SHAWNEE – After an 18-day Christmas break layoff, the Bison women's basketball team is heading back to the hardwood on Thursday to face off with Henderson State at 5:30 p.m. Then on Saturday the 7th, OBU will host Ouachita at 1 p.m. inside the Noble Complex.
OBU brings an 8-2 record and perfect (4-0) Great American Conference mark into the new year. They are tied for first with Harding and Southern Nazarene at the moment.
Last season, the green and gold split both games against Henderson State and Ouachita.
A Solid Test
The Bison will get a good sense of how they stack up in the Great American Conference over the next couple of weeks. First up: Henderson State. The Reddies will be the first GAC team that OBU faces with a winning conference record. HSU (6-4, 3-1 GAC) has league wins over Southern Arkansas, Arkansas-Monticello and Arkansas Tech. Historically speaking, HSU brings a 9-3 series advantage over the Bison into Thursday night's game.
Regional Recognition
Earlier this season, the Bison, for the first time ever, received a regional vote in the D2SIDA Central Region rankings. After a hot 8-2 start, OBU is now ranked. Over the Christmas break, the green and gold moved into 8th place in the Central Region poll, a program first.
A Look Back
OBU's last game, on Dec. 17 at East Central, brought some late-game adversity and big moments that the Bison took advantage of. Some clutch shots from
Melissa Southard and
Erika Ankney, along with key offensive rebounds by
Jill Leslie and
Jaedyn Getman, helped OBU win for just the second time in nine tries in Ada. The 74-71 road victory was the team's seventh straight win, the most consecutive games the Bison have won during the NCAA Division II era.
NCAA Stat Update
It goes without saying, but when a team is doing well, it usually finds itself ranked in different categories. And that's the case with this Bison squad. Their best mark: ranked No. 2 in the nation in free throw percentage at 81.40. After that, coach
Bo Overton's team's .800 winning percentage is slotted tied for 39th in D2 while their 43.64 field-goal percentage is good for 50th.
A Top-Two Matchup
Thursday night's matchup with the Reddies will bring the top two scorers in the GAC on to the court. Henderson senior Ashley Farrar is scoring 22 a game while
Erika Ankney follows at 20.1 per contest. Farrar has scored as many as 44 points this season (A GAC high) along with five other 20-plus-point outbursts. As for Ankney, she has tallied a season-high 27 and scored over 20 points in two other games. One advantage for OBU's senior: she has better field-goal and three-point percentage marks than Farrar.
Stacking Up With Henderson
The first game of 2023 will be an interesting one between the Bison and Reddies. HSU deploys a guard-heavy lineup while OBU brings a mix of backcourt and frontcourt players that have produced. Henderson holds a points per game advantage - 70.5 points to 67.7 - but OBU fares well in other areas. The green and gold shoot better from the field (43.6% to 37.7%) and the free-throw line (81.4% to 68.3%).
A Well-Balanced Lineup
Through 10 games, the Bison have three players that are averaging at least 10 points per game. Those are
Erika Ankney (20.1),
Madison Chambers (12.9) and newcomer
Jaedyn Getman (11.8). To date, OBU is one of only three GAC teams to have a trio of players ranked in the top-25 of the conference in scoring. The other institutions are Harding and Ouachita.
Scouting Henderson State
The Reddies had a three-game winning streak snapped after falling to Harding on Dec. 17 by an 83-65 count. Of note, two of Henderson's three GAC victories came in overtime versus Arkansas-Monticello and Southern Arkansas.
As has been written already, Henderson's Ashley Farrar is the league's top scorer. Her 22.0 points per game average is also slotted sixth in the country. The senior from Green Forest, Ark., scored a league-high 44 points against Southern Arkansas on Dec. 1.
One main concern for HSU is their team field-goal percentage. Of the 12 teams in the GAC, they are 11th. Through 10 contests, the Reddies are shooting 37.7 percent.
Defensively, the Reddies are very good at defending the three. So far, HSU has given up just 27.7 percent to opponents. Only two other schools have higher marks, Southern Arkansas and Northwestern Oklahoma State.
Scouting Ouachita
Ouachita has been up and down through eight games (4-4). They are coming off a 77-65 loss at Arkansas-Monticello, a game in which they shot 35.5 percent from the field and a miserable 19 percent from three. Both of those marks were the second-lowest totals for the Tigers this year.
Makayla Miller and Madeleine Tipton are the scoring threats for Ouachita. Miller is No. 11 in the GAC (14.9 ppg) while Tipton checks in at No. 14 (14.0).
A couple other players to keep an eye out for is Grayson Fairless and Laney Mears. Fairless is the GAC leader in field-goal percentage (64%). As for Mears, who averaged 14.0 points per game last year against OBU, she is in sixth in three-point field goal percentage (47.1%).
As a team, Ouachita boasts the second-best scoring offense in the league at 78 points per game. In three games this season, they've eclipsed 90 points, including 97 against Champion Christian on Nov. 11.
On the defensive front, coach Robert Dallimore's team is doing a good job in the steals department. Ouachita is collecting 9.13 per game. That mark is third-best in the GAC.
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