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Freshman phenoms duking it out
Updated: Thursday February 01, 2001 12:41 PM
By Aaron Sharockman, Special to CNNSI.com For never suiting up in a Big Ten conference game this season, Penn State's Kelly Mazzante and Minnesota's Lindsay Whalen look like polished veterans. As the conference seasons hits the halfway mark, the two freshmen are 1-2 in scoring for the conference. Mazzante is tops in the league, averaging 18.3 points a contest. This comes after not starting the Lady Lions' first three games. Mazzante is behind only Whalen in the conference scoring chase. Mazzante averages 19.1 points a Big Ten game. Whalen, who like Mazzante is a shooting guard, averages 19.3 a Big Ten game and 18.2 overall. The scoring race cant get much closer or younger. "I didn't expect anything like this to happen," Mazzante said of her profilic scoring in her first season. "My main focus coming in was to fit in and just be a part of this team." Mazzante exploded in her last game, scoring 28 points while adding eight rebounds, six assists and seven steals in a blowout win agaisnt Michigan State. Her statline against Michigan State was unbelievable, Penn State coach Rene Portland said. "She's complete, and she works very, very hard at it. She may not just be freshman of the year, she's vying for first team Big Ten right now." Mazzante is playing mainly because of the preseason injury to PSU senior Chrissy Falcone. But despite the forced playing time, Mazzante doesn't feel a burden to score. "I think our team has so many offensive threats that each game varies who scores," Mazzante said. "Day-by-day, game-by-game, who's going to score varies. There's going to be days where my shooting isn't there. On those days, I need to be there to help my team with assists or steals or rebounds." Whalen was also thrust into the limelight early because of the youth of the Golden Gopher team. She has responded well, Minnesota coach Cheryl Littlejohn said. RPI places six in tourney from Big TenIt holds no official weight. Its just a projection. A projection that neglects the remainder of the regular season and the ensuing Big Ten tournament. But projection or not, important or not, Indiana University coach Kathi Bennett is getting close to turning around IU's basketball program in one season. In the first projection of the NCAA tournament conducted by the Ratings Percentage Index, a complex algorithm has placed IU in the field of 64 teams. IU is one of six Big Ten teams to make the field. That number might help Penn State coach Rene Portland, who has been worried that the sagging conference number, which puts the Big Ten fifth, might hinder its teams come postseason time. Aside from Purdue, the Big Ten is struggling as a whole Portland said. "Purdue right now is playing in a league of their own," she said. "You still have to look at strength of schedules and how RPI ranks the Big Ten conference. We may think the games between us our exciting, but we have to be really concerned by the paperwork that is presenting our conference across the country. We always forget about the RPI and the strength of schedule." Portland's words no doubt have the Hoosiers in mind, who surprisingly rank 30th in the RPI, after ranking 150th last season. Bennett, still coaching, and not taking any gratitude in the projection, said the Hoosiers have a lot of work to do if they want to play in the NCAA national championship. "We had a goal to be playing in the postseason," said Bennett, who took over the team in March after IU failed to renew former coach Jim Izard's contract. "If we want to get there, we have to get better in certain areas." IU is projected as an 11th seed in the tournament by the RPI, which takes into account wins, losses and strength in schedule. Its index of teams is one of the resources the NCAA consults in selecting teams for its tournament. Conference champions receive automatic bids in the tournament from the NCAA, which then awards 34 at-large slots to fill the field. The RPI correctly picked 31 of the 34 at-large teams from last years tournament in its first year of projecting the field, said Jerry Palm, owner of Palm Sports Resources, Inc., the company that runs the RPI. Looking at the seeding, Palm predicts IU meeting Vanderbilt in the first round of the tournament in the Mideast bracket. The game will be played on the campus of Texas Tech, the Mideast's No. 3 seed, the RPI projects. Palm claims his projections are valid, although he concedes he cannot predict the outcome of the season. "Fifty-two of the 64 were within one seed of actual," Palm wrote on his Web site. Not bad for a first try. The Big Ten lists six teams in the tournament's first projection, with Purdue leading the way as a No. 2 seed in the Mideast bracket. Other Big Ten teams include: Penn State, No. 3 (East); Wisconsin, No. 4 (Midwest); Iowa, No. 10 (Midwest); and Michigan, No. 10 (West). Only the Big 12 has more teams in the first projection, with seven. Noticeably missing from the list is Illinois and its 10-10 record. The Illini boast the 14th toughest schedule in the country and are 5-3 in the conference (good enough for fourth place), but early season losses to Northern Iowa and DePaul are hurting the Illini. Despite three losses to UConn, Georgia and Tennessee by 42, 41 and 39, Illinois is actually in good position, with solid play over the balance of their schedule, to make the NCAA tournament. In their final seven games, Illinois plays each of the Big Ten lightweights (Minnesota, Northwestern and Michigan State). That's three wins and 13-10. That leaves four games of which the Illini probably need to split. Two come on the road at Penn State (they've already beaten the Lady lions once) and Purdue, where a win would certainly help their cause. The other two are against Indiana and Iowa, teams in the projected field of 64. If they somehow pull it off, go 15-12, with a 10-5 conference record, and win a game in the Big Ten tourney, it will be tough for the Illini to be left out. But while the Illini may be in, one of the other Big Ten teams would certainly be out.
Aaron Sharockman is a reporter for the Indiana Daily Student, the student newspaper serving Indiana University.
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