Six colleges were shuffled around in the top 15 spots within the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) women’s basketball national rankings this week but the South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets remained in the 16th position for the fourth consecutive week.
The Lady Jets are 23 – 2 overall and 13 - 0 in the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association, but they can’t seem to get any higher than 16th nationally. The Lady Jets were ranked 24th in the pre-season national poll, then moved up three spots into 21st place prior to the Thanksgiving break. They climbed to 19th place, and then moved up another two spots into 17th before climbing into the 16th position at the end of the year. They fell to 17th in the first poll of 2020 but climbed back into 16th place and have remained there for the past four weeks.
South Plains, Texas; Trinity Valley, TX; Western Nebraska, and Gulf Coast State, FL; all held on to their top four spots respectively in the national poll this week, but between the 5th and 11th spots, it was a fruit basket turnover. Shelton State, AL; moved up to 5th place overall, Hutchinson, KS; is now 6th; Northwest Florida State is ranked seventh; New Mexico fell to 8th, Chipola remained ninth; Jones, MS: went to 10th and Tyler, TX dropped to 11th. Seward County, KS; Central Arizona, Florida SouthWestern State and Wabash Valley remained in the 12th – 15th positions this week ahead of South Georgia Technical College.
“All we can do is keep winning and hope that we have the opportunity to move up. If we don’t move up then we need to make it to the national tournament and show them what kind of team we are,” said South Georgia Technical College Athletic Director and Lady Jets head coach James Frey. “If we get to the national tournament again this year, we will have to play one or more of the top 25 teams, so the best thing we can do is to keep working and keep getting better and let the rest take care of itself.”
Four Lady Jets are helping to keep their team in the national rankings by standing out based on their individual play on the court. Freshman center Femme Sikuzani from the Congo is currently listed as the sixth leading rebounder in the nation. She has a total of 285 rebounds this season in her 25 games.
Sikuzani from Goma, DRC, is ranked in six different categories. The 6’ 5” center is averaging a total of 11.4 rebounds per game which is currently 12th overall in the nation.
She is currently listed as 10th in the nation in offensive rebounds with an average of 5 per game and 30th in the nation in defensive rebounds with 6.4 per outing. And she is currently ranked 29th overall in field goal percentage shooting with a 56.6 percent success rate on her shots. She also moved up to 42nd place this week in blocks per game with a 1.6 average.
Three other members of the Lady Jets garnered national attention for their aggressive offensive and defensive skills. Sophomore transfer Shamari Tyson, who transferred in from Southeastern Illinois College, this season is in 19th place in the nation in assists per game with an average of 5.4. She is also listed as 22nd in the nation in three-point shooting with a 42.6 success rate and ranked 38th in steals with an average of 2.9 per game.
Sophomore Yasriyyah Wazeerund-Din climbed moved up to 11th from 15th in the nation in steals with an average of 3.5 per game and she moved up to 9th in the nation in three-point percentage shooting. She is hitting 45 percent of her shots from the three-point territory.
Sophomore Anna McKendree was the fourth Lady Jet to earn recognition. She was also listed in two different NJCAA individual stats this week. She is ranked 23rd in the nation in steals with an average of 3.2 per game and she was also listed as 25th in three-point percentage shooting. She has hit 42.5 percent of her three-point attempts this season.
The Lady Jets and the Jets will play at home on Saturday, February 8th when they host Andrew College at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. in the Hangar on the Americus campus. This is the SGTC Sophomore/Alumni Day celebration and the public is encouraged to attend. An Alumni Game will kick off the day at 10 a.m., the Chamber of Commerce will grill out hot dogs and hamburgers and there will be free t-shirts given out while supplies last.