MSSU continues winning ways despite injuries

Jan. 24—There has been a trend over the years where you see college sports teams break the top 25 and then lose their next game.

Or maybe crack the top 5 or grab the No. 1 overall spot and then lose their next game.

Missouri Southern's women's basketball team earned its first top-25 ranking of the year on Tuesday when the newest Division II College Sports Communicators poll came out for Week 9. The Lions were featured at No. 23.

That did not decide the fate of Wednesday night's game against Northeastern State as the Lions rolled to a 72-44 victory and their 11th straight win.

"We got off to a great start, knocking down threes, everybody seemed like they were making shots," MSSU head coach Ronnie Ressel said. "We struggled to score the basketball in the second quarter. Defense was still solid."

MSSU (14-4, 10-2 MIAA) jumped out to a 22-8 lead after one quarter of play and made six 3-pointers. The first one came with 8:49 still to play from Hannah Burg making it 3-0. The last one came from Kaitlin Hunnicutt to make it 22-6.

The Lions were even without key point guards in Mia Topping and Maggie Sockey for the game.

The second quarter was a different story. MSSU made two shots and 3 of 4 free throws for the entire 10 minutes. NSU scored the first 8 points of the quarter as well to cut the deficit to just 22-16.

"I thought we played with a little more attention to detail and I think Southern got a little lax. They came out just guns blazing and hit a lot of shots and I think they got relaxed a little bit," NSU head coach Keith Ferguson said.

After Mira Khan made 1 of 2 free shots, the RiverHawks responded with their third triple of the quarter as the score was then 23-19. The two teams were never any closer as MSSU took a 29-24 lead into the break.

Ressel had to remind his team that the scoreboard still favored them at the half.

"I thought NSU played harder than us the last six minutes of the second quarter," he said. "They got some offensive rebounds. They were just outworking us. In this league, if you get outworked you're going to lose the basketball game.

"I thought our kids responded. At halftime, they acted like we were down 15 and we were still up 5. So, I told them, 'Look at the scoreboard when we come back up (from the locker room). We're ahead yet. Let's make sure we get a good start to the third quarter.' "

Southern went on a 14-4 run to open the second half and never looked back after grabbing that 15-point lead. The lead grew to 29 points in the fourth quarter as the home team put a bow on yet another victory.

"Our ball-screen action was really good, we moved the ball extremely well, we got it from side to side. We didn't keep it on one side. Sometimes we have a tendency to dribble too much and I thought tonight — especially the second half, start of the third quarter — we moved the ball extremely well on the offensive end and got great looks. And we made shots."

Shortly after grabbing that 43-28 lead, NSU (9-9, 5-7 MIAA) scored to get it down to 43-30. But it then coughed the ball up to MSSU on three consecutive possessions to take away any opportunity to climb back into the game. That was around the 3:18-mark of the third quarter, and Ferguson got very vocal with his group on the sideline about those mistakes.

"Against a team that should be in the top 10 or top 15 that Southern is, you can't make back-to-back-to-back mistakes like we did against teams like that. Especially on the road. ... I don't think we were quite ready for this kind of environment on the road," Ferguson said. "This is the first really, really good team we've played on the road. It showed. We got a little hesitant and non-decisive and they took advantage."

Missouri Southern's depth continues to stand out as the bench scored 32 points even with injuries to the team cutting into some of that depth.

"I think it just goes to show that anybody can step up and do their part. It's what we practice," Burg said. "We all know we can play together so it just goes back to having confidence in our teammates."

One standout was Burg off the bench. She started the team's scoring, facilitated the ball, orchestrated the offense and controlled the tempo as the third point guard in this team's depth chart.

Burg was 5 for 5 shooting the ball and 3 for 3 from outside with 13 points, four rebounds and three assists in 27 minutes. Burg had only played in 11 of the team's 17 games prior to this one and averaged 11.8 minutes per game.

When asked about his junior transfer from Iowa Western Community College potentially earning more minutes, Ressel had this to say: "Oh, yeah. Sometimes it's hard to understand, she comes out and plays well, transfers and even freshmen, how quickly do they adapt to what we're doing? Now she's starting to grow into herself, especially on the defensive end. Offensively, she did a great job pushing the ball and getting us into our offense."

Ryan Franklin led the Lions with 23 points, pulled down eight rebounds and blocked four shots. Burg's 13 points was second most on the team. Hunnicutt finished with 11 after scoring all of those in the first half behind three 3-pointers.

The Lions had 17 assists and just eight turnovers. They had eight first-half assists on nine made baskets. They won the turnover battle by forcing the RiverHawks into 15.

NSU never led in this game and was dominated in bench points 32-14.

OTHER POLLS

The Lions broke into the top 25 of the D2CSC polls on Tuesday but were still just receiving votes in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association polls.

The WBCA had MSSU as one of 10 teams receiving votes. Southern received the least amount of those teams with just six.

INJURY REPORT

Topping, a junior guard, is expected to miss the remainder of the season with a foot injury. She was seen in a boot on the sideline Wednesday night.

Sockey's is an ankle injury that she rolled earlier in the week and hopes to play Saturday against Rogers State.

HISTORY

The win also marked the seventh in a row against the RiverHawks — dating back to Jan. of 2020. The Lions' last loss was an overtime game at NSU in 2019. They haven't lost this matchup at home since Jan. of 2013.

UP NEXT

MSSU hosts Rogers State University (8-10, 3-9 MIAA) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.