STORRS, Conn. The South Dakota State and Oklahoma State women will battle in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday afternoon as the No. 10 seeded Jackrabbits and No. 7 Cowgirls will play in the first round at 2:30 p.m. Central time.
Theres a lot of similarities between the two teams that will meet at Gampel Pavillion in Storrs, Connecticut, on Saturday. Theyre both ranked in the AP Top 25, with the Cowgirls at 17th and the Jacks at 24th. That means that each team and fanbase believes that they are underseeded.
However, the biggest similarity is the way each of their rosters are set up. Each team has a post player that they play through who tries to control both ends of the floor and then they surround that player with shooters on the perimeter.
The Jacks and Cowgirls each have three players that average in double figures. SDSU is led by junior center Brooklyn Meyer who averages 17.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Junior guard Haleigh Timmer averages 13.1 points per game and senior point guard Paige Meyer averages 12 points and 5.3 assists.
OSUs top three scorers are all guards. Sophomore Hailee Steard leads the Cowgirls at 16.7 points per game, with Micah Gray and Anna Grey Asi right behind her at 13.8 and 11.7, respectively.
Each team is in the top 100 in the country 3-point shooting this season. The Jacks are 15th at 37% and the Cowgirls are 78th at 33.8%.
SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston said when he looked at Oklahoma States tape on offense, he saw a lot of similarities with his team.
The way they spread the floor and shoot the ball is similar to what we do. They have multiple people that can score, so I dont know if we can key in on one particular person. Watching them on film, they certainly have a lot of the same concepts and spacing and timing of things that we would do. Its just kind of where basketball is at right now. Theres just so many teams that can play four out and spread you and shoot it, and they do a great job of that, Johnston said.
The Cowgirl defense is led by 6-foot-6 senior center Tenin Magassa. The France product is a transfer from Rhode Island and is ninth in the country for career blocks per game at 2.13 and is 10th on the active NCAA list with 262. She averages 8.6 points per game on the offensive end and Johnston said whoever wins the battle between her and Brooklyn Meyer will likely win the game.
Defensively, the quickness and athleticism that they have, they can put a lot of pressure on you defensively and make you really uncomfortable. [Going against a post player like Magassa is a challenge] because so much of our offense is designed around Brooklyn being able to score. So, that matchup is going to be an important one. Who can come out on the right side of that? Can we get offense through Brooklyn? Can we force them to help and double some, which creates some open shots for us? Is it going to just be a big one-on-one contest between those two? That will be a big part of how this game plays out, Johnston said.
It wont be the first time Brooklyn Meyer has gone up against size. The Jackrabbits played the likes of Duke, Texas, Georgia Tech, Creighton and Oregon in the non-conference portion of their schedule. She said going up against that type of size should help when going up against Magassa on Saturday.
Weve played against [some size this season and] theres even some post players in our conference that are that size. I feel like weve had some experience playing against some players that big. Each team is different and each player is different, but I feel like our past experience gives us some confidence going into games like this, Meyer said.
The Jackrabbits are on a roll as they head into the NCAA Tournament. Theyve won the past 11 games by 15 points or more and have held their past eight opponents to under 70 points. SDSU has also scored over 70 points in its last six games and for the season the Jacks rank sixth in field goal percentage, shooting 48.3%.
Timmer said she thinks everything is coming together for the Jacks as they head to Connecticut.
I think every year is a new team with new players trying to work together. I think throughout the season we just kept improving and obviously as you can see, in the Summit League Tournament we were really clicking and working well on offense and defense together, Timmer said.
You can watch Saturdays game between the Jacks and Cowgirls on ESPN2. The winner will play either No. 2 seeded UConn or No. 15 seeded Arkansas State on Monday.
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