STEVENS POINT, Wis. – Off to its best start since 2011-12 and ranked for the first time in nearly two seasons, the No. 24 UW-Stevens Point women's basketball team opens Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) play this week with home games against UW-Eau Claire and No. 6 UW-Whitewater.
THE BASICS
Who: UW-Eau Claire (5-6) at No. 24 UW-Stevens Point (9-2)
When: Wednesday, Jan. 6 – 7 p.m.
Where: Stevens Point, Wis. – Berg Gym
Who: No. 6 UW-Whitewater (11-0) at No. 24 UW-Stevens Point (9-2) - Alumni Day
When: Saturday, Jan. 9 – 3 p.m.
Where: Stevens Point, Wis. – Berg Gym
FOLLOW THE GAMESLive video – both games
Live stats – both games
ALUMNI DAYSaturday's game against UW-Whitewater will be the team's Alumni Day. The alumni game will follow the Pointers' matchup against the Warhawks, with a reception to follow at 6:45 p.m. at Hilltop Pub & Grill. Alumni can register to be recogized at halftime at the table outside of Berg Gymnasium.
OVER BREAKUW-Stevens Point played three games in four days over break and won all three to finish non-conference play with a 9-2 record. All three victories came by nine points or fewer.
The Pointers opened the stretch with a 73-64 win over No. 25 Luther on Wednesday, Dec. 30 at JustAGame Fieldhouse in Wisconsin Dells for the team's third win over a top-25 team this season. UW-Stevens Point, which had four double-figures scorers in the game, trailed 57-56 with 5:47 remaining but outscored Luther 17-7 the rest of the way.
The next day, UW-Stevens Point topped Edgewood 58-49 behind a career-high 13 points and six rebounds from
Taylor Douglas (Brodhead, WI/Brodhead) off the bench. The Pointers saw the Eagles cut an 18-point deficit to three with 5:03 to go in the fourth quarter but UW-Stevens Point held Edgewood to just three points in the final five-plus minutes.
On Saturday evening,
Lauren Anklam (Ringle, WI/D.C. Everest) scored a career-high 27 points to lead the Pointers to a 67-62 road win over St. Norbert. UW-Stevens Point led 60-49 with 1:28 remaining in the game only for St. Norbert to climb within two with 22 seconds to go. However, the Pointers made three of four free throws in the final 23 seconds to survive in their non-conference finale.
ABOUT UW-STEVENS POINT | HOME | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS ANKLAM'S CAREER NIGHTAnklam's 27 points at St. Norbert on Saturday surpassed her previous career high of 24 from a win over UW-Eau Claire on Jan. 31, 2015. The junior shot 7-for-12 from the field, 3-for-4 from behind the arc and 10-for-12 from the free-throw line in the game and her 27-point outing is tied for the third-highest scoring game by a WIAC player this season.
The junior's 27 points were the most by a UW-Stevens Point player in 65 games since Liz Althoff scored 28 in a win over Concordia-Moorhead on March 1, 2013. Prior to the 27-point explosion, Anklam had not scored more than 15 points in a game this season and was averaging 9.4 points per game.
WRAPPING UP NON-CONFERENCE PLAYUW-Stevens Point won its final six non-conference games to enter conference play 9-2 overall. The 9-2 start to a season is UWSP's best since the 2011-12 team started 10-0.
The Pointers were a perfect 5-0 in the month of December, marking the first time since Nov. 2011 that UW-Stevens Point posted at least five wins in a month without a loss. The Pointers had not gone undefeated in the month of December since 2008.
WINNING WITH DEFENSE AND REBOUNDINGDespite ranking eighth in the WIAC in scoring offense (64.2 ppg), UW-Stevens Point has opened the season 9-2 by relying on defense and rebounding. The Pointers rank second in the conference in scoring defense (54.9 ppg) and rebounding margin (+9.6), which ranks 21st nationally.
Luther's 64 points are the most allowed by the Pointers in a game this season and only four teams have scored at least 60 points against UWSP. UW-Stevens Point has held five of its 11 opponents to 51 points or fewer.
UW-Stevens Point has outrebounded its opponent in all 11 games this season and has rebounded 47.2 percent of its missed shots.
CRACKING TOP 25 | D3HOOPS.COM TOP 25For the first time in nearly two seasons, UW-Stevens Point broke into the D3hoops.com Top 25 this week at No. 24. The Pointers, who had been receiving votes in the poll for three weeks in a row, had not been ranked in the last 26 polls since the seventh poll of the 2013-14 season.
WIAC PLAY BEGINS | WIAC HISTORYUW-Stevens Point opens conference play against UW-Eau Claire for the second consecutive season and has won eight of its last 11 WIAC openers. Last season, the Pointers topped the Blugolds 59-53 in Eau Claire on Dec. 3, 2014 to being their WIAC campaign.
With the departure of UW-Superior to the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC), the WIAC consists of eight teams and six posted winning records in non-conference play this season. UW-Whitewater currently sits atop the
WIAC standings with an 11-0 record, while UW-Oshkosh was the preseason pick to win the conference in the
preseason poll.
