Looking Ahead To Wednesday Night - A Closer Look At UST vs GAC

In all the years that I've watched and covered MIAC women's hoops, I just can't ever recall a bigger game with so many implications that Wednesday night's game between visiting #3 UST and host #17 GAC has.  What makes this game so incredibly super cool is that not only are both teams unbeaten and capable of making big runs come March, but you can also make an argument for both teams on why they should be favored in this titanic match-up at Lund Arena.  So what I want to try and do here is break things down a little bit, look at each position and look at some numbers and trends as well. First, let's look at each position:

Point Guard:

Gabby Zehrer - UST

Mikayla Miller - GAC

This might be the best match-up of all the spots.  Both are incredibly good players.  They both can handle the ball well and both can light it up from behind the arc if they have to.  Zehrer averages 13.1 ppg and is also pretty reliable from the charity stripe shooting 86.8% for the season so far.  The Gusties rely heavily upon Miller for offensive production as her 17.6 ppg so far this season would suggest.  What a lot of people forget is that Miller can also get down into the paint and do the dirty work that many other guards prefer not to do and she so far has been averaging 4.2 rebounds per game which isn't bad.


Off-Guard Spots:

Maddie Wolkow - UST
Paige Gernes - UST

Justine Lee - GAC
Taylor Anderson - GAC

Wolkow, who was battling some injury problems early in the season, is a true warrior and although she isn't necessarily a prolific scorer as her 4.6 ppg this season would suggest, she can be deadly if she gets an open look behind the arc.  Gernes is a seasoned vet who has paid her dues at UST and is an incredibly good ballhandler and although she isn't necessarily a prolific scorer either as her 4.2 ppg would suggest, she is incredibly good in driving into the paint and drawing a foul and is also someone you would want leading a transition opportunity as well.  For the Gusties, Lee is a sophomore who is slowly carving an idendity for herself averaging 8.3 ppg per game.  Anderson; another sophomore, is a long 5'7" player and though not a prolific scorer at 3.6 ppg can play solid defense out on the perimeter.


Small Forward:

Lauren Fischer - UST

Hannah Howard - GAC

Fischer may easily be the most under-appreciated player on this UST team if not the entire MIAC. She averages 9.5 ppg and can be absolutely lethal from behind the arc, averaging 44.9% from three-point land.  She's also the one person you do not want to foul either late in a game as she will make you pay from the charity stripe where she shoots 93.3%.  And she's not a bad rebounder either averaging 5.4 rebounds per game.  Howard's stat line is equally impressive as she averages 9.4 ppg and can be an absolute monster on the boards and on defense (her specialty).  Like Fischer, she averages 5.4 rebounds a game and she was clutch in the late going against Bethel earlier in the season.


Post:

Kaitlin Langer - UST

Miranda Rice - GAC

Not sure how many more accolades there are when it comes to Langer, who was a First Team All-American, West Region Player of the Year, First Team All West Region and MIAC POY.  And that was just last year.  She averages 19.3 ppg and is an absolute terror on the boards as her 8.5 rebounding average per game would suggest.  She really took her game to a new level last season and you can double-team or triple-team her and she'll STILL find a way to make things happen.  But Rice is no slouch in the post and anyone who underestimates her ability down low is sadly mistaken.  She averages 17.1 ppg and also snares an average of 5.5 rebounds per game.  She's very physical as well and knows how to use her body to initiate contact.  In other words, she's the one person you don't want to have wind up guarding down low one-on-one.


Off The Bench:

Lucia Renikoff - UST
Sarah Krynski - UST
MacKenzie Denk - UST
Hannah Spaulding - UST

Brooke Lemke - GAC
Kelsey Carpenter - GAC
Kendall Thompson - GAC
Emee Udo - GAC

The Tommies took a hit when sophomore Bobbi Brendefur was lost for the season with a knee injury but they still have a very capable squadron coming off the bench that can give quality minutes. Renikoff is a long and athletic guard who averages 7.8 ppg and is very good at the line where she shoots 91.7%.  Krynski; the freshman out of Lakeville North, is learning the ropes but is slowly improving on both sides of the ball.  Denk, another Lakeville North product, is a capable back-up down low to give Langer some breathing time and Spaulding has been able to do the same as well. For the Gusties, Lemke is probably the most dynamic play-maker off the pine.  She averages 5.5 ppg and is a solid defender and very quick to boot.  Carpenter seems to be the forgotten element on this Gustie team but you'd better not forget about her when she's on the floor; particularly behind the arc where she can make you pay in spades.  Thompson is slowly starting to come into her own as a sophomore and she'll only get better as time goes on.  Udo; the former Eastview standout, can use her long 5'9" frame to grab rebounds and be a menace on defense.


