Valparaiso (1-9, 0-0 MVC)
Game #11 - December 21, 2021 - noon
Detroit Mercy (0-10, 0-4 Horizon)
Athletics-Recreation Center (5,000) - Valparaiso, Ind. - masks required for all spectators and event staff
Next Up in Valpo Basketball: The Valpo women’s basketball team faces its final non-conference game of the season in its last action before Christmas, returning home to host a Tuesday afternoon matinee at the ARC against Detroit Mercy. The program will be holding a canned food drive in conjunction with the game, with fans who bring a canned food item with them receiving free admission.
Previously: Valpo got off to a strong start Sunday in its return to action at Morehead State and closed strong as well, shooting above 70% from the field in both the first and the fourth quarter in a 65-57 victory over the host Eagles. Carie Weinman led three Beacons in double figures with 17 points.
Following Valpo Basketball: Streaming Video: ESPN3
Radio: WVUR (95.1 FM, Valparaiso)
Streaming Audio: TuneIn app
Links for all live coverage: Available via ValpoAthletics.com
Head Coach Mary Evans: Mary Evans is in her fourth year at the helm of the program in 2021-22 and owns a record of 38-58. Evans has made an immediate impact on the program in her first three years, raising the team’s level of play to be competitive in a strong Missouri Valley Conference. Evans’ preferred style of play has been a big part of the program’s turnaround, as Valpo has led the MVC in 3-pointers made per game and in steals per game in each of the last two seasons.
Series Notes: Tuesday afternoon will be the 29th meeting in program history between Detroit Mercy and Valpo, but just the second between the two programs since Valpo left the Horizon League. The Titans own a 16-12 advantage all-time and the last 10 meetings have been split evenly, 5-5. In the last meeting, Valpo captured a 77-58 victory in Detroit on Dec. 5, 2019 behind 17 points from Grace Hales and 13 points apiece from Shay Frederick and Addison Stoller.
@ValpoWBB...
...and @ValleyHoops
- Valpo has been picked to finish in sixth place in the MVC preseason poll, totaling 208 points - just one point shy of fifth place.
- Valpo is in its fifth season as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference in 2021-22.
- The Valley was ranked seventh nationally in conference NET in 2020-21 and was eighth nationally in conference RPI in 2019-20.
...looking back at last year
- Valpo posted a 12-13 overall record during the 2020-21 season and went 7-9 in Missouri Valley Conference play.
- Valpo finished the regular season in seventh place in the MVC standings.
- Included among Valpo’s 12 victories were wins at Illinois and at Purdue, the program’s first Power Five wins since 2012-13.
- Valpo closed the season with a NET of 122 - the program’s best final NET/RPI ranking since the 2003-04 campaign.
- Shay Frederick was a First Team All-MVC honoree as she led the Valley in assists and ranked sixth in scoring.
- Carie Weinman earned Honorable Mention All-MVC notice and repeated on the All-Defensive Team as she led the Valley in steals for a second straight season.
...at Morehead State
- Valpo shot 70% from the field in the first quarter, capped by a backdoor layup from Shay Frederick to give it a 20-12 lead at the end of 10 minutes.
- Morehead State got to within three with 2:40 to play in the first half, but Valpo scored four of the half’s final five points — including a Frederick layup — to take a 32-26 lead into intermission.
- Neither team could gain control in the third quarter. Valpo’s lead never exceeded the six-point margin from halftime, but the Beacons also did not allow the Eagles to close to closer than two points in the period. Valpo entered the fourth quarter with a 42-38 lead.
- Morehead State got within two points three times in the fourth quarter, but all three times, the Beacons held them off - twice thanks to 3-point plays.
- A 9-2 spurt just past the midway point of the final quarter proved to be the decisive run to secure Valpo’s win, highlighted by a triple from Olivia Brown which extended the lead to eight points with 3:29 to play.
- Valpo shot 50% from the field Sunday, its second-best effort of the season, thanks to great efforts in the opening and closing periods. The Beacons went 7-of-10 (70%) from the floor in the first quarter and 8-of-11 (72.7%) in the fourth quarter.
- Valpo also enjoyed a significant advantage from the foul line, going 17-of-20 (85%) from the stripe as compared to Morehead State’s 1-of-6 effort from the free throw line.
- Carie Weinman led Valpo on Sunday with 17 points, her seventh double-digit scoring effort of the season.
- Frederick was just behind Weinman with 15 points, while Grace White needed just four field goal attempts to score 11 points.
