Nebraska WBB: Big Ten Standings Update and Two Future Coaches

Big Ten Women’s Basketball Standings

The previously undefeated (in league play) Rutgers Scarlet Knights fell to Iowa last night, moving the Hawkeyes into the second spot behind Rutgers. The Huskers are part of a logjam of teams sitting at 4-3 in conference play.

One of the other teams with the same record? Tonight’s opponent - Northwestern. This game will help break up that jogjam with the Huskers being in a much better place if they can get the “W”.

There are a whole slug of games tonight and these standings will look very different tomorrow.

Michigan at Indiana
Illinois at Michigan State
Purdue at Minnesota
Maryland at Ohio State

The winner of Nebraska/NW will sit at 5-3. Wins by Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio State (the first one is possible, I’m dubious of the second and consider the last one unlikely) would mean that Indiana, Purdue, and Maryland would join either the Huskers or Wildcats. The logjam would just move from the 5th place spot to the 3rd place spot.

The more likely standings tomorrow will have Purdue and Maryland joining Iowa in a tie for 2nd behind Rutgers. A victorious Indiana would join the winner of Nebraska/NW at two games back in a tie for 5th.

Future Coaches

Two current Huskers join two former Huskers in their efforts to become coaches.

Nebraska seniors Maddie Simon and Rachel Blackburn will both be members of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) “So You Want To Be A Coach” program at the 2019 WBCA Convention in conjunction with the NCAA Women’s Final Four in Tampa, Fla., April 3-5.

The program is designed to increase the understanding and application of skills necessary to secure coaching positions in women’s basketball, increase the understanding and awareness of competencies necessary for success in coaching, introduce female basketball players to coaches and administrators, and raise awareness of the existing talent pool of female basketball players who have a passion and interest in coaching the game of women’s basketball.

Only 60 players across all divisions of college basketball claimed spots in the competitive selection process. Nebraska is the only school in the country with two participants in the program, and Simon and Blackburn are two of only five players from the Big Ten Conference.

Simon, a 6-2 senior forward from Lincoln Pius X High School, has been a four-year contributor on the court. She has scored more than 600 points and grabbed more than 300 rebounds while playing in 96 career games with 49 starts. In 2017-18, Simon was one of the most improved players in the Big Ten Conference while playing her first full season at power forward. She spent a majority of her first two seasons on the wing for the Huskers.

Blackburn, a 6-3 forward from Leavenworth, Kan., had her Nebraska playing career cut short by injuries. Although she is not active on the roster in 2018-19, Blackburn continues to provide leadership to the Huskers. In 2017-18, she played in 29 games in her third season in the Husker program, including an appearance in the 2018 NCAA Tournament. Blackburn started her first nine games as a true freshman in 2015-16 before succumbing to chronic knee pain. She underwent multiple offseason surgeries and redshirted in 2016-17.

It marks the second consecutive year under Head Coach Amy Williams that Nebraska has sent two seniors into the “So You Want To Be A Coach Program.” Last season, Jasmine Cincore and Emily Wood participated and immediately landed jobs. Wood (now Wacker) is the Director of Operations at Omaha, while Cincore is an Assistant Coach at Murray State College (NJCAA) in Oklahoma.