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Patricia Babcock McGraw's Bio: Patricia Babcock McGraw is a women's basketball analyst for the Big Ten Network. Submit your comments below or e-mail her at the right, then come back all season for her views on all Big Ten women's hoops. |
| Jan 27 2009, 12:03 PM | Topic: Women's basketball | |
| Just what we need here in the frigid Midwest, a heat wave. (Well, not really but go with me here.) Expect to see the temperature rise in East Lansing on Thursday as two of the hottest teams in the Big Ten square off. Michigan State is riding a Big Ten-best five-game winning streak and has won six of its last seven games. The Spartans will play host to Iowa, which is enjoying a four-game winning streak. I expect a big crowd for this pivotal Big Ten battle. On Sunday, Michigan State drew 10,489 fans to the Breslin Center for its game against Wisconsin. The Iowa-Michigan State game will be streamed live on www.bigtennetwork.com at 7 p.m. ET. Ditto for Michigan, and that was never more apparent than in Monday's game between the two long-range bombers. Michigan ranks first in the Big Ten in three-point attempts with 461, which works out to 23.1 per game. Iowa is second in the league with 317 attempts, or 16.6 per game. At Carver-Hawkeye Arena, both teams exceeded even their own gaudy averages. In a 77-69 win, Iowa connected on 12-of-28 three-pointers while Michigan made good on 10-of-27 attempts from beyond the arc. Total that all up and there were a whopping 55 three-pointers attempted in the game and 22 made. Incredible! Wendy Ausdemore and Kristi Smith each sank five three-pointers for Iowa, which boasted a 42.9 percent clip from three-point land that was just about as good as its overall shooting percentage of 48.3 percent. Incredible again! Meanwhile, Carly Benson and Jessica Minnfield each drilled three three-pointers for Michigan. STREAK STOPPED: So just how significant was Illinois' victory over first-place Indiana on Sunday? Well, besides the fact that the first-place Hoosiers tumbled off the summit and Ohio State reclaimed its familiar spot there, the Illini managed to stop some major bleeding. Illinois was suffering through a 10-game losing streak and had lost 16 of its previous 17 games. The last time the Illini had tasted victory was Dec. 10 against Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Illinois (5-16 overall, 1-9 Big Ten) got yet another big game out of one of the league's best post players: Jenna Smith. She scored 24 points and grabbed 15 rebounds. A big key for the Illini was intense defensive pressure that forced Indiana into a 28.6 field goal percentage and held standout forward Whitney Thomas to just 6 points. STAR TREATMENT: Penn State was able to stop its own losing streak (of three games) thanks in large part to guard Tyra Grant, who scored 32 points in 39 minutes in a 58-56 overtime victory over Wisconsin on Thursday. Grant hit 12-of-24 field goals and just missed the mark for most points in a single game this season. Northwestern's Amy Jaeschke and Michigan State's Aisha Jefferson each scored 34 points in a game this season, against Clemson and Notre Dame respectively. TREE-RIFIC THURSDAY: Make sure to catch Thursday's Big Ten Network broadcast (7 p.m. ET) between Illinois and Northwestern. Lisa Cornwell and I will be in Evanston to call a game which promises to be a post player's clinic. And as a former post player myself, that''s my cup of tea. Illinois' Jenna Smith and Northwestern's Amy Jaeschke are two of the best big girls in the league and their teams have made each of them the focal point of their entire offense. In fact, Jaeschke and Smith are so heavily relied upon that they rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the Big Ten in minutes played. Smith plays 38.3 minutes per game while Jaeschke checks in at 36.3 minutes per game. R.I.P. KAY YOW: Just wanted to close with my condolences to the entire North Carolina State athletic department. The women's basketball community lost a wonderful coach, mentor and friend in longtime North Carolina State coach Kay Yow, who died on Saturday after a decades-long battle with breast cancer. Yow seemed to personally touch so many people in the game, including coaches in the Big Ten who have been sharing personal anecdotes about Yow in recent days and are trying to make arrangements to attend Yow's funeral this weekend. |
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