This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster women's basketball team travels back to Greencastle, Ind. on Tuesday as the eighth seed of the 2024 North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament. They face the top-seeded DePauw University Tigers in the quarterfinal round at 6 p.m.
Media Coverage: Fans can follow Wooster's journey in the tournament through the available live stream and live stats webpages provided by DePauw when they become available. For those attending, ticket information can be found here. Note that tickets are available online or via cash payment at Neal Fieldhouse.
How The Bracket Shaped Out: The last day of the regular season finally gave everyone a clear picture of the NCAC Tournament bracket. Three teams claimed co-champion status with an 11-3 NCAC record between DePauw, Wittenberg University and Ohio Wesleyan University. However, DePauw held the tiebreaker amongst the three schools and earned the No. 1 seed. For Wooster, a coin flip was needed to determine the seventh and eighth seeds as Kenyon College also finished with a 1-13 conference record. Kenyon won the toss and was named the seventh seed. They take on the two seed Wittenberg, while Ohio Wesleyan gets sixth seeded Hiram College. Denison University and Oberlin College battle it out in a meeting of the fourth and fifth seeds.
Finale Recap: On Saturday, Wooster (6-19, 1-13 NCAC) traveled to DePauw University (18-7, 11-3 NCAC) and took an 83-41 loss. Senior Alyssa Chritz had a fiery start, scoring all of the team's 18 first half points. However, a 16-16 contest turned sour as DePauw went on a 35-2 run that changed the overall outcome of the game.
The Injury Bug: Wooster never really found themselves at full strength this season. Sophomore Chloe Pordash missed the first half of the season recovering from an injury, while classmate Ella Dean went down after 10 games played. Finally, first-year Ace Sturdivant has missed the last three games. Sturdivant and Dean are second and third, respectively, on the team in scoring.
A Memorable December: The women went 3-2 in December and a highlight was its 111-100 double overtime win against Miami-Hamilton where they set a program record for most points in a single game. Four Scots at the time scored career-highs in the game. Ella Biondi scored 36 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. Her 36 points was the fifth most scored in a game in program history. Chritz scored 27 points, Sturdivant scored a career-high 23 and Dean scored 21.
Stepping Up: Biondi, Chritz, Dean and Sturdivant all average above 10 points per game and have combined for 77 percent of the team's total scoring. Chritz has became the main offensive threat, having taken 394 shots – 141 more than Biondi who sits in second. Chritz has jumped from averaging 5.4 ppg a year ago to 14.8 currently. She needs just 15 more points to tie for 10th in program history for single season scoring. Dean is another who had potentially seen the most growth from last year before her season ending injury. The sophomore averaged just 3.7 ppg to averaging 12.6 ppg in 2023-24.
First-Year Impact: Sturdivant has been quite the addition, averaging 13.1 ppg, 3.4 apg and 1.2 spg. Another has been Anna Hardink who recently scored a career-high 10 points in the team's home finale. She also joins Chritz as the only two Scots to appear and start in all 25 games this year. Alexis Lovejoy has shown the capability of hitting from range – as she ranks first on the team in 3-point percentage (min. 10 attempts) at 31 percent in conference games.
Series Versus DePauw: In addition to last week's loss, the Scots saw DePauw at home on Jan. 20 and took a 68-43 loss. Sturdivant led the team with 14 points in another contest where DePauw pulled away in the middle quarters. DePauw leads the all-time series 28-1.
Looking Up: With six wins the Scots have combined for more wins this year than the last three years combined. Defeating Kenyon 55-49 in early February also broke a 32-game regular season conference losing streak. They will look to continue to improve not only for the tournament but for next season as well.