SIOUX FALLS – Returning to the Stewart Center at the midway point of the season, University of Sioux Falls Women's Basketball has eyes set on picking up momentum with a pair of games against Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference north division opponents this weekend. The Cougars (9-5, 6-4 NSIC) sit comfortably in the top half of the standings, both overall and in the NSIC south division, but hope to increase their cushion for the right to host and NSIC Tournament first round game. USF hosts Bemidji State (4-9, 3-6 NSIC) on Friday night, welcoming the Beavers for a 6 p.m. game on Jan. 12. Wrapping up their brief home stand, Sioux Falls faces Minnesota Crookston (2-11, 2-7 NSIC) on Saturday, Jan. 13 with tip-off set for 4 p.m.
 
Don't miss any of the action
Radio for Friday's USF Women's Basketball game is available at KWSN AM 1230 or KWSN.com and Saturday's contest will be aired on KELO FM 107.9 with long time radio announcer Tom Frederick on the call. Pregame show starts 20 minutes before tip and includes a preview with USF head coach Travis Traphagen. Keep up with USF Women's Basketball on all of their social media platforms by visiting the USF Social Media Directory. All of USF's home games and NSIC contests are streamed for free through Stretch Internet and can be viewed at usfcougars.com/watch. Live stats for all home games are available at usfcougars.com/livestats and links to away games are available on the 2017-18 USF Women's Basketball Schedule.
 
Cougar quick hits

• USF looks to stay undefeated against Bemidji State, winning the five previous matchups since they joined the NSIC for their 2012-13 season
• Bemidji State is led by former USF associate head coach Chelsea DeVille, a 2009 graduate of Augustana, who played during Traphagen's assistant coaching tenure at AU and coached under him for six years at USF
• USF is unbeaten at home against Minnesota Crookston, 2-0, and are 3-0 vs UMC in the city of Sioux Falls, which includes a 2016 victory at the Sanford Pentagon in the quarterfinals of the NSIC Tournament
• The Cougars are in eighth of the overall NSIC standings and fourth in the NSIC South Division entering this weekend with a 6-4 league record
• USF is a half-game out of sixth-place in the NSIC overall standings, but more importantly, they hold a 2.5 game lead in the NSIC south division over fifth-place Minnesota State for the right to host an NSIC Tournament first round game (full standings on page 3)
• Sioux Falls remains one of the top scoring defenses in the league, allowing just 59.8 points per game, the fourth-lowest mark in the NSIC
• At 69 possessions per game, USF is scoring 0.94 points per possession while allowing just 0.85 points per possession, a net rating of 0.086, which ranks eighth in the NSIC
• USF head coach Travis Traphagen rolled out his sixth and seventh different starting lineups of the season this past weekend, more than the past two years combined (5)
• Kaely Hummel extended her streak of scoring in double figures with 23 and 14 points against Upper Iowa and Winona State, respectively, this past weekend
• Just a sophomore, Hummel has scored 10 or more points in all 14 games this season and 22 times in her career and ranks fourth in the NSIC with 16.4 points per game
• Hummel has 470 career points and will become the eighth player to surpass 500 in USF's Division II era
• Jacey Huinker pulled down 12 and 14 rebounds against UIU and WSU, respectively, which increases her average to 10.5 rebounds per game, second most in the NSIC and 21st nationally
• Huinker leads the NSIC – and ranks 3rd nationally – in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.23) with a USF-high 42 assists to just 13 turnovers
• The Cougars continue to lead the NSIC in three-point field goals made per game, averaging 8.5 per contest
• USF has attempted 378 threes this season or 43.2 percent of their overall field goal attempts and their point total from 3-pointers (357) is 38.7 percent of their scoring total this season 

Series Histories
                  vs. Bemidji State – USF leads 5-0
Sioux Falls may boast an undefeated record against Bemidji State in their five matchups as NSIC adversaries, but there have plenty of close calls along the way. The first meeting went to overtime, where USF pulled out an 82-70 victory on the road on Jan. 2, 2013. Another close call came on the road in 2015, when the Cougars needed a last-second shot to eke out a 70-69 victory. Last season was defensive battle with former standout guard Madi Robson leading a late charge for the 55-47 victory. While USF has experienced some nail-biters in matchups against the Beavers on the road, they can take solace in a pair of comfortable victories at home. The Cougars posted an 82-73 win over BSU in 2014 before handing the Beavers an 87-60 defeat in 2016.
 
