The Guru Report: No. 25 Villanova Blasts Saint Joseph’s While No. 1 UConn Rallies Past No. 3 Notre Dame

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA, Pa. - The Villanova women continue to create their own spotlight casting enough brightness to avoid a total eclipse by their nationally powerful men’s counterparts here on the Main Line.

The unbeaten Wildcats made it a successful seven days that began Monday and Tuesday with national rankings in both coaches and Associated Press polls, in the case of the latter a No. 25 entry that became their first access in 13 seasons.

Then it was off to Princeton Wednesday for a narrow 62-59 win against one of the Ivy longstanding frontrunners.

But those achievements pale compared to what happened here Sunday afternoon in tiny Jake Nevin Fieldhouse —a stunning all-time 79-44 wipeout of arch rival Saint Joseph’s 79-44 in Villanova’s first Big Five game of the season.

Meanwhile, up north, Hawks alumnus Muffet McGraw, the Hall of Fame coach of Notre Dame, appeared to have the No. 3 Irish poised to upset top-ranked Connecticut in a battle of unbeatens in Hartford, Conn., at the XL Center in the annual Jimmy V game before a sellout crowd of 15,558 fans.

But the Huskies, trailing by 11 at the time, ran off a 26-9 fourth quarter to rally to an 80-71 victory to stay at the top with a 7-0 record and keep Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma on target to go for his 1,000th career win when UConn meets Oklahoma, Dec. 19 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.

Notre Dame (7-1), which suffered its first loss, comes to Philadelphia Saturday to play Penn at The Palestra.

Meanwhile, back here, these days the Wildcats (7-0, 1-0 Big Five) have developed a menacing artillery attack to go with their traditionally vaunted barrage of long-range missiles.

Previously, an upset of then-No. 11 Duke here last month, ‘Nova’s only other home game so far,  gave notice the time had come to apply the phrase “special” to the current contingent, perhaps a year ahead of schedule.

On Sunday sophomore Kelly Jekot, who has been one of the prized additions in recent seasons and the star of the Duke upset, propelled Villanova to a 20-6 first quarter with eight of those points while junior Jannah Tucker, a transfer from Tennessee and another blue chip catch, got five.

It was worse for the Hawks (5-2, 0-2), in the next period being outscored 19-8, and the blowout eventually reached 37 points in differential in the fourth before the 35-point gap at the finish.

Previously, though most games between the two have been narrow low-scoring defensive grind outs, Villanova’s most lopsided win in the series was a 24-point 71-47 triumph 10 years ago this Tuesday, while the Hawks’ best was a 26-point 83-57 rout 25 years ago on Dec. 1 1992.

Jekot finished with a career and game-high 27 points, six assists, five rebounds, two blocked shots, and a steal. Her sister Katie is a freshman at Saint Joseph’s but is sidelined with a knee injury and her status on returning this season is undetermined.

Tucker had 13 points while Mary Gedaka off the bench had 16.

The Villanova defense deprived what had been a good 3-point shooting Saint Joseph’s squad of any, limiting all five attempts taken by Alyssa Monaghan, while Sarah Veilleux, another Hawks sniper was among the rest of the Hawks shut out from beyond the arc.

Adashia Franklyn was the only Saint Joseph’s player to score in double figures, collecting 10 points, while Chelsea Woods was limited to nine and Amanda Fioravanti to eight.

The Hawks were coming off a tough loss to Temple at the finish Wednesday night leaving the Owls (2-0) and Villanova the only two teams devoid of losses in the City Series. The Wildcats  will be at Temple this Sunday in a game that could decide whether the Owls are likely to repeat as Big Five champs or the Wildcats, 22-6 in recent overall Big Five games in the round robin, might emerge with the crown.

“I thought it was the most complete game we played all year,” said veteran Villanova coach Harry Perretta, whose entire 40-year career has been spent out here on the Main Line. “Going into the game if you look at the stats, and if you looked at the tape, you’d think it was going to be in a 1-10 point range.

“That’s what I anticipated it to be and I think that’s what the kids anticipated it to be,” Perretta continued. “They’ve been playing pretty well. Even the Temple game they lost, they didn’t play poorly, they just got beat in the end.

“We just played one of those games where the ball started going in early, our defense was excellent I thought, and it just carried over to the whole game. Usually, we don’t carry over to the whole game, we’re inconsistent, offensively, but we weren’t today. We were consistent the whole game.”

Jekot said of the start, “In the beginning we were playing good defense, I kind of remember the score being 20-6, but throughout the game we ran our offense, found the open passes and shooters and did a good job.”

Tucker said of the inside Wildcat attack becoming more established, “It’s really important. Because we’re known more as a three-point team, and a lot of teams play us aggressively for the three, and like Kelly said, we make a lot of open passes and stayed in the defense to help maintain our tempo.”

Villanova made 7 of its three-point attempts, and overall shot 55.4 percent from the field, while the Hawks were limited to 29.6 percent.

Oddly, Adrianna Hahn, who leads the Wildcats with a 14.3 average, took just one shot which she missed in her 15 minutes of playing time.

Jekot said the depth off the bench is helpful. “A lot more players are willing to step up.” 

Perretta is pleased that his squad didn’t get victimized by the hullabaloo over the national ranking causing the team to lose focus.

