The Guru Report: Drexel Takes Vermont Tourney Opener On A Day of Ranked Teams With Narrow Escapes or Losses

Guru’s note: Today’s roundup is totally drawn on email, websites, and wire reports.

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

On the local front with one exception, the first two days of holiday weekend competition did not go so great, while nationally it’s been fascinating in terms of how a myriad of games have worked out.

Your Guru was not at any and will be spending the weekend here at the annual St. Joseph’s Hawk Classic beginning at noon Saturday but will be plugged into everything else.

Though we’re only in the third week of what should be another wild season, the questions locally are already coming — who’s the best?

In terms of the Philly Six, three teams have emerged early and will have a chance to hold that ground by the time Sunday night is over.

Promising starts have been posted by Drexel, Penn and Villanova, while Temple’s and Saint Joseph’s youth are causing strugles, and La Salle is in an admitted but potentially promising rebuild.

We start the report with Drexel, which overcame a tough shooting afternoon Friday to down Siena 51-39 holding the lead wire-to-wire in the opening of the TD Bank Classic in Burlington, Vt.

The triumph sends the Dragons (3-1) after their first road game of the season against the host Catamounts Saturday at 4 p.m.

In a sense of irony, Drexel dodges meeting former Vermont coach Chris Day, the past Penn assistant coach, who was on board when the invitation was made for the Dragons to participate.

But they won’t miss Day entirely because he left to return home to Philly to become associate head coach under his longtime friend Mountain MacGillivray at La Salle, which Drexel will visit Wednesday night at 7 at the Tom Gola Arena.

As for the game against Saints (1-3), who opened the season earlier this month losing to Penn at home, though the Dragons shot just 39 percent, they dominated the boards with a 39-25 rebounding advantage, including 13-5 on the offensive glass.

Bailey Greenberg kept Drexel in front, scoring 14 of her 19 points in the second half. Aubree Brown scored 12 and dealt eight assists, her season to date best in the dishing department. Niki Metzel added nine points, three steals, and a pair of blocks.

Siena’s Joella Gibson was the only Saints player to score in double figures, collecting 12 points, while Maddie Sims grabbed nine rebounds.

In the other game, Vermont needed overtime before edging Wagner 56-54 at Patrick Gym as Hanna Crymble had a game-high 18 points and Candice Wright scored 14.

Wagner overcame an 11-point deficit in the meeting in which Janelle Mullen and Alayshia Dailey each scored 11 for the Seahawks (1-4), who will meet Siena in the third place game of the tourney Drexel won in 2012.

Rutgers Roughed Up in Vancouver

Just over a week ago Rutgers experienced the high of Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer’s 1000th win, the sixth female and fifth in Division I to reach the elite club as well as being the first African-American.

Added to that was the news of attracting some blue chip recruits for next season.

But suddenly while one can say, but it’s early, still, hopes for breaking a sizable NCAA tournament drought are on red alert after dropping two straight at the inaugural TCL Vancouver Showcase in the Canadian Northwest with one game left.

Record-wise the Scarlet Knights (4-2) might have only gone 1-2 on the weekend no matter what the play out but there are different kinds of 1-2 and when you schedule to get a chance to play ongoing elites on the national scene to pick up, if anything, valuable experience for the Big Ten schedule and some RPI juice and return home with something less, suddenly there is a lot of ground to make up.

But the new problem is what kind of ground exists to bounce back. 

True, there are a bunch of opponents ahead who have had marquee reputations. However, looking ahead as of now, and it can change, just Maryland and Iowa in the conference represent what would be super value victims through upsets.

So the good and bad news is that when the ball gets tipped against those teams the Scarlet Knights can be on a somewhat level playing field most nights.

 The bad news is that with the margin of error for now greatly reduced, the phrase “Must Win,” is going to be the mantra until enough of a record can be built so get the RPI in decent shape when the stretch drive hits.

So how did Rutgers get to this situation.

It started on Thursday when the Scarlet Knights squandered a 15-point halftime lead to Drake, the current No. 1 team in the ESPNW Mid-Major Poll, and fell 69-59.

Stasha Carey had 20 points for Rutgers, shooting 7-for-9 from the field and 6-for-8 from the line, while the Bulldogs’ Becca Hittner had 23 points, Sara Rhine scored 18, and Sammie Bachrodt scored 14.

Temporarily, the win on the other side allowed Drake to be 5-0 and unbeaten one more day.

But the effect of the loss for Rutgers deprived the Knights of a chance of meeting top-ranked and defending NCAA champion Notre Dame on Friday when the Irish eventually turned Drake aside 82-64 after being tied 17-17 through the opening period to head to Saturday’s championship against Oregon State.