                  vs. Minnesota Crookston – USF leads 4-2
After dropping two of the first three matchups with NSIC north division foe Minnesota Crookston, Sioux Falls looks to extend their current three-game winning streak over the Golden Eagles. USF enters Saturday's contest with a 4-2 edge in the series, holding a 3-2 mark against UMC in NSIC regular season games with a victory over the Golden Eagles in the NSIC Tournament quarterfinals in 2016. USF dropped the first matchup, 76-59, at Minnesota Crookston on Feb. 1, 2013 then responded with a home win a year later, 84-74. Following a loss in 2015, the Cougars reeled off two straight, including two in 2016 with the second a 75-62 victory en route to USF's NSIC Tournament championship. At home, USF is 2-0 with victories in 2014 and 2016 in the NSIC regular season.
 
Hummel continues standout sophomore season
A year after starting all but one game as a freshman and going through the ups and downs of her first collegiate season, guard Kaely Hummel has more than doubled her scoring average and is the focal point of the USF offense. A 5-foot-8 guard from Cherokee, Iowa, Hummel has been a consistent scoring force for USF all season. She has scored in double figures all 14 games this year, bringing a 16.4 points per game scoring average into this weekend. With five games over 20 points this year, Hummel has six in her career. Part of the increase in scoring has been Hummel's evolvement as an offensive threat. In her freshman season, Hummel was much a catch-and-shoot player, taking a team-high 156 threes, or 65.5 percent of her field goal attempts. This year, Hummel is still taking a little more 50 percent of her field goals from behind the arc, but she has become a threat of the dribble, which is supported by her increase in free throw attempts. As a freshman, Hummel went to the foul line just 14 times. This season, she's shot 39 free throws and is making them at an 89.7 percent clip. As she continues her development into an all-around scorer, Hummel is already making her marks on the USF record books. She is 30 points away from being the eighth player in USF's Division II history to eclipse 500 points with 470 in her career thus far. She has 229 points this year, just 12 away from equaling her total from last season. Her current scoring average of 16.4 points per game is second in USF's Division II history, trailing only Taylor Varsho's 17.7 ppg mark, set during her 2015-16 NSIC Player of the Year campaign. A little extra motivation for Hummel this weekend: Minnesota Crookston was one of five teams to hold her scoreless last season, and she poured in 14 points the night before against Bemidji State.
 
Huinker continues to dazzle as a junior, impacting game in multiple areas
As the basketball landscape changes shape and "position-less" players move toward the forefront of all levels, junior forward Jacey Huinker is breathing rare are for the Cougars. A 5-foot-9 forward from Altoona, Iowa, Huinker leads the Cougars in three categories which don't often overlap. She is averaging a team-high 10.5 rebounds, is the team-leader in assists with 3.0 per game, and has a team-best 23 steals. With 136 rebounds this season, she is six shy of breaking into USF's Division II top 10 for rebounds in a season in just 13 games played and her rebounding average is currently the best in USF's D2 history. She has been the Cougars' top rebounder in 12 of the 13 games in which she has played, including a nine-rebound effort in the first half against Metro State before she rolled her ankle and missed the second half, still finishing as the leading Cougar rebounder.
 
On top of her rebounding prowess, Huinker is a careful catalyst with the ball in her hands, averaging 3.0 assists per game, which ranks seventh in the league. She has only committed 13 turnovers for a 3.23 assist-to-turnover ratio, the top mark in the NSIC and the third-highest ratio in NCAA Division II – she is also the only forward listed in the top 44 of D2 players who qualify in both games played and minimum assists. As the power forwards or "4s" in head coach Travis Traphagen's offense have done in years past, Huinker is not shy about grabbing a defensive rebound – she pulls down 7.4 per game – or picking off a pass and leading the break, proving her versatility and racking up her assist totals. Huinker started all 30 games last season and has started all 13 games in which she has played this season, averaging a team-high 33.2 minutes while increasing her scoring total from 4.6 points per game last season to 6.4 this year.
 
Cougars picked 10th in NSIC preseason poll, sixth in south division
USF was picked to finish 10th by the league coaches in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference preseason coaches' poll. The Cougars picked up 123 points in the poll, just three points from eighth. MSU Moorhead was tabbed the overall favorite while Northern State and Augustana each received first-place votes. In the eight-team south division poll, USF was picked sixth and Augustana earned the top spot. The past two seasons, USF has outperformed their preseason billing, placing second in 2015-16 and taking fifth in 2016-17 after they were picked ninth.