Wichita State women begin crucial road swing through Illinois

The race for the Missouri Valley Conference title is beginning to heat up, but Wichita State women’s basketball coach Jody Adams isn’t worried about what her top challenger in Drake is doing.

If both teams hold serve against the rest of the conference, then the championship will be decided when the teams, both currently 11-1 in the Valley, meet in Wichita on Feb. 27.

If the Shockers are to win their third straight MVC title, then the key will be holding serve. That begins with a road swing through Illinois this weekend, as they play at Illinois State on Friday and at Southern Illinois on Sunday.

“The focus is on us,” Adams said. “Obviously we know where we stand. The focus is on us getting better and us being at our peak to play a team that’s very hungry in Illinois State and a team that is playing really, really good in Southern Illinois.”

Handling the Redbirds, a team that has lost 23 of its 24 games this season, shouldn’t be an issue for Wichita State.

But the trip to Carbondale on Sunday is looking increasingly difficult. Since the return of leading scorer Rishonda Napier, the Salukis have reeled off five straight victories, including a crucial one over Drake that allowed WSU to pull even in the standings.

Napier was absent in Wichita State’s 80-61 victory over SIU at Koch Arena on Jan. 25, as she missed three games – all SIU losses – in late January. When Napier has played, SIU is 8-2 in the conference and the sophomore is averaging 17.5 points.

“Right now they’re not coaching effort; they’re not coaching energy,” Adams said. “They’re a very hungry team right now.”

Beating a team like that on the road in the second round is not an easy proposition. It’s part of the grind that Adams constantly speaks to her players about, and now is the time for the details of their work to come to the forefront.

“February is about the intangibles,” Adams said. “Toughness is an intangible. It’s something that you have to have. You have to create your own energy on the road. You’ve got to do the tough stuff very well on the road.”

While every aspect of WSU’s game will have to be sound to leave the road trip with two wins, its zone offense tops the list.

The last homestand showed the Shockers have the ability to defeat a zone, but they haven’t done it with the consistency yet to discourage teams from thinking that’s their best strategy. They’ll likely have to overcome the zone again this weekend.

“We’re going to have to stay moving and not stand with the zone,” WSU senior Alex Harden said. “Player movement equals ball movement equals the zone shifting.”

“We’re going to have to be relentless in everything we do,” Adams added.

This story was originally published February 19, 2015 at 1:57 PM with the headline "Wichita State women begin crucial road swing through Illinois."