SHAWNEE – The start of 2024 brings the first of three Arkansas road trips for the Oklahoma Baptist women's basketball team. On Jan. 4, the Bison play at Ouachita before a Jan. 6 contest against Henderson State.
Tip-off times are 5:30 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively. The Bison Sports Network's Todd Miller and Scott Wanish will be on site in Arkadelphia for the call of both games.
Last Time Out
Eighteen days ago, the Bison played their last game of 2023 and chalked up a 69-60 win over East Central on Dec. 16. That evened the Bison's record at 5-5 including a 2-2 GAC mark.
Jaedyn Getman led with 19 points and nine rebounds while
Faith Wright added 12 points. Plus,
Jill Leslie had a solid outing off the bench with eight points, four boards and two blocks. On top of those individual efforts, the green and gold were very good at the free throw line making 32-of-42 for 76 percent. Plus, OBU did a solid job defensively limiting ECU to 32-percent shooting.
Fastest to 500
Sophomore
Jaedyn Getman is off to great start in her second season in a Bison uniform. She is one of only two GAC players - Southern Nazarene's Lauryn Reither being the other - to rank in the top-10 of the league in scoring, field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage. On top of that, she eclipsed 500 career points in the second-fast time by an OBU player in the program's D2 history. During the team's Nov. 25 win against St. Mary's, Getman scored 24 to go over 500 points. That was Getman's 36th game played. Only Kalifa Ford got there faster. That occurred in Ford's 32nd game two seasons ago against Southeastern Oklahoma State on Dec. 11, 2021.
Competing on Defense
Through 10 games, OBU is one of only two Great American Conference schools to rank in the top-five in steals and blocked shots per game. The team's 9.5 steals per contest ranks fifth while its 3.70 swats per game is slotted fourth.
Kennedy Large and
Parker Stevenson are 16th and 17th, respectively, in steals while
Sierra Copeland checks in at No. 3 with 12 blocked shots. OBU has twice against Midwestern State (11/21) and East Central (12/16) blocked a half-dozen shots while recording a season-high 17 steals versus Oklahoma City University on Nov. 17.
No Easy Task
OBU will try and reverse the outcomes of its last six games against Ouachita and Henderson State in Arkadelphia this week. That's right: the Bison have lost six straight on the road to each the Tigers and Reddies. Last season, the green and gold fell to Ouachita 73-51 before falling to HSU 68-56. Over the course of these six games, Ouachita has won by scoring averages of 67.2 to 56.2 while Henderson has dialed up average win totals of 82.2 to 67.8.
The Do-It-All Freshman
Freshman
Parker Stevenson has been, largely, the key contributor off the bench for the Bison. Her 10.3 scoring average ranks 25th in the GAC. The newcomer from Shawnee has reached as many 26 points this year. She also is littered across other GAC stat rankings: ninth in free throw percentage (87%); seventh in three-point field goal percentage (43.3%); 11th in blocks (7) and 17th in steals (1.6).
Three-Point Threats
The Bison boast a trio of players that are ranked within the top-20 of the GAC in three-point field goal percentage: Getman, Stevenson and
Catyn Graham. Ranked third is Getman at 46.7 percent while Stevenson follows four spots later at 43.3 percent. As for Graham, the freshman is making nearly 35 percent from deep. There are also two other schools that possess what the Bison have: Southeastern Oklahoma State and Saturday's opponent, Henderson State.
Speaking of Threes
Last game against East Central, the Bison did a good job limiting the Tigers from deep. ECU came into that contest ranked eighth in the country in threes per game (8.7). While the Tigers made nine versus the Bison, they didn't come in spurts but rather sporadically. That defensive effort will have to continue against Henderson who checks in as the conference leader in makes (8.8) and third with a 35.1 percentage mark.
Meet the Tigers
Ouachita's last game was an exhibition against Williams Baptist on Dec. 30 but prior to that, the Tigers earned an 81-78 GAC victory against Arkansas-Monticello on Dec. 16. They bring a 5-3 record into Thursday night's matchup.
Ouachita is the GAC leader and rank 15th nationally with a 78.79 free throw percentage. Laney Mears (pictured right) and Heidi Robinson lead that front. Mears is fourth in the GAC and No. 12 in Division II at 91.6 percent while Robinson is fifth in the conference at 90.5 percent.
Mears is Ouachita's leader. She is eighth in the league in scoring (15.8) and has reached double-figure scoring in seven of eight games. In last year's two games against the Bison, Mears totaled 30 points versus the green and gold.
Sophomore forward Grayson Fairless is another player the Bison will have to contend with. She ranks 14th in the GAC in field-goal percentage (45.4) and 24th in rebounding (5.0).
Helping lead Ouachita's offense is Joey Babel. The sophomore from Beebe, Ark., has 20 assists this year. Her 2.5 assists per game rank 13th in the GAC. She has posted as many as five assists twice: Nov. 10 against Champion Christian and Dec. 16 against UAM.
The Bison and Ouachita are very even across several GAC statistical categories. Field-goal percentage: OBU 7th; OUA 8th. Opponent three-point field goal percentage: OBU 11th; OUA 12th. Combined team rebounds: OUA 10th; OBU 11th. Assist-to-Turnover ratio: OBU 7th; OUA 9th.
Meet the Reddies
Henderson State fell to Harding 80-62 in its last game on Dec. 14. HSU is 6-4 and will play No. 7-ranked Southern Nazarene on Jan. 4 before playing the Bison two days later at the Duke Wells Center.
While the Reddies have the third-best scoring offense in the GAC (76.4), its defense has struggled. They rank dead last in the league giving up 76 points per game. HSU has given up at least 80 points in half of its contests.
The Reddies give up 41-percent shooting to its opponents, another mark that's last in the GAC, and are 11th out of 12 in combined opponent rebounds. HSU is allowing teams to collect 42.7 boards per game.
Ashley Farrar has been a force for Henderson the last few years. She was an All-GAC First Team selection last season and has scored more than 1,500 points in her career. She is fifth this season in scoring average (18.3), 11th in three-point shooting (40.7) and 15th in free throw percentage (77.3). In last year's games against OBU she tallied 24 points, five assists and three steals.
Tori Gittens is one of the top three-point shooting threats for HSU. She is third in the GAC with 2.4 makes per game and ranks second with a 53.3 shooting mark from beyond the arc.
Also of note, Natalie Cardenas has a 2.7 assists-per-game average. That's seventh-best in the Great American Conference.
