The following "Starting Five" points offer a quick look inside GLVC women's basketball action this week:
GLVC SPORTS NETWORK (GLVCSN): All GLVC home games are available for free on GLVCSN.com, the GLVCSN iOS and Android mobile apps, and GLVCSN OTT apps on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Android TV.
[1 // the week ahead]
Two days of
GLVC women's basketball action are on the docket to close the month of January, and five teams will host a game on both Thursday and Saturday. Those teams include Quincy, Missouri-St. Louis, Maryville, McKendree, and Illinois Springfield. East leader Lewis (16-4, 9-1 GLVC) is one of the teams that Quincy will host, as the Flyers are looking to extend their league-best win streak to double digits and maintain a spot atop the Point Rating System. Southern Indiana (15-2, 7-1) is currently on a four-game win streak and second in the PRS standings. The Screaming Eagles will split the week with a home game against UW-Parkside Thursday before traveling to McKendree Saturday. Drury (16-2, 7-1) enters the week leading the West and in third on the PRS after going 1-1 last week and will look to earn head coach Molly Miller's 100th career victory by winning out at Illinois Springfield and against William Jewell. Those contests along with all the others this week can be seen on every GLVCSN platform.
[2 // central’s close call]
At nearly the halfway point in the Conference slate, the inaugural
Central Division holds a three-way tie for first between Illinois Springfield (10-6), McKendree (8-7), and Missouri-St. Louis (10-5) all with a 4-4 GLVC record. With the sudden closing of one of the league’s charter members in Saint Joseph’s College at the close of 2016-17, the Conference went from 16 member schools with an eight-team division in both the East and West to 15 schools and three five-team divisions in 2017-18. With the divisional addition, so too will come a new divisional champion to be crowned following season’s end. As noted, the race is rather tight at the top of this new division. The arrival of this three-way tie has come from two UIS losses its last time out and UMSL and McKendree on a three- and two-game win streak, respectively. Earlier this month, the Tritons defeated the Bearcats, 63-55, in St. Louis and will meet again in Lebanon on Feb. 15, while the Prairie Stars have already narrowly lost both of its meetings with the Bearcats. McKendree won the first contest at home, 79-72, and grabbed a 69-65 win on the road just nine days later. UIS did, however, beat UMSL in the first meeting in Springfield, 69-65, and will travel to St. Louis for a rematch Feb. 17.
[3 // drury, usi ranked in wbca poll]
After its first GLVC loss this season at Bellarmine, 70-84, last week, Drury (16-2) fell from No. 6 to No. 10 in the
WBCA Top 25 Poll. Despite the single loss, the Panthers did defeat Truman State, 57-46, and Indianapolis, 80-60, a week ago. Southern Indiana (15-2) went 3-0 this past week and moved up another spot in the poll from No. 21 to No. 20, beating Bellarmine (67-59), Missouri S&T (90-71), and Truman State (70-50).
[4 // five-time glvc, two-time national potw]
Lewis junior Jessica Kelliher continues to solidify herself as one of the top players in the GLVC and Division II, winning both the
league’s Player of the Week award as well as the
USBWA national weekly honor for the second time in three weeks. In one of her three games last week, she scored 31 points, while adding 24 and 26 in the others. Kelliher has added five weekly honors to her resume this season to total 11 in her career, which is just three away from tying the league record for weekly laurels, while her USBWA award is the second one she’s earned this season.
[5 // best in the nation]
Four GLVC teams are found in six top-10 statistical categories as of the most recent NCAA report, while the same can be said of five league players in 11 different individual categories. UW-Parkside has not been shy about letting it fly from beyond the arc this season, and that fact shows in its ranking as the team to have attempted the second-most three-point field goals with 579. The Rangers follow in eighth with 171 of those shots being successful. Ranked fourth in blocked shots per game is Illinois Springfield with 5.9 per game, while Maryville has given up the eighth fewest turnovers in the country with 206 giveaways. Drury is the only other team to record a top-10 mark at this point with its 24.3 forced turnovers per game that ranks fifth, along with its turnover margin of 6.94 to rank ninth. As an individual, Lewis’ Jessica Kelliher is the top player in NCAA Division II for points per game (25.2) and field goals made (196), and she ranks third in field-goal percentage (66.0) and free throw attempts (150), while sixth with her 108 free throws made. Indianapolis’ Martha Burse is the only other GLCV player to hold the best mark in a national category, as she leads the way with 364 field goal attempts. She also is second in steals (70) – just one shy of the leader – and steals per game (3.68). Quincy’s Jessie Rabas and Maryville’s Mary Barton both come in at No. 6 for three-point field goal percentage (49.3) and minutes played per game (37.06), respectively, and Missouri S&T’s Janie Arand sits ninth with a 91.7 free throw percentage. A complete list of stats and rankings can be found on
NCAA.org.