GAME COVERAGE LINKS
 
ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – With four games remaining in the regular season, Henderson State will head to the Sooner State for one final time in the regular season when it takes on Southeastern Oklahoma State in Durant, Oklahoma, Thursday, Feb. 17 at 5:30 p.m. The second half of the Oklahoma trip will take the Reddies to Ada, Oklahoma, to face East Central Saturday, Feb. 19 at 1 p.m.
 
REDDIES REPORT
With the GAC Tournament two weeks away, Henderson got a much-needed victory over Northwestern Oklahoma St. this past Saturday, defeating the Lady Rangers, 87-78. The win improved HSU to .500 (9-9) in conference play and moved them up to sixth in the GAC standings. Now only one game separates the Reddies and East Central, who are fifth in the league at 10-8.
 
After risking dropping out of postseason contention with losses in four of five games, Henderson appears to be showing glimpses of its early-season self that started out conference play 4-1. The Reddies have split their last four conference games, with one of those losses coming at the hands of No. 24 Southwestern Oklahoma St., and have scored north of 85 points in each of those victories during that span.
 
Henderson St. still stands as the only team in the league to have four players averaging 10 or more points per game. Ashley Farrar continues to lead Jill Thomas' squad with 17.3 points per game, which is fifth in the entire GAC, while Gracie Raby (10.7), Karrington Whaley (10.5) and Lani Snowden (10.0) finish out the offensive quartet. As a team, HSU is averaging a conference-third-best 79.2 ppg.  
 
A win on Thursday would go a long way to helping Henderson cement its place in the 2022 GAC Tournament. With the top eight teams making the conference postseason and Southeastern currently on the outside looking in at nine, a victory over the Savage Storm would put HSU two games ahead of SOSU, plus the tiebreaker, with the Reddies having won both meetings on the season.
 
In the first meeting between Southeastern and Henderson inside the Duke Wells Center, HSU outscored the Savage Storm 21-11 in the first quarter in route to a 76-57 victory. 57 points is the second fewest points the Reddies have allowed to a conference opponent this season. Henderson St. out-rebounded SOSU, 45-34, and had 13 second-chance points to Southeastern's zero.     
SCOUTING SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA ST.
After dropping four of its past five contests, Southeastern needs a win on Thursday to keep its postseason hopes alive. A win over the Reddies could set SOSU up nicely as the Savage Storm's next two opponents are teams that are currently tied with or behind them in the standings and all of their remaining four regular season games are at home inside Bloomer Sullivan Arena.
 
Southeastern's offense runs off the 1-2 punch of Kamyrn Cantwell and Briley Moon, who are averaging 15.3 and 13.3 points per game, respectively. Moon is shooting 41.5% from beyond the arc while both players are shooting north of 43% from the field. Moon is also shooting 87.2% from the charity stripe, which is third in the entire GAC among players who have shot at least 30 free-throws this season.
 
As a team, the Savage Storm are 11th in the league in scoring offense (64.9 points per game), but are third in scoring defense (64.2 ppg). Southeastern is third in both field-goal percentage (42.5) and field-goal percentage defense (37.9%), but where SOSU really excels is three-pointer percentage defense, where it is first in the GAC (27.8).
 
What To Watch For…
-Henderson St. as a team has finished at or above .500 in true road games in three of the last four years. With three road games remaining and with the Reddies currently 5-6 on the road this season, a 2-0 Oklahoma road trip will guarantee at least a .500 road record for the fourth time in five seasons.  
 
-Earlier this season, Karrington Whaley scored her 1000th point of her career. The Springdale, Arkansas, native now has 1079 career points and needs just two more to pass Saprina Reed (1080) for 10th on the all-time scoring list. Whaley is already the all-time blocks leader in program history and is currently third among the all-time rebounding leaders.