Numbers and Trends:

The Tommies mantra has always been defense and the fact that they normally limit opponents to 34.6% from FG range alone will help you win a lot of games.  They normally average 41 total rebounds a game and almost 11 more than opponents so far this season.  That's tough to beat.  But if there's one thing that UST Head Coach Ruth Sinn is deathly afraid of, it's opponent's ability to hit the "3".  For the most part this season, the Tommies have been pretty decent on that front; limiting opponents to 29% from behind the arc. But there have been a few games this season where opponents had some good luck behind the arc and Sinn no doubt remembers all too well how Wartburg sank the Tommies last season in the NCAA Tournament with all those three-point bombs.  Fouls are another item that's been something of an Achilles' heel for UST in recent seasons and they can ill-afford to get into foul trouble early in this game Wednesday night.  The Gusties are pretty tough on the boards as well, averaging 37.7 boards a game; 7.8 more rebounds than opponents do.  I think that's one area that the Gusties - without question - have to win on Wednesday night.  GAC averages about 16.1 turnovers a game and that's a number that'll have to come down a bit on Wednesday night.  The Gusties without question have made tremendous strides this season defensively as they average 12.6 steals per game that's helped them get into transition opportunities much more easily this year.  And that has to be something that makes GAC Head Coach Laurie Kelly feel good about going into this game on Wednesday night.  A couple of other stats that often get overlooked - second-chance points and points in the paint.  UST had their way with Macalester a week ago with a 15-4 edge in second-chance points and a 34-14 dominance in points in the paint.  The game with CSB this last Saturday, however, was a much different story.  In that game where the Tommies still won convincingly enough, their second-chance points was only a 10-6 advantage and CSB actually had the edge in points in the paint by a 20-16 count.  For the Gusties this last Wednesday night up in Moorhead against Concordia, it was something of a mixed bag as Concordia held an 18-14 edge in points in the paint but GAC won the second-chance point category by a 9-2 margin.  This last Saturday it was a much different story as the Gusties dominated the points in the paint category by an overwhelming 38-10 count and had a 12-7 edge in second-chance points.  So it shows that while neither side has been perfect here, they can be good in both of these categories when they have to be.

Finally, I want to look at how these teams won games and how many close games they've been involved in so far this season.  For UST, they have so far received three fairly stern challenges - one by UW-Stevens Point back in November, a nine-point win at Augsburg in December and a ten-point win at St. Olaf back in early January.  The Gusties path to this point has been somewhat tougher as they won a tough four-point game at SMU back in early December, won another tough four-point game at UW-River Falls during the holiday break, had a four-point thriller at Bethel in early January and then had the two-point escape job up in Moorhead against Concordia last week Wednesday.  I'm not sure how much one should draw from that but you have to give the Gusties a lot of credit for managing to hang on to beat some tough opponents on the road and, save for a bit of a tussle with St. Kate's in mid-January, they really have been taking it to opponents in the friendly confines of Lund Arena.


Summary:

So who wins here?  That's an incredibly tough question to answer and as I said earlier, what's really cool about this contest is that you can make strong arguments for both teams.  The numbers that I've looked at and tried to lay out here might give UST a bit of an edge but, then again, when you've got two very good teams on the floor with emotions running high as I expect they will on Wednesday night, you can probably throw a lot of those numbers out the window.  The real beauty of this game, IMHO, is that, the sun will still come up the following morning for the team that comes out on the short end of the stick in this game.  It's far from the end of the world for the team that loses this game. The only thing I would point out here is that this game, from a UST angle anyway, is really just the beginning of what could be a very taxing week for the Tommies.  After this game, they get a very dangerous St. Kate's team in Schoenecker Arena on Saturday then have to hit the road first thing Sunday morning for a trip down to Decorah, Iowa to face IIAC powerhouse Luther; a game that was rescheduled from December after it was snowed out.  So if the Tommies wind up going two out of three this week, that's not a bad proposition.  GAC's remaining road down the home stretch of the regular season is much less stressful.  UST has obviously had more exposure to these big game settings than GAC has had and you can argue that this may very well be the biggest game in GAC women's hoops history; save for the 2002-03 MIAC Championship Game at Carleton.

All I know for sure is this.  You'd better buckle up once you hit Lund Arena tomorrow night for this heavyweight bout because it should be a dandy.  And I sure hope GAC students are there to rock Lund Arena the way it should be rocking for a game like this.  Get your popcorn and hotdogs and let this battle begin!