By: Jacob Pumphrey
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SOUTHERN ARKANSAS
LADY MULERIDERS
2-10 (1-5 GAC)
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HARDING
LADY BISONS
5-9 (1-5 GAC)
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ARKANSAS TECH
GOLDEN SUNS
9-1 (5-1 GAC)
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GAME NOTES (PDF)
Coming off a 1-1 weekend in Oklahoma that saw the Lady Muleriders claim their first league victory of the season with a 63-59 win over Northwestern Oklahoma, Southern Arkansas is set for their first home game of the new year and will welcome in Harding (5-9, 1-5 GAC) on Thursday, January 11 for a 5:30 p.m. tip-off. SAU travels to Russellville on Saturday, January 13, for its first meeting with the Golden Suns (9-1, 5-1 GAC) this season, who are currently second in the GAC and riding a five-game win streak heading into the weekend.
LADY MULERIDER NEWS AND NOTES
The Lady Muleriders (2-10, 1-5 GAC) picked up their first league win of the season with a 63-59 victory over Northwestern Oklahoma on the road last Thursday in Alva. SAU overcame an 18-point halftime deficit to win their second-consecutive game, before falling two days later to the GAC's top team and nationally-ranked Southwestern Oklahoma.
SAU is averaging 63.6 points per game and allows 70.1 points defensively. The team's 75.0% clip from the free throw line is currently the fourth-highest mark in the league. Southern Arkansas shoots 37.1% from the field and averages 37.4 rebounds per game. The Lady Muleriders are also averaging the GAC's second-highest blocks per game average at 4.7, while also averaging 11.3 assists and 9.4 steals; the fifth-best steals per game average in the league.
Three SAU players blanket the league's top 25 in scoring led by
Kimberly Crown's 13.0 points per game (T-12th). The sophomore from Greenland, Arkansas, is one of three players to be ranked in the top 12 in both scoring and rebounding as she averages 7.9 boards per game (7th). In eleven games played, Crown has scored in double figures eight times including five games with 15 or more points and a pair of games with 20 or more points.
Sue Key follows Crown in scoring averaging 11.7 points per game and
Olivia McWilliams adds 11.1 points per game. Crown owns the team's top shooting clip at 47.8% and McWilliams follows with a 45.1% success rate, while Key is shooting a team-best 80.5% from the charity stripe. All three shooting marks rank in the top-15 in the league.
Crown has 20 blocks this season averaging 1.8 per game which currently stands as the fifth-highest per game average in the GAC this season.
Erin Brinkley adds 0.7 blocks per game.
Anna Djedjemel leads the team with 28 assists at 2.3 per game and McWilliams owns a team-best 27 steals at 2.7 per game. Djedjemel and Key both average over 30 minutes per game.
In addition, redshirt freshman guard
Brette Wacha is coming off a career-high game against Crowley's Ridge where she registered a career-best 15 points and added five rebounds, three assists, and a steal. In her last three games, Wacha is averaging seven points and five rebounds per game and has totaled four assists, two blocks and a steal.
COACH
The Lady Muleriders are coached by
Julio Pacheco, who begins his third season at Southern Arkansas. Pacheco guided the Lady Muleriders to a NCAA DII program record 19 wins and their first postseason victory in nine years in his first year on the job and after a rebuilding year in 2016-17, Pacheco has the new look Lady Muleriders poised to return to the Great American Conference Tournament.
SCOUTING HARDING
The Harding Lady Bisons are uncharacteristically 5-9 overall this season with a surprising 1-5 mark in Great American Conference play. The lone league win for the national semifinalists from a season ago came in the team's home conference opener with a 93-63 victory over Northwestern Oklahoma. Harding enters Thursday night's matchup in Magnolia having dropped two straight games by an average margin of just 5.5 points.
Despite the record, the Lady Bisons own the GAC's fourth-best scoring offense at 72.6 points per game, but allow the fourth-most points per game at 70.9. Harding shoots just 64.0% from the free-throw line but its 43.8% shooting mark from the field ranks third in the GAC and its 32.7% shooting from beyond the arc ranks fifth. Defensively, the Lady Bisons allow opponents to make 38% of their shots which stands as the fifth-lowest mark in the league. Harding's 10.5 rebounding margin; the second-best such margin in the GAC, comes courtesy of 43.4 rebounds per game, while allowing opponents to grab a league-low 32.9 rebounds per contest. Harding is the league's best shot blocking team averaging 5.7 per game and its 15.0 assists per contest are the second-highest average. The Lady Bisons average 6.0 steals per game which ranks 11th in the GAC and the team's -5.71 turnover margin ranks last.
Caroline Hogue's 12.8 points per game leads two other Lady Bisons in double-digit scoring and ranks 14th in the GAC. Kellie Lampo scores 11.0 points per game at a team-best 48.6% shooting clip which ranks ninth in the GAC and Sydney Layrock adds 10.8 points per contest. Hogue and Layrock also rank in the league's top-20 in rebounding with Hogue grabbing 7.2 rebounds per game which ranks 10th and Layrock collecting the 18th-most boards per contest at 5.5.
Peyton Padgett averages 2.8 assists per game and ranks 12th in the conference. Hogue's 1.8 blocks per game ranks fourth and Carissa Caples adds 0.9 blocks per game to place eighth currently. Layrock averages a team-best 1.6 made three-pointers per game and owns the team's second-best three-point shooting clip at 39.0% behind team-leader Kennedy Cooper's 41.2% mark from deep.