...at South Dakota
- Shay Frederick hit a midrange floater in the final seconds of the opening quarter to reach the 1,000-point mark for her career, tying the game at 10-10.
- Valpo hit just two free throws in the second quarter, but limited the Coyotes to just seven points to keep it a five-point game (17-12) at intermission.
- South Dakota scored the first 12 points of the second half and led 37-19 with 10 minutes to play.
- No Valpo player scored in double figures on Friday, as Grace White led the Beacons with nine points and seven rebounds.
- Valpo shot just 20.5% from the field on Friday evening against a South Dakota squad which limited Bradley to 39 points in its last outing and improved to 69-5 all-time inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
- The Beacons did connect on all 10 of their free throw attempts, the seventh time in program history and the third time in the last three seasons they have hit 100% on 10 or more tries from the foul line.
...looking ahead
- Following Christmas, Missouri Valley Cofnerence play starts for Valpo with the longest trip of the conference slate, starting at Southern Illinois on Friday, Dec. 31.
- The Beacons then continue on to Missouri State on Sunday, Jan. 2.
...at the ARC
- Tuesday is the final non-conference home game of the season and the fourth of 13 home games in total this year for the Beacons.
- Valpo posted a 5-6 record at the ARC last season.
@Detroit_WBB
- Detroit Mercy enters Tuesday’s game with an 0-10 record this season and is 0-4 to date in Horizon League play.
- The Titans most recently fell at home to North Dakota on Saturday, 70-60.
- Sydney Searcy, a graduate transfer who played two seasons apiece at Florida and Morgan State, leads Detroit Mercy, averaging 10.3 points/game and connecting at a 40.7% clip from the 3-point line.
Strong Start and Finish
- The Beacons bookended Sunday’s win at Morehead State with strong opening and closing quarters.
- Valpo shot 7-of-10 (70%) from the floor in the first quarter and 8-of-11 (72.7%) in the fourth quarter.
- Coming into the game, Valpo had not cracked the 70% mark for a quarter yet this season and did so just once all of last season (vs. Drake, Hoops in the Heartland quarterfinal).
- The last time before Sunday Valpo hit the 70% mark in two out of four quarters of the same game came on Dec. 28, 2019, when it did so in the first and fourth quarters in a win over Chicago State.
Closing Non-Conference on a Roll
- Valpo is attempting to enter MVC play coming off of back-to-back victories.
- With a win over Detroit Mercy on Tuesday, it would be the third time in five seasons in the Valley that Valpo has closed the non-conference with at least two straight wins.
- The 2017-18 squad carried a four-game winning streak into the MVC slate, while the 2019-20 team won its final six non-conference games.
Frederick Reaches 1,000
- Senior guard Shay Frederick became the 17th player in Valpo women’s basketball history to reach the 1,000-point milestone for her career earlier this month at South Dakota.
- Frederick passed Carrie Forsman for 16th place in program history last time out with her 15-point effort at Morehead State, giving her 1,018 career points.
- Next up for Frederick would be Suzie Hammel, who sits 15th in program history with 1,077 career points.
- Frederick also has 389 career assists, good for fifth in program history. Next up is Laura Richards in fourth position with 392 career assists.
- Frederick is one of just two players in program history with at least 1,000 career points and 300 career assists.
Another 1,000 Approaching
- It won’t be long until this year’s team has a pair of 1,000-point scorers on the court at the same time.
- Carie Weinman enters Tuesday’s game against Detroit Mercy with 957 career points after a 17-point effort at Morehead State.
- 191 of Weinman’s points came in one season at Denver, with the other 766 coming in her three seasons at Valpo.
- Weinman is averaging 12.0 points/game in her time at Valpo, tied for sixth-best in program history.
Suiting Up Again and Again
- Sixth-year forward Caitlin Morrison cracked Valpo’s career top-10 for games played earlier this season at UIC.
- Morrison made her 122nd appearance in the Valpo uniform last time out at Morehead State, moving into a tie for fourth place in program history with Jeanette Gray.
- When she takes the court against Detroit Mercy, Morrison will move into a tie for second in career games played with Grace Hales and Meredith Hamlet.
- She is just three games shy of reaching Kathryn Knoester’s program record of 125 career games played.
- Morrison has started in 118 of her 122 appearances, three games shy of Hamlet’s program record of 121 career games started.
Notable Wins
- The last two seasons have featured a combined 29 wins for Valpo, including many notable victories.
- The 2020-21 squad counted some big wins among its 12 victories, including a pair of literal B1G wins, as the Brown and Gold beat multiple Big Ten teams in the same season for the first time in program history.
