Gopher Basketball
Coming off their worst performance of the year in a blowout at the hands of Michigan State, the Gopher women’s basketball team completed a regular season sweep of the Purdue Boilermakers before a home crowd of 13,222 at Williams Arena, the 5th largest women’s basketball crowd in the history of the program.
With the win, the Gophers moved to 19-5 overall, 9-3 in the Big 10. The Gopher perimeter players, who had been hapless in the loss to MSU, contributed substantially in the win over Purdue. Shannon Schonrock hit 4 of 6 3-point field goals and scored 13 points, including a rare 4-point play. April Calhoun and Kelly Roysland added 11 points each; Shannon Bolden scored 10 on 4 of 5 shooting from the field. Gophers leading scorer Janel McCarville scored only 8 points, but tallied 12 rebounds and 7 assists.
The Gophers surged to a 36-18 halftime lead and cruised the rest of the way. The Gopher defense forced 24 turnovers and held Purdue to 36% shooting from the field, as the Boilermakers dropped to 13-10 overall, 6-6 in the Big 10.
No. 2 Ohio State Next. The Gophers now travel to Columbus for a matchup with conference-leading Ohio State. The Buckeyes (24-2, 11-1) are currently ranked 2nd in the Associated Press poll. With basically the same cast of characters, OSU beat the Gophers 3 times last year. This will be the only regular season game between these 2 teams. Thursday’s 7 p.m. game will be televised by Fox Sports Network.
OSU is led by 6’5″ sophomore Jessica Davenport, who has become 1 of the top players in the country. Davenport has been named the Big 10 Player of the Week 3 times this year, all in January, and she was recently named the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association National Player of the Month for January. A home-grown talent from Columbus, Davenport recorded 3 double-doubles in January and also she had back-to-back 30-point road games with 36 at Wisconsin and 32 at Illinois. She’ll battle Gopher All-American Janel McCarville on Thursday in what should be an interesting matchup.
OSU’s only 2 losses this year were to ranked teams in road games. They lost 66-62 to Notre Dame in November and they lost 69-62 to open the Big 10 season at Penn State. The Buckeyes have won 13 straight games since their December loss to Penn State.
Notes and Observations:
- If the Big 10 standings stay as they are now, Minnesota and Purdue could play again to open the Big 10 tourney the first week of March in Indianapolis. The Gophers are currently in 4th place; the Boilermakers are in 5th place. The top 5 conference teams receive a bye on the 1st day of the 4-day tourney. The bottom 6 teams play on the 1st day. With only 4 regular season conference games remaining, the Gophers will probably finish 3rd or 4th in the conference standings.
- OSU has a difficult stretch of games to end their conference schedule. The Buckeyes host the Gophers, travel to 2nd place Michigan State and Purdue, then host Penn State in a rematch of their only conference loss.
- In the win over Purdue, the Gophers April Calhoun was fouled in the act of shooting. She was due to shoot 2 free throws, but was forced out of the game temporarily with bleeding from a scratch on her hand. Gopher coach Pam Borton was allowed to choose 1 of Calhoun’s teammates to shoot the free throws. Surprise, Surprise. She selected Kelly Roysland, who had recently set a Gopher women’s record for 33 consecutive made free throws. Roysland promptly made the 2 free throws.
- OSU’s Jessica Davenport has become the league’s premier sophomore from a talented conference class. Purdue’s Katie Gearlds was last year’s Big 10 Freshman of the Year and teammate Erin Lawless was also considered one of the league’s top frosh. Gearlds has struggled this year, although she has been hampered by injuries. Lawless also hasn’t been as good as had been expected. I’ll take the Gophers Jamie Broback over either of these 2 now and in the next 2 years. Although Broback still has lots of room for improvement, she has a chance to be an all-conference performer in the next 2 years. She’ll miss the presence of McCarville next year however, as these 2 players work very well together in getting each other easy baskets.
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