COACH
The Lady Bisons are coached by Tim Kirby, who is in his 13th season as head coach at Harding and 25th season overall in Searcy after spending his first 12 years as an assistant to Jeff Morgan and the Harding Men's Basketball program.
Entering this season, Kirby has amassed an 241-111 record and has led the program to eleven consecutive conference tournament berths.
Under Kirby's direction, Harding claimed GAC regular-season championships in 2014, 2015, and 2017 while also capturing the GAC tournament championship in 2015 and 2017. In all three championship seasons, the Lady Bisons appeared in the NCAA Division II National Tournament and last season made a run to the NCAA Division II Women's Final Four.
THE SERIES
Harding is 43-20 all-time against Southern Arkansas, including a 20-12 mark inside the W.T. Watson Center since 1998. Since the 2007-08 season, Harding is 18-1 when facing the Lady Muleriders with the lone loss coming in the 2015-16 season in a 71-70 defeat at home to Southern Arkansas. Before that win, SAU's last win against the Lady Bisons came in an 86-82 victory in Magnolia on February 22, 2007.
LAST TIME OUT
Harding escaped with a narrow 49-46 victory when the two programs last met on February 18 last season. The Lady Muleriders held Harding to just seven first quarter points, but the Lady Bisons took a 25-23 lead into the halftime break. Each team would score eight points in the third quarter, before a potential game-tying three-pointer fell short for Southern Arkansas. The previous matchup between the schools during the 2017-18 season came in Searcy and the Lady Bison engineered a 26-12 second quarter to take a ten-point, 66-56, win.
SCOUTING ARKANSAS TECH
Tech owns a 9-1 mark overall and a 4-1 record in league play. The lone loss for the Golden Suns came in the team's home conference opener against No. 17 Southwestern Oklahoma in late November. Since then, Arkansas Tech has won five straight games and has eclipsed the 80-point mark in scoring in all five contests. Additionally, the Golden Suns' margin of victory has been 23 points during the five-game winning streak.
ATU boasts the top scoring offense in the Great American Conference averaging 85.0 points per game. The defense allows just 64.5 points per contest to give the team a 20.5 scoring margin. Defensively, the Golden Suns also boast the best field goal percentage defense at 35.7% and the second-best three-point shooting defense at 30.2%.
Offensively, Tech shoots at the league's second-best shooting percentage of 44.1% (311-of-705) and its 33.9% (62-of-183) shooting clip from beyond the arc ranks fifth. ATU currently shoots 71.2% from the free-throw line which ranks seventh in the GAC. Additionally, the Golden Suns own top-five marks in offensive rebounding (47.9 | 1st), defensive rebounding (37.1 | 3rd), rebounding margin ( 10.8 | 1st), blocked shots (36 - 3.6 | 4th), assists (134 - 13.4 | 4th), steals (132 - 13.2 | 1st), and turnover margin ( 4.90 | 1st).
Three players post a double-digit scoring average for the Golden Suns led by Jayana Sanders who currently averages 16.4 points per game. Lyrik Williams, the league's reigning Co-Offensive Player of the Week, follows with 13.0 points per game, while Ke'Vonshaye Stackhouse averages 12.3 points per contest. Sanders and Stackhouse's scoring averages come at two of the league's best shooting clips with Sanders making good on 49.6% of her shots and Stackhouse sinking 45.8% of her field goals. Sanders also owns a top-ten three-point percentage as she converts just under 42% of her shots from beyond the arc.
Williams is the league's top rebounder averaging just under ten rebounds per game. Cheyenne North adds 8.1 rebounds per game (5th) and Ryann Goodsell picks up 6.2 boards per outing (13th). North's 2.8 assists per game rank eighth and her 2.7 blocks per game are tops in the league, while Kylie Ladd's 2.7 assists place her 14th in the GAC in the category, and her 3.7 steals per game currently stand as a league-best.
COACH
Arkansas Tech is led by Dave Wilburs, who is in his eleventh season as the head coach of the Golden Suns Basketball program. Wilburs has tallied a career-record at ATU of 134-45 entering the 2017-18 campaign and has Arkansas Tech to 9-1 overall and 4-1 in league play so far this season. Wilburs has twice led Tech to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division II National Basketball Tournament and since 2011-12, he has led the Golden Suns to four GAC Regular Season Titles ('12, '13, '15, '16) and a pair of GAC Tournament Championships ('13, '16).
LAST TIME OUT
The two teams' last meeting came on February 9 last season as Arkansas Tech, ranked 21st in the nation, handled the Lady Muleriders, 83-40, in Russellville. Three SAU players scored in double figures in the loss including
Erin Brinkley and
Kimberly Crown who each registered ten points. The first game against the two teams in 2016-17 resulted in a 66-49 win for the Golden Suns, who at the time were ranked 13th in the country. In that game,
Anna Djedjemel and
Kimberly Crown combined for 23 points and eight rebounds, but ATU outscored the Lady Muleriders 35-18 in the second half of the win.
THE SERIES
Arkansas Tech leads the all-time series between the two programs 66-9, including a 34-3 mark inside Tucker Coliseum. The last SAU win in the series came on January 29, 2015, in Magnolia with Southern Arkansas edging Tech 57-52. The last road win for the Muleriders came on January 6, 2005, when the Lady Muleriders claimed a 75-65 win inside Tucker Coliseum, which sparked a run of three-straight wins against Arkansas Tech. Recently, ATU has won 23 of the past 24 meetings dating back to February of 2006.