- Entering the season without a win over a Power Five program since 2012-13, Valpo won at Illinois for its first-ever win over the Illini, and followed four days later with a road win at Purdue - the second win in program history over the Boilermakers.
- Valpo became the first women’s basketball program with multiple nonconference road wins at Big Ten programs since 2017-18.
- The team picked up some big wins once the schedule flipped to Missouri Valley Conference play as well last season, as three of Valpo’s seven conference victories came over teams in the top-100 of the NET.
- The 2019-20 Valpo squad had one of the top turnarounds in program history from the previous year and one of the best turnarounds in the nation. It more than doubled the win total from the prior season, as the 2018-19 team went 8-24 overall, while the 2019-20 squad went 17-12.
- It was the second-largest improvement in the win column from one year to the next in program history, trailing only the 2001-02 team, which improved an astounding 19 wins from the previous season (7-22 -> 26-7).
- Valpo’s 10.5 game improvement ranked sixth nationally.
- Valpo’s 17 wins in 2019-20 made it the program’s winningest campaign since 2006-07.
- The wins in 2019-20 came in non-conference play, where Valpo posted an 8-3 record – the best pre-conference mark in program history.
- The wins came away from home, as Valpo went 9-5 in true road games – the most road wins since the 2001-02 team won nine true road games.
- The wins came when the schedule shifted to MVC action, as Valpo finished 2019-20 9-9 in MVC play – its first .500 or better record in league play since 2008-09.
Raining Threes
- In her time at the helm of the Valpo program, head coach Mary Evans’ teams have become known for their propensity to shoot 3-pointers.
- Evans’ first three seasons at the helm have seen Valpo’s top-3 single-season total 3-pointers made, including a program-record 276 in her first season in 2018-19 - a mark which ranks seventh in MVC history.
- Valpo has ranked among the top-25 in the nation in 3-pointers/game all three years, with the 2020-21 squad setting a program single-season record by averaging 9.0 triples/game.
- Prior to Evans’ arrival, Valpo had made 14 or more 3-pointers in a game just nine times in program history.
- In the three seasons with her at the helm, Valpo owns nine more games with 14+ triples, including twice matching the program single-game record of 17.
- The style of play isn’t a surprise if you follow the coaching tree. Evans coached under Bob Boldon at Ohio for five years before getting the head job at Valpo, and Boldon was a former assistant coach at FGCU under their legendary head coach, Karl Smesko, whose teams have ranked among the top-5 in the nation in 3-pointers made in each of the last 10 years.
Thievery Abounds
- As much as the offensive end has been highlighted by the 3-point numbers under Evans, the defensive side has seen prolific steal numbers over the last three seasons.
- Valpo has averaged at least 8.9 steals/game in each of Evans’ three seasons.
- Each of the last two years has seen Valpo rank among the top-40 teams nationally in steals/game.
- Carie Weinman has led the MVC in steals in each of the last two seasons. She ranked 16th nationally last year, averaging 2.9 steals/game.
- Valpo tallied double figures in steals 12 times in 25 games in 2020-21, after doing so 16 times the previous season.
- With 300 steals, the 2019-20 squad finished the campaign eighth in program history in the category. The 2001-02 team (330 steals) is the only Valpo team in the last quarter-century to have registered more steals.
A Look at the Non-Conference
- Head coach Mary Evans has put together a challenging non-conference schedule to help prepare Valpo for the grind of MVC play.
- The non-conference slate features five teams which finished within the top-100 of the NCAA NET ranking last season, including three teams which appeared in the NCAA Tournament.
- Valpo will take on four MAC opponents, including the reigning regular season (Bowling Green) and tournament (Central Michigan) champions.
- The Beacons will host Notre Dame at the ARC on Dec. 8.
- Valpo also has trips to two programs - Michigan State and South Dakota - which finished in the top-40 of the NET last year.
Starters, Assemble
- Four regular starters return for Valpo in 2021-22, including a trio who own extensive streaks of consecutive games started.
- Shay Frederick, Caitlin Morrison and Carie Weinman were three of the four players who started every game a season ago.
- Frederick has started 76 consecutive games dating back to the middle of her freshman year, while Morrison and Weinman have made 64 starts in a row.
- The three were members of a quintet which started every single game in the 2019-20 season - the first time in program history the same five players started every game.
- Grace White started all 22 games she was available for last season as well.
- Valpo had a shakeup in the starting lineup for the first time this season at WMU, inserting Cara VanKempen in place of Maya Dunson.
