NDSU Superbowl Warmup

[sealhall74]

Lot of good things happening on the court today.
Taylor Higginbotham now owns the career scoring record.
Looks like JD is mixing in some man-to-man defense into his bag of tricks.
That could come in handy down the stretch.

[wiu712]

No Pep Band. No Cheerleaders. No Pom Squad at today's game vs North Dakota State.

However, both Rocky and Colonel Rock (Ray) were there.

Taylor Higginbotham became Western’s all-time leading scorer in the team’s 82-70 victory over NDSU. Senior guard Taylor Higginbotham surpassed her former teammate and current assistant coach Emily Clemens with a lay-in at the 8:43 mark of the third quarter and finished the game with 1,715 points. Clemens previously set the program's career record at 1,699 a season ago.

Taylor Higginbotham had a season-high 27 points and was one rebound shy of a double-double. Danni Nichols had 15. Olivia Kaufmann had 14. Grace Gilmore had 10.

Attendance at Western Hall = 417.

Next game will be Wednesday (Feb 6) at Purdue Fort Wayne. Game time is 6PM.

[OldHare]

The pep band is the biggest positive for game day. This year the SDSU Alumni did what WIU has done in the past by playing over the Christmas holiday game. It did not go unnoticed by the fans. The holiday games also had at least a skeleton cheer and dance crew. It is often stated by the basketball team members that the game day in Brookings is great for the team as they notice the difference on the road. It had seemed that JD had some momentum in Macomb for bringing in fans. Has that diminished? Either way, the Pioneers and Leathernecks have the WBB in the top half of the conference going into the finish.

[wiu712]

Current Summit League Standings:
South Dakota State 9-1
South Dakota 8-1
Western Illinois 6-4
Denver 5-4
Oral Roberts 5-5
North Dakota 4-6
North Dakota State 3-6
Purdue Fort Wayne 2-8
Omaha 1-8

[wiu712]

Leatherneck Leader: Taylor Higginbotham sets career scoring mark vs. NDSU.
Lead story on Sunday night's KHQA-TV-7 Sports:
https://khqa.com/sports/content/leather ... rk-vs-ndsu

[sealhall74]

Current Summit League Standings:
South Dakota State 9-1
South Dakota 8-1
Western Illinois 6-4
Denver 5-4
Oral Roberts 5-5
North Dakota 4-6
North Dakota State 3-6
Purdue Fort Wayne 2-8
Omaha 1-8

Ken Massey Projected Standings
South Dakota State 15-1
South Dakota 14-2
Denver 10-6
Oral Roberts 10-6
Western Illinois 8-8
North Dakota 6-10
North Dakota State 4-12
Purdue Fort Wayne 3-13
Omaha 2-14

Not much difference between the 4 and 5 spot when it comes to tournament draw. Both South Dakota schools are a load to deal with if you get to 2nd round. You have to love our aggressiveness to take it to the bucket. Finishing there was a bit of a problem earlier in the season but now we seem to be more efficient. PLUS, lately it seems Taylor and Little O and Annabel to a lesser degree are able put the brakes on and shoot the short little jumper if the things are clogged up at the rim.

[wiu712]

Women’s basketball bounces back at home.
From the Western Courier:
https://westerncourier.com/43363/sports ... k-at-home/


Taylor Higginbotham breaks record in WIU win.
From the Burlington Hawk-Eye:
https://www.thehawkeye.com/sports/20190 ... in-wiu-win