NW Indiana 2004-05 Girls Basketball Poll: Week-7

2004-2005 Girls Basketball Poll:

Week Seven

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

(1-3-2005)

CROWN POINT, IN - (1-3-2005) It's getting late and the big dogs are starting to walk. East Chicago, Gary West Side, Munster and Chesterton made impressive tournament showings over the holidays. West Side played an insane six games in four days after playing just five games in the first 6 weeks. Sleeping giant Merrillville awakened with a blowout of Crown Point. Wheeler continued to play the schedule that makes them a challenger to Boone Grove in 2A and absolutely no one emerged as a solid favorite in Class 3A.

EAST CHICAGO - EC showed what they had, defeating 3A No. 1 Evansville Memorial 66-62 at the Hall-of-Fame Classic before losing to superpower Hamilton Southeastern 67-59. Dee Dee Jernigan was 12 of 20 for 27 points against Hamilton. But 5-10 junior Kelly Watts was 7-of-25 in 2 games. EC made just 11 turnovers in each game.

EC is not better than St. Joseph's who will be in East Chicago Saturday (Jan. 8) afternoon but they may be able to stay close.

VALPARAISO – Valpo held off Chesterton 41-39 after being outscored 20-11 in the fourth quarter. Cassie Kerns scored 22 with nine rebounds. No one has scored 40 on Valpo all year. The Vikings no longer play in a holiday tournament due to the double round-robin DAC schedule and that hurts their strength of schedule. Facing Chesterton twice doesn't help VHS when they see Chesterton for a third time in 4A Sectional 2. Valpo was 7-0 in the first half of the DAC season and their only loss is to 3A No. 6 Plymouth (11-2).

GARY – The Cougars won the big one, a 72-70 victory over South Bend Washington (12-1) on Dec. 28 in the Gary Holiday Tournament championship game. The 'Side' then won two out of three, losing 52-39 to Chesterton in the finals of the McCutcheon Shootout on Dec. 30.

5-11 junior Erica Simpson scored 31 in the win over Central, which will look for a rematch at the Valparaiso regional.

The loss to Chesterton was West Side's sixth game in four days. I would think that would get the Cougars ready for Thursday's (Jan. 6) showdown game with rival East Chicago (12-2), but I don't think playing all of your big games in a 10-day span and then killing time the last month does your team much good.

CROWN POINT – Crown Point hit a big bump in the road, coming off a 10-day layoff and getting bombed 66-41 at Merrillville. CP was dominated in the post as Brittney Moore scored 15 and grabbed 16 rebounds. Clearly, the post is where the Bulldogs are inexperienced.

But Merrillville is not 25 points better than CP. This was an odd game. Only 14 fouls were called combined on both sides. CP clearly didn't come to play. But the big question becomes their reaction in the next couple of games. The 66-41 Merrillville win may say more about Merrillville than it does about CP, who used to play in Holiday Tournaments until the 14-game DAC schedule changed that.

PORTER TOWNSHIP – Boone dominated Morgan Township 58-34 and Hebron 59-28 to win the South County tournament for the third consecutive year. There is absolutely no way Boone can lose on Jan. 4 against Lake Station (0-10) and Lindsey Lohan will sing on key before Boone loses on Jan. 12 against North Newton (1-10). Boone was strong the night they beat Crown Point 67-64 in overtime but it becomes very difficult to evaluate where they are now playing that caliber of Puff-and-Stuff competition.

With Hanover Central (8-4) hit by injury problems, a PCC tourney match with Washington Township (8-3) and the Feb. 3 game at North Judson (9-2) are the final barriers to an undefeated season.

HIGHLAND – Highland is in the middle of a 15-day layoff before a Jan. 4 game with Hammond (8-4). I know they're working on their dismal total of 134-261 (51.3%) at the foul line.

Still, only Gary West Side and Valparaiso have scored more than 40 points on Highland. This team has the defense to win the sectional. But basketball is an offensive game and they can only work on the shooting.

Highland at Chesterton (7-5) on Jan. 11 is always a dull, but interesting game to watch. Highland should look into hosting a Holiday tournament again. The Xmas break comes too late in the girls season to do a team any good. Look at what happened to Crown Point. Girls teams must play through the break.

