It’s a snapshot, and we aren’t statisticians, but now that Penn State has competed against the top Big Ten teams, we thought it would be interesting to compare how Penn State and the individual team leaders have done against Big Ten opponents and how they have fared overall (including both the preseason and Big Ten matches).

For the most part, the results are as one would expect: the Big Ten schedule has been tougher than the preseason schedule, and it shows — overall statistics are better than Big Ten only stats in almost all categories. But there are a few notable exceptions.

Someone must have forgotten to notify Arielle Wilson that her performance would fall off against Big Ten opponents: she’s hitting .603 against the Big Ten so far, versus .591 overall. Her kills/set are up too (3.29 Big Ten only vs. 2.86 overall). The same is true for Megan Hodge — 4.86 kills/set Big Ten only, versus 4.74 kills/set overall. Team blocking also is up — 3.23 blocks/set Big Ten Only, versus 3.02 blocks/set overall (as are the individual statistics for Wilson and fellow MH Fatima Balza).

The chart below includes team and individual comparisons for selected statistical categories for matches played through October 17, 2009: