over into this season. Milwaukee has already earned impressive road victories against a pair of Big Ten opponents in Northwestern and Wisconsin. That should bode well as the Panthers begin Horizon League play with a tricky three-game road swing at Northern Kentucky and Wright State before finishing up with a date in Green Bay.
Milwaukee has received a tremendous boost from a pair of young guards, sophomore Jamie Reit and redshirt freshman McKaela Schmelzer. Reit is bombing away from beyond the arc and Schmelzer is providing the tenacity and grit that made her such a force on the Panthers’ terrific soccer team the last two seasons. Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders better be on alert; the Mount Rushmore for two-sport athletes might need some reshuffling in the next few years.
Horizon League Heavyweights Ready for Battle
The Mid-Major Top 25 is peppered with Horizon League representation, and Cleveland State could be knocking on that door very soon, as well.
The almost two-decade run of dominance for the Green Bay Phoenix cannot be ignored and, in sports, the champion remains just that until the belt is wrestled away by someone else. But that 20th-straight title will not come easy.
There are contenders flying in from every angle, making the Horizon quite possibly the strongest mid-major conference in all the land. Will Welch continue her red-hot play into 2018 and beyond? Could IUPUI ride that chip on its shoulder all the way to a league championship in year one? Are Kostowicz and Lindner ready to turn Milwaukee into the next Horizon League power? Or will a team lurking just behind make a push for the top spot?
No victory will come easy in this 2017-18 conference season, where you must earn every inch of the 94-foot hardwood court on a nightly basis.
The Horizon League’s women’s basketball season is chock full of storylines, and conference play has not even commenced.
This should be a whole lot of fun.
Drive to Detroit series
1: The District Detroit
2: College Hoops Invades Little Caesars Arena
3: #HLWBB garners national acclaim as league play tips off