After their win against Northern Arizona on Saturday, the women’s basketball team is a little more than halfway through a rollercoaster season.
The team has 11 of its 18 conference matchups left to play and there are plenty of positives and negatives.
Idaho is currently 8-10 overall and owns a 4-3 record in conference play. At their best, they have been a scorching offense with disciplined rebounding to dominate the game inside and out of the key. At worst, the shots don’t go in and there isn’t enough to fall back on to stay competitive.
As expected, Coach Jon Newlee’s squad has relied heavily on the 3-pointer. The team leads the Big Sky in threes attempted and made, led by junior guards Taylor Pierce and Mikayla Ferenz. The pair are first and second in the conference in threes made, respectively, and both are shooting over 40 percent from beyond the arc. The team as a whole leads the league in threes made and attempted, which suggests it isn’t just Ferenz and Pierce that are doing all the heavy lifting.
The group’s leadership as a whole has certainly stepped up.
Jonah Baker
Ferenz, Pierce and senior post Geraldine McCorkell have led the team with unceasing production. The trio have combined to average 52.8 points and 16.9 rebounds per game, which means that this team gets about 74 percent of its scoring and about 44 percent of its rebounds from three players. Pierce and Ferenz are both among the conference’s leaders in minutes with 36.3 and 36.4 per game respectively, and McCorkell isn’t too far behind with 30.9. In most cases, those numbers would be troubling, but the formula appears to be working in this case.
To top it all off, Ferenz is averaging 22.8 points per game as of this writing. That is good enough for first in the conference and seventh best in the entirety of NCAA Division I.
Scoring has not been Idaho’s problem. The defense and turnover margin, however, leaves something to be desired.
The Vandals are currently giving up the third-most points per game in the conference at 74.9, which brings their average scoring margin down to -3 per game. This stems in large part from the team’s tendency to turn the ball over at a normal rate and their inability to force turnovers. Idaho’s defense is only forcing a conference-low 10.2 turnovers per game, which limits fast break opportunities and puts increased pressure on the defense to get every rebound.
Idaho will play each of the other 11 Big Sky teams once and the Vandals will face seven opponents for a second time. The team will get ample opportunity to avenge its earlier conference losses with proper adjustment and foresight.
“We’re going to handle the basketball better and we’re going to face some tough conditions on the road in the coming weeks,” Newlee said. “We are going to embrace those challenges and play at that high level that I know we’re capable of.”
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker