GAME INFORMATION
Saturday, January 9 – in Winthrop (Rock Hill, SC), at 5 pm
Live statistics | Watch | Game notes
Sunday, January 10 – in Winthrop (Rock Hill, SC), at 5 pm
Live statistics | Watch | Game notes
The High Point University women’s basketball team (7-4, 5-1 Big South) is back on the road this weekend for a couple of games at Winthrop University (2-5, 1-3 Big South). Originally scheduled to be played at 3 pm on Saturday (9 January) and 1 pm on Sunday (10 January), the games will both start at 5 pm due to rescheduling conflicts with the Winthrop men’s team.
Match history
- High Point and Winthrop have met 45 times since High Point entered Division I, with the Panthers leading the 29-16 series.
- HPU has dominated the series in recent years, winning nine of the last 10, with the only loss occurring at the start of the 2019-20 season.
- The series was much closer when played on Rock Hill, with the Panthers having a small 11-9 lead at the Winthrop Coliseum.
- The last meeting between the two schools was historic for the High Point alumnus Camryn Brown how she set the HPU and Big South record for points in a game with 44 in a 94-61 win for purple and white.
Across the bank
- Winthrop is 2-5 in the season and 1-3 in Big South, playing with both teams in the conference that the Panthers have already played.
- The Eagles shared their first series of the season against Winthrop and were then swept away by Campbell. The two teams have an opponent in common outside the conference, with both losing to Wofford earlier in the season.
- Winthrop is one of the best rebound teams in the conference, entering the weekend leading the Big South by +5.0 rebound margin and is second in the conference and 58th in the country in rebounds per game with an average of 42 , 1 RPG.
- Semeka Randall-Lay is the interim coach for the Eagles, taking office in April, after serving as associate head coach at Rock Hill during the 2019-20 season.
- Myra Strickland is the only Eagle with a double digit point average, entering the weekend with an average of 12.0 points per game. She is ninth in the conference in percentage of free throws with a clip of 72.7% and seventh in Big South in assists per game with an average of 2.5 helpers per game.
- Four different Winthrop players score an average of four rebounds in each competition, led by Sydney Hunter’s average 7.3 RPG.
Panther Notes
Last Time
High Point extended its winning streak to five consecutive games with two wins over Big South’s preseason favorite, Campbell. The Panthers lost in both games, falling behind by up to 12 in Monday’s 63-55 win and up to nine in Tuesday’s 73-67 win to secure the sweep. Jenson Edwards, Cydney Johnsonand Skyler Curran scored double digits in both games, and Jordan Edwards equaled his best career with 23 points at the end of Tuesday’s series.
How is the scan
The Panthers secured a series of consecutive sweeps this weekend after defeating Campbell in both games. HPU is the only Big South program to register multiple scans at conferences this season and is looking to improve the six scans in last year’s series.
Nothing but NET
This week marked the debut of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) for women’s basketball as the contemporary ranking tool used to measure the quality of a team and help evaluate the team’s curricula for selection and sowing at the NCAA Tournament. The NET ranking has been used in men’s games since the 2018-19 season and has been changed to women’s since this year, replacing the RPI ranking. High Point was initially ranked 227 in the first NET ranking of the season and rose to 205 after Campbell’s sweep.
4-0 with four double digits
Tuesday’s game marked the fourth time that the HPU had four players scoring double digits in the same game, when Edwards, Curran and Johnson crossed the 10-point limit. All four times that Purple and White had four double-digit scorers resulted in victories, with an average winning margin of 19.75.
SHOOTER!
Jenson Edwards leads the conference and is the 30th in the country in the percentage of three point shots, hitting 48.1% of his shots behind the hoop.
Steph Curry or Skyler Curran?
Curran is among the top 10 in the country in three points made and tried this season. She fired 80 shots from behind the arc – the fourth most in the country – and hit 29 of them, the tenth most in Division I and the most in Big South.
Letting fly …
After breaking the program record of three points made in a single season last year, the Panthers continue to shoot from a distance, entering Saturday among the top 10 in the country by three attempts, three points made and three points per game. The HPU makes an average of 10.3 long balls per game, which means eighth in the country, while the total of 113 for Purple and White reaches 342 attempts, both in second place in all Division I.
… in a no-fly zone
High Point is one of the best teams in the country in defense of the three points, entering the weekend leading the conference and in 14th place in the entire Division I by allowing only 22.8% of the three opponent points to fall.
Three-point club total: 113
Moving up the ranks
Curran entered the season with 137 points from three career points, good enough for eighth position in the program’s Division I history, rose to fourth place with 154 in his career after draining nine against NC Wesleyan on December 9, and now has 166 in his career. With 23 points from Curran against Campbell, she entered 17th place on the HPU D1 scoring list this weekend with 889 career points, 15 before taking 16th place and 111 less than becoming the 14th Panther to score 1,000 points since High Point entered Division I.
Lead facilitator
Jordan Edwards leads the conference in assists per game and is second in total assists, distributing 45 assists so far this year to an average of 4.5 assistants in each competition. This places it in 19th place in the country in total assists and 78th in the country in assists per game.
Ball Movement
The Panthers lead Big South in the assistance / turnover ratio, distributing an average of 0.87 assists for each turnover. High Point also leads the conference in total assists with 144 in the year, good enough for the 43rd in the country, and assists per game, averaging 13.1 per team game.
Better education
Jordan and Jenson Edwards are among the top three in Big South in three different categories of assistance. Jordan leads the conference in assists per game (4.5) and is second in total assists (45) and assist / turnover ratio (1.73). Jenson leads the conference in the proportion of assistances for turnover (2.10) and is third in the total of assists (44) and assists per game (4.0).
Chyna Brick Wall
Senior Chyna McMichel recorded nine blocks in the two games against Upstate, registering the top five blocks of his career on December 30 and then with four more on New Year’s Eve. It was the first time since the second year Amaria McNear blocked eight shots at Gardner-Webb a season ago that a Panther had made five blocks in a single game and only the second time that had happened in the past six seasons. McMichel is currently third in the block conference and fourth in blocks per game, with a total of 14 blocks for an average of 1.3 per game. Her 14 blocked shots put her in 47th place in the country.
Scheier year-end shipping
New Year’s Eve 2020 was not the first time in the second year Callie Scheier ended the year with a flood of depths, as the sophomore also made four triples on the last day of 2019. She went from 4 to 9 behind the arc in Winthrop on December 31 of a season ago for all 12 points and now scored a total of 24 points by shooting .500 with eight marks behind the bow on the last day of the year.
Two at the top
Curran is third in the scoring conference with an average of 16.0 points per game this season. Teammate Jenson Edwards joins her in the top five of the conference, coming in fifth on Saturday with an average of 14.8 PPG.
Making your money worthwhile
HPU made 40 free throws against NC Central on December 7 and converted 30 of them, drawing with the second highest attempt in the school’s history and with four chances to match the record high. Nationally, the 30 brands are tied for 11th place across Division I this season. In the season, High Point collected 76.7% of the stripe for the second place in the conference and the 31st in the country. The total of 155 Panthers brands in the line is the largest of the conference and the eighth best in the country.
You don’t do that, she takes
Curran leads the conference in defensive rebounds per game, averaging 6.5 opponents lost in the glass per game.
Next: The Panthers are scheduled for their farewell week next weekend and are on vacation until the following weekend (January 22-23), when HPU returns to Palmetto State to face Presbyterian in a series of two games.
This preview of women’s basketball is presented by Beamer Tire and Auto.
#GoHPU