MERRILLVILLE – No one who has read this poll is surprised that Merrillville blasted CP 66-41 behind 15 points and 16 rebounds from 6-3 Brittney Moore. I repeat what I said here last week BEFORE THE CP GAME. “Teams are often rated on what their record is but Merrillville is better than anybody in the 16-team LAC and it seems like everybody knows it but them. The Pirates are certainly the team best constructed to defeat Valparaiso (12-1) at the sectional level. Anyone who has Griffith and Bishop Noll ranked ahead of Merrillville does not understand the sport.”

Before the CP game, Merrillville led EC 29-26 at the half before losing 69-54. The Pirates need to put some wins together so the Jan. 5 home game with Valparaiso (12-1) now looms large.

CHESTERTON - There's no great secret here. There was no guarantee that 6-foot senior center Stephanie Boyle would return this year and there was no substitute while she was gone. But the Trojans swept three games last week at the McCutcheon shootout including a 52-39 win over Gary West Side in the title game. Don't get carried away. It was West Side's sixth game in four days. Chesterton is not better than Gary West Side. But with a solid center and 5-10 forward Kelly Peller, who scored 20 points in a quarter against Valparaiso, there is another roadblock for anyone who has hopes of surviving Class 4A Sectional 2.

MUNSTER – Munster isn't dropped here because of anything they've done. Chesterton just regained a very significant player.

The Lady Ponies scored an impressive win 58-43 over Anderson (9-3) and a not-so-impressive win 63-55 over Adams (5-7) in the Columbia City Shootout while rival Highland took the holidays off.

5-9 forward Jackie Yerga scored a season-best 25 against Anderson, a strong team. Munster is playing the schedule they need to play to compete with EC (12-2) and Gary West Side (10-1) in Sectional one. There will be some jackets with horses on them in the stands Thursday night when EC meets West Side. Munster is clearly closing the gap on those two teams.

ST. JOHN – LC lost to Center Grove 50-38 but beat Portage 58-44. Like Merrillville, judge this team on strength of schedule and not the Sugar Crisp-caliber competition that other schools play. LC's 40-38 win over Merrillville stands taller every day.

All of LC's six losses, Lafayette Jefferson (8-5), Carmel (10-3), Center Grove (8-5), Valparaiso (12-1), Munster (11-4) and Crown Point (10-3) have come against elite Class 4A programs. This team is better than the record indicates.

WINAMAC – Winamac's last hurdle in an undefeated season is North Judson (9-2) on Jan. 19. They cannot possibly lose games against North White (0-12) on Jan. 10 and Carroll (4-6) on Jan. 8. and Class 4A Mishawaka (3-9) on Jan. 19 may not be much of a hurdle either, although the Cavemen (or Cavewomen?) appear to be improving.

Judging solely by results and opponents, Winamac is not a dominating team, but they still figure to be 23-0 when they take the floor against Boone Grove in mid February.

VALPARAISO - Even US Senators go home for the holidays, so WT took two weeks off after sweeping the Mid-Winter Classic 55-52 over South Central (7-3) and 67-34 over Westville (3-7).

WT plays at Hanover Central (8-4) on Jan. 8 in a rematch of a possible PCC Tournament game. I'd like to tell you who WT plays in the Jan. 17-22 PCC championship but I don't know. Every other tournament knows what the pairings are long before now. I can tell you who plays who in the Delaware County Tournament or the Bi-County tournament or even the (Bridges of) Madison County Tournament this month. Those pairings were made a long time ago.

But the PCC keeps everybody in suspense until a week before the tournament and then they almost hide the parings until you squeeze the matchups out of them. It's tradition.

NORTH JUDSON – North Judson won 53-44 over John Glenn on Dec. 30, the Jays fifth win in a row.

The losses are to Plymouth (11-2) and Twin Lakes (9-2). This is a high quality squad that is consistently ignored because they do not play near any media centers.

Judson, a small running, outside shooting bunch, can shake up the state by ending the unbeaten seasons of Winamac on Jan. 19 and Boone Grove on Feb. 3. Truthfully, a Judson upset win would be the best thing that could possibly happen to those two schools who have not played the caliber of schedule they needed to play to survive the state tournament. But Judson is gearing towards a sectional meeting with Winamac and may not care about that Jan. 19 game.

2004-2005 Girls Basketball Poll:

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

Copyright © 2005 USA-365.com and Meyer Multimedia Services, a division of Meyer Broadcasting Corp. All rights reserved. Revised: January 07, 2005 .

Copyright © 2005 USA-365.com and Meyer Multimedia Services, a division of Meyer Broadcasting Corp. All rights reserved.
Revised: January 07, 2005 .