NOTEBOOK (PDF)
Impressive First Week
Valley women’s hoops kicked off the 2019-20 season with a 14-5 mark during the opening week of play. The Valley joins the Power Five conferences along with the Big East with a winning percentage of .700 or above.
Top Winning Percentages by Conference
.885 - SEC
.882 - Big 12
.875 - Big Ten
.800 - ACC
.800 - Big East
.773 - Pac 12
.737 - Missouri Valley
Great Start for Bulldogs
Drake won its fifth-straight season-opener with its 74-67 home victory over 2019 Sweet 16 participant South Dakota State to start the 2019-20 campaign. The Bulldogs have won every opener since dropping the 2014-15 season-opener to South Dakota.
Drake also held off a tough Iowa State team, another NCAA team last year, for an 86-81 win Sunday afternoon. The Bulldogs and the Cyclones matched the exact same score as last season at Hilton Coliseum in Ames but this time the Bulldogs came out on top.
Statement Win
Fresh off a NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance, Missouri State opened the season with a wire-to-wire 77-69 win at #23 Minnesota in the first game under head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton. Missouri State extended its school record with its 11th consecutive road win and picked up its fourth victory during a stretch of five consecutive games against AP Top-25 opponents.
Road Streak Survives
The Lady Bears extended their school-record road winning streak to 12 games last week with two wins away from home. After running the table in Valley road games last year, MSU has picked up wins at No.13 Iowa State, 23rd-ranked Minnesota and Boise State to tie Princeton for the nation’s longest active road win streak. Both MSU and Princeton have road contests this week.
More Ranked W’s
The Lady Bears opened the year with a victory at No. 23 Minnesota for their fourth win in a stretch of five consecutive games against top 25 competition. After beating an unranked Texas A&M-Corpus Christi squad on Friday, MSU took down another team getting national recognition Sunday, earning a road win over a Boise State club that was receiving votes in both major polls.
Preseason WNIT
Missouri State will travel to Oklahoma in the Preseason WNIT semifinals Thursday after earning wins over Texas A&M-CC and Boise State last week. A win over the Sooners would put the Lady Bears into the WNIT Championship game (Oregon State or DePaul) on Sunday, Nov. 17 at 3:30 PM CT on CBS Sports Network.
Reaching the Century Mark
The Salukis improved to 6-0 when hitting the century mark for total points with their 103-67 win over SIUE. Southern’s 103 points in the win over SIUE were the second-most in a game in program history and were the most against a DI opponent in school history. It marked the first time since nearly three years ago (11/26/16) that the Salukis have reached triple-digits and it was the fourth time in which Southern has scored 100 or more points under seventh-year head coach Cindy Stein.
Party Like It’s 2011
Loyola picked up a pair of victories to open the 2019-20 campaign, cruising past Detroit Mercy, 89-60, last Tuesday at Calihan Hall before pulling out a thrilling 78-76 win over Vermont in Rogers Park just three days later. The Ramblers currently find themselves off to their best start to a season since going 3-0 to begin the 2011-12 campaign.
Panthers 2-0
UNI opened the season with wins over North Dakota State and Wichita State, marking the first 2-0 start for the Panthers since the 2015-16 season. It is UNI’s 4
th 2-0 start during the Tanya Warren era.
Power Five Up Ahead
This week, the MVC schedule features four more games against Power Five schools, including UNI at Missouri, Missouri State at Oklahoma, Illinois State at Illinois and Iowa at UNI. The conference sits 2-3 against Power Five opponents after the first week of play as Drake beat Iowa State and Missouri State beat #23 Minnesota in Minneapolis. Last season, the MVC earned three wins over members of Power Five conferences during the regular season.
1,000 Point Club
The Valley has four active players in the 1,000 point club entering the season. Sara Rhine sits fifth on the NCAA career scoring chart, while Hittner sits eighth. The duo is the second highest teammate scoring tandem in the country behind Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard.
Current MVC Players in 1,000 Point Club
1,702 - Sara Rhine, Drake
1,596 - Becca Hittner, Drake
1,090 - Alexa Willard, Missouri State
1,052 - Nicole Martin, Southern Illinois
Wade Award Watch List
Drake’s Becca Hittner and Sara Rhine have each been selected to the “Wade Watch” list of candidates for the 2020 Wade Trophy presented to the best player in college women’s basketball, the WBCA announced Thursday. Drake joins top ranked Oregon, #3 Stanford, #5 UConn and #7 Oregon State as the only schools with multiple players on the list.
Wooden Award Watch List
Drake senior Becca Hittner has been named to the John R. Wooden Award® presented by Wendy’s® Women’s Preseason Top 30 Watch List. The preseason list represents nine conferences: the Pac-12 leads all conferences with nine selections, followed by the SEC with six, the ACC and Big 12 with four apiece, the American and Big Ten with two each, and Conference USA, Ivy League, and Missouri Valley with one selection apiece.
Poll Position
Drake and Missouri State continue to receive votes in this week’s AP Top 25 Poll. The Bulldogs are receiving 49 votes, while the Lady Bears are receiving 12 votes this week (Nov. 11).