Womhoops Guru

Mel Greenberg covered college and professional women’s basketball for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he worked for 40 plus years. Greenberg pioneered national coverage of the game, including the original Top 25 women's college poll. His knowledge has earned him nicknames such as "The Guru" and "The Godfather," as well as induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Guru's College Report-1: D-II USciences' Streak Kept Alive by Other Team's Faux Pas

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

The counter clicked again Tuesday night to mark the 16th consecutive win in the landmark season of the USciences Devils but the way it happened was quite bizarre, based on the email report to the Guru from all-everything Bob Heller at the University.

Down in Newark, Del. -- yes there is more than just the Blue Hens that carry the state name and known as the alma mater of Elena Delle Donne -- anyhow, Wilmington University had just shot a trey courtesy of Taylor Carter that tied the game and was about to send it into overtime.

But, get this, the shot set off a likely reactionary celebration from Taylor's teammates, but, unfortunately, one of them left the bench and stepped onto the court in front of an official, who, per whatever rule exists, had to immediately assess a technical.

(Note to Richmond's Michael Shafer, chair of the rules committee, and several of the Guru's supervisor friends -- maybe there should be a judgement, common sense action placed before the official to ease him or her out of making that kind of assessment.)

And so with 0.2 seconds left on the clock, Jessica Sylvester sank the first of two shots -- all that was needed, Bob wrote -- and USciences had a 57-56 victory, which was consecutive number 16 and brought the Devils' overall record to 18-4 and 14-1 in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.

It would have been extra special for the Wildcats to come out ahead considering their season record is now 7-17 overall and 5-11 in the CACC.

Brianne Traub had a game-high 19 points for the Devils and also recorded her eighth double double of the season by grabbing 11 rebounds.

Isabelle Ross grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds for USciences and also dealt five assists.

The Devils had to chase Wilmington most of the first half but did pull ahead by the break at 29-26.

The extended that to as much as seven points early in the final stanza before the home team used an 8-0 run to retake command and lead the Devils 47-43 with 5:46 left.

But USciences would not go away and the two battled down to the final seconds. The Devils' Kate Schmid nailed a 3-pointer to make it 55-51 with 1:45 left before hitting another drought.

However after two Wildcats foul shots had cut it to 55-53, Schmid sank another free throw of her own and there it was 56-53 setting up the frenzy at the end.

Next up for USciences, who have already clinched a playoff spot and lead the Southern Division, is a trip to Orangeburg, N.Y. (near the Tappan Zee Bridge that carries I-287 across the Hudson River) to play Dominican College.

The Guru will be back with another report later, or will combine, considering he stayed over in Annapolis and will head up to La Salle back in Philly for the Explorers' Atlantic 10 game with Duquesne.

-- Mel






- Posted using BlogPress from the Guru's iPad

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

تطبيق الفرنسي كابيتال المقدم من البنك السعودي الفرنسي كابيتال.

1:20 PM  

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