Last season, UW-Superior won the WIAC regular season crown with a 12-4 league record, one game ahead of both UW-Oshkosh and UW-Eau Claire. The top-seeded Yellowjackets fell to the third-seeded Titans 66-61 in the championship game of the WIAC Tournament.
ABOUT UW-EAU CLAIRE | HOME | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATSUW-Eau Claire finished non-conference play 5-6 but won its final two games at the Amy Hasbrook Memorial Classic at DePauw last week. The Blugolds opened the tournament with a 55-50 win over No. 24 and 2013 national champion DePauw before topping Franklin 57-48.
The Blugolds and Pointers have played three common opponents already this season. UW-Eau Claire defeated St. Norbert (70-62) and lost to both Saint Mary's (73-68) and Luther (71-69). UW-Stevens Point defeated all three teams.
UW-Eau Claire boasts two of the top-three scorers in the WIAC in seniors Teenie Lichtfuss and Madison Johnson. Lichtfuss leads the conference with an average of 15.8 points per game and went over the 1,000-career point milestone against DePauw. Johnson sits third in the WIAC in scoring (14.4 ppg) and also averages 6.8 rebounds per game. Sophomore Erin O'Toole, a transfer from Division II North Dakota, has played in just eight games but is averaging 15.0 points and 8.1 rebounds a game.
UWEC players own the top three and four of the top-five individual high-scoring performances of the season by WIAC players so far.
1) Johnson (UWEC) – 42 vs. North Central, 12/12/15
2) Lichtfuss (UWEC) – 30 vs. Franklin, 12/29/15
3) Johnson (UWEC) – 27 vs. St. Scholastica, 11/20/15
4) Anklam (UWSP) – 27 at St. Norbert, 1/2/16
5) O'Toole (UWEC) – 26 at Coe, 12/19/15
ABOUT UW-WHITEWATER | HOME | ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATSEntering this week, UW-Whitewater is one of 14 remaining undefeated Division III women's basketball teams in the country with an 11-0 record. Like the Pointers, the Warhawks played a pair of games in Wisconsin Dells over break, defeating Edgewood 61-42 and No. 25 Luther 76-73 in double overtime to enter WIAC play unbeaten for the first time since 2007-08.
In addition to wins over Edgewood and Luther, UW-Whitewater has also defeated Lakeland and Illinois Wesleyan, both of whom UW-Stevens Point has also beaten. The Warhawks have won nine of their 11 games by double figures.
The Warhawks rank in the top-15 teams nationally in field-goal percentage (14th, 44.9 percent), rebounding margin (12th, +11.5) and three-point field-goal percentage (15th, 36.9 percent).
UW-Whitewater scored at least 79 points in five consecutive games from Nov. 20-Dec. 2 and trails only UW-Stout in scoring offense among WIAC teams this season (73.8 ppg).
Senior guard Abbie Reeves leads the Warhawks and ranks eighth in the WIAC in scoring (11.6 ppg) and five other UWW players average at least 7.5 points per game. Reeves leads the conference in three-pointers made (2.4 per game) and is third in three-point percentage (.441).
THE COACHESShirley Egner in her 27th season as the head coach at UW-Stevens Point and is the all-time winningest coach in Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) history with a 497-214 (.699) career record, leaving her three victories from becoming the 17th Division III women's basketball coach to win 500 games. Over the last 14 seasons, Egner has guided the Pointers to a 319-87 record, the best mark of any WIAC team over that span. She is a four-time WIAC Coach of the Year honoree, a three-time Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Division III Women's Coach of the Year (2010-12) was inducted into the WBCA Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2001-02, Egner led the Pointers to the national title and a 30-3 record to become just the eighth team in Division III history to win 30 games in a season.
Tonja Englund is in her 16th season as the head coach at UW-Eau Claire and has a career record of 275-151 (.646). Her 275 wins are the fifth-most by a WIAC women's basketball coach in conference history. Englund has led the Blugolds to four WIAC championships and five NCAA Tournament appearances in her first 15 seasons. In 2002-03, her Blugolds set the program record for wins with a 32-2 season and placed third in the country, earning Englund WIAC Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year honors.
The 2015-16 season is Keri Carollo's 14th as the head coach at UW-Whitewater and she has led the Warhawks to back-to-back national semifinal appearances in 2013 and 2014. At UW-Whitewater, Carollo has a career record of 258-120 (.683), which places her sixth in WIAC history in wins. She has led UW-Whitewater to four of the last eight WIAC regular season titles and the Warhawks have been ranked in the D3hoops.com Top 25 at the end of three of the last four seasons.
SERIES NOTESUW-Stevens Point leads the all-time series with UW-Eau Claire 57-38 and has won the last seven meetings. Last season, the Pointers swept the two regular-season meetings with the Blugolds, winning 59-53 in Eau Claire and 56-43 in Stevens Point. UW-Stevens Point has won its last 15 home games in the series.
UW-Stevens Point holds a 40-33 advantage in the all-time series against UW-Whitewater but the Warhawks have won three of the last four meetings over the last two seasons. Last season, UW-Stevens Point topped UW-Whitewater 67-48 at home before the Warhawks claimed a 64-52 win in Whitewater.