“That was very important,” he said. “Sometimes winning a game game like Duke, you find the next game is even bigger because you have to show that it wasn’t a fluke. We did that. Today, that’s normally not going to happen. It was one of those games that happened.

“Princeton was more like what we anticipated happening for us today. We’re just glad that it happened.”

In discussing Jekot’s rise from her freshman season, Perretta noted, “I just think experience-wise, all freshman go through whatever you want to call it — all freshmen indecisiveness, not sure. It’s not normal for her (Jekot was an all-Pennsylvania High School MVP), but it is normal to me to know it’s normal for her.

“I told her (last year), once you get through this year, you take pressure off yourself and learn the offense, you’ll score points with the offense and without the offense and that’s what she’s doing this year, she’s using her actual ability whereas last year she didn’t know when to do that.

“She kind of did it at the wrong time, drew the offensive foul. Now she’s scoring with the ball and without the ball because she knows the whole system better. And that’s the growing process.”

On the other side, Saint Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin referred to the perfect storm of conditions allowing the lopsided Villanova win.

“We met a very good team on a very good day,” she said. “I believe we’re a good team but we were not a good team today. So a lot of different factors there. I felt Villanova just played great and every opportunity they got to score, they did. And every opportunity we got, we did not. And those factors mixed together did not fare well for our team.”

Asked if there were signs in practice that might have been bad omens of what might lie ahead, she said, “We did have some concerns. We started out the season really shooting the ball well. And we just haven’t shot the ball well, the last two games.

“It’s affected our defense and that’s the thing that bothers me most —when the shots don’t go in, you can always play defense. And we didn’t do that in either game. To give up 69 points and today 79 - that’s a lot of points when you’re not scoring, it’s tough.”

Saint Joseph’s next travels to Towson in suburban Baltimore on Tuesday while Villanova will travel to Fairfield Wednesday before the visit to Temple.

The Hawks after Tuesday will host Penn next Monday and then Drexel the following Sunday.

Drexel Beats Delaware State at Start of Four-Game Road Trip

Holding a slim two-point lead at the half, the Dragons then roared over the final 20 minutes to take a 73-52 victory.

Senior Kelsi Ridge had her first career double double with a personal high of 17 points while grabbing 10 rebounds. Classmate Megan Marecic, who had never gained double digits on the scoreboard until a week ago against Butler, now has done it three straight games after collecting 13 points, while also grabbing four steals.

Sarah Woods also made it a career-high 13 points, including seven straight late in the second quarter to put Drexel (4-3) ahead the rest of the way. Aubree Brown had 12 points and dealt nine assists against Delaware State (1-5), which got 19 points and 11 rebounds from NaJai Pollard.

As a team the Dragons shot 50 percent and also nailed 10 triplets.

Next up is an afternoon stop at Niagara Thursday and then a visit Saturday at Syracuse, whom Drexel beat last year when the Orange came to town as the NCAA runnerup and was No. 11 in the nation. Then it will be a week off for finals before visiting Saint Joseph’s and then returning home Dec. 21 for an afternoon game hosting Cornell.

Penn State Handles Manhattan

The Lady Lions romped over the visiting Jaspers, taking a 78-46 non-conference win in the Bryce Jordan Center at home in State College as five players scored in double figures.

Amari Carter had 16 points, Kamaria MacDaniel scored 14, while Jasida Travascio-Green and Siyeh Frazier each collected 13 points and Jaylen Williams scored 12.

Defensively, Penn State (7-2) forced 21 turnovers out of Manhattan (2-5), which got 10 points from Taylor Williams.

The Lady Lions next host Fordham on Wednesday.

Nationally Speaking: Picking up details from the UConn win over its former conference rival in the old Big East, Katie Lou Samuelson in her first game back from a foot injury scored 18 points, though had to leave in the fourth quarter when her foot got hurt but returned in the final minute.

Duke transfer Azura Stevenson had 17 points and 10 of them occurred when the Huskies made the 21-5 run in the fourth quarter to avoid an upset. Notre Dame’s McGraw has guided 11 wins over Auriemma.

Gabby Williams missed the second half because of a migraine attack.

“They made all the plays they needed to make to win the game,” Auriemma said of the depth factor that enabled the Huskies to rally. So when things happen, like that fourth quarter, remind our team how good we can be ... we can be that good so it was good for us to learn that today, it was really good.”

Said McGraw of the loss, “I thought we played well for 35 minutes, we defensively had some major lapses, we had a stretch of ugly. Unfortunately, it was the last five minutes.”

UConn has won 69 straight home games across its two main venues in Hartford and on campus in Storrs, as well as games in Bridgeport and at the Mohegan Sun.

Marina Mabrey had 21 points for the Irish, while Arike Ogunbale scored 19.

“We showed we can play with and beat anyone in the country,” said Mabrey, whose team last month upset then-No. 3 South Carolina. “We just came up short in the end.”

Sunday was McGraw’s 1,000th game coaching the Irish after previously coaching at Lehigh in Bethlehem, Pa. Playing the No. 1 team 28 times, Notre Dame has four wins, all against UConn.

Before visiting Penn, the Irish will host Michigan State Wednesday, while Notre Dame visits DePaul, another former old Big East rival, on Friday in the Demon’s new Wintrust Arena in Chicago as Auriemma goes for win No. 999.

And that’s the report.