Guru Report: Lucas Fuels Penn State Win at Indiana

(Guru’s note: Information wires and team reports were used to compile the blog)

By Mel Greenberg

On the way out the door exiting from four sensational collegiate seasons, Narberth’s Maggie Lucas continues to imprint her name in the women’s basketball history files of Penn State and the Big 10 Conference.

On Thursday night the Germantown Academy graduate did some more writing with the round ball, shooting 10-for-16 from the field and scoring a game-high 32 points to lead the 11th-ranked Lady Lions to a 71-63 win at host Indiana in Bloomington to open up a one-game lead in the Big 10 over nationally-ranked Nebraska and Michigan State, which were idle.

Lucas also became No. 29 on Penn State’s 500 or more rebounding chart and is now the only Lady Lion and sixth-ever in the Big 10 to reach 2,000 points, 500 rebounds, 250 assists and 200 steals. She also joined two past program greats – Kelly Mazzante and Susan Robinson-Fruchtl in scoring 500 or more points in each of their four seasons in Happy Valley.

It’s the third time Lucas has scored 30 or more points this season and seventh in her career. She also hit four three-pointers and was a perfect 8-for-8 on free throw attempts.

Lucas on Wednesday became one of the 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award that cites success in four areas of excellence – community, classroom, character and competition.

Besides media and coaches determining the winner, fans also get a chance to influence the outcome with voting open at seniorclassward.com.

Two Lucas classmates also had fine nights with Ariel Edwards scoring 10 points and grabbing nine rebounds while Wilmington’s (Del.) had 12 points, dealt eight assists, and grabbed six rebounds and three steals.

Additionally the Lady Lions (19-5, 10-2) tied a program record with seven conference road wins on the schedule and also made it four straight seasons with 10 or more Big 10 triumphs.

Larryn Brooks had 16 points while Simone Deloach had 13 points and 15 rebounds for the Hoosiers (17-7, 4-7) in the game in Assembly Hall.

Coach Coquese Washington’s group returns home Sunday to the Bryce Jordan Center to host Wisconsin in Penn State’s annual Play4Kay game.

Though three of the 10 PhilahoopsW schools of the Guru’s local Division I coverage area were scheduled Thursday, Penn State was the only team that played because of the winter blizzard on the Eastern seaboard.

The Colonial Athletic Association duo of Drexel and Delaware had their games moved to Friday afternoon with Drexel playing Towson in suburban Baltimore and Delaware hosting Charleston in the Bob Carpenter Center.

The other two games already on the books has Penn hosting Yale in The Palestra, where the Guru will be tweeting from, while Princeton will host Brown.

Both Penn and Princeton are a half-game behind Harvard in second place in the Ivy race which gets to the halfway point after Saturday night’s games.

Local Resumes

Since not much was going on in arenas, here’s a local look at a simulation of the RPI rankings formula used by the NCAA tournament committee to select at-large teams and seed the 64-team field.

It comes from Realtime RPI and the compilation was through Wednesday games and posted Thursday. Strength of schedule rankings are listed SOS.

10. Saint Joseph’s. SOS-17.

11. Penn State. SOS-7

32. Villanova. SOS-92

48. Rutgers. SOS-107

61. Princeton. SOS-100

62. Temple. SOS-10

69. Penn. SOS-105

113. Drexel. SOS-91

126. Delaware. SOS-241

183. La Salle. SOS-213

And that’s the report for now.

-- Mel










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