A year ago the Knights were able to play then-defending NCAA champion South Carolina, lose respectively by ten, and went into a full speed ahead run to the NCAA until imploding on the back end of the schedule.

So instead of getting a chance to do at worst like-wise and then meet either the Gamecocks again or Oregon State, it was into the consolation round against Gonzaga on Friday.

No shame playing the Zags in one sense. The program became prominent under Kelly Graves until he moved on several years ago and turned Oregon into a budding super power.

But rather than bounce back, Rutgers fell 57-40 while Gonzaga went to 5-1 and into the fifth-place game against Western Kentucky, which would have been preferable considering that the Hilltoppers are 2-5 and the Knights’ 7th place opponent ETSU is still winless at 0-6 after the 82-68 loss.

In the loss to Gonzaga, Victoria Harris had 12 points while the Zags’ Zykera Rice was the lone player on that side in double figures, scoring 16 points.

The Zags led by as many as 19 points in the final quarter.

The game against ETSU will be 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

When Rutgers returns home, ahead in the next several weeks will be road stops at Virginia Tech and Harvard this week, a visit from LSU on Dec. 15 and then a 13-day break before opening the Big Ten portion of the schedule at home hosting Northwestern on Dec. 28 at 4 p.m. and traveling to Maryland at noon on New Year’s Eve, a Monday.

Delaware and Temple Get Sun But No Fun in Florida

Temple and Delaware dodged the chill up north but not the opposition in separate games in Florida on Friday afternoon.

For the second straight game, the Owls of North Broad Street had a rally fall short at the finish on their rugged six-game road trip, falling to Radford 56-50 at the Miami Thanksgiving Classic.

The event is in a predetermined arrangement for games, so Temple (2-3) will meet the nationally-ranked and host Hurricanes (No. 24) on Saturday at 2 p.m.

In Friday’s event, the Owls, who have lost three straight in a slide that began at Mississippi and continued at Marist, trailed by 14 in the third quarter and surged to on a 17-1 run to go ahead by a bucket.

But Radford (3-1) countered with a 9-0 run in the fourth to take the contest.

Alliya Butts continued her comeback from last season’s knee injury, scoring 19 points, dealing five assists and grabbing four steals.

Mia Davis had 13 points and nine rebounds but played just 22 minutes due to foul trouble.

Shannen Atkinson had 12 rebounds.

Miami topped Nebraska 82-68 in the other game as Laura Cornelius had 23 points, Beatrice Mompremier had 20 points and 13 rebounds, and Kelsey Marshall scored 18 over the Cornhuskers (1-3).

Meanwhile, Delaware opened play in the FAU Thanksgiving Tournament in Boca Raton and fell to Bradley 59-47 and will meet Lafayette for third place Saturday at at noon.

Ironically, the game puts Lafayette assistant Tom Lochner in another interesting set up after the Leopards recently suffered a narrow loss to St. Peter’s on which his daughter Sammi plays.

Lochner, a former La Salle head coach, was an assistant to former Blue Hens longtime coach Tina Martin.

In Friday’s game, freshman Jasmine Dickey had her third double double for Delaware (2-3), scoring 11 points and 18 rebounds, while Gadson Lefft had 10 points and six rebounds, and Samone DeFreese grabbed eight.

Delaware was within a point of Bradley (3-0) at the half before being undone by a 19-10 yield in the third period.

“When the shots aren’t falling, the one thing you can control is defense and I thought we were just a step slow all day,” said second-year Blue Hens coach Natasha Adair.

“Today is disappointing but you have to have a short memory because we’ll be out there again in less than 18 hours.”

In the other game in FAU Arena, a slow third quarter doomed the Leopards, who fell 53-49 to FAU (2-3).

Hustling on the boards for 31 offensive rebounds, the total was caused by a slew of missed follow shots, with Lafayette (2-2) getting just eight points for the effort.

FAU outscored the visitors 22-10 in the third period to advance to its title game, meeting Bradley.

Lafayette’s Olivia Martino and Natalie Kucowski each had 10 points and nine rebounds while FAU’s Myka Matthews scored 25.

Princeton Pounced by Syracuse

The short-handed Tigers dropped their fifth straight following an opening victory at Rider and unlike Thursday in the Cancun Challenge against No. 16 DePaul and two previous games, the defending Ivy champs were handled in this one Friday by No. 14 Syracuse 92-61.

Princeton, an overwhelming pick to win the Ivies again, has been missing four starters, including reigning Ivy player of the year, Bella Alarie.

The Orange (5-1), who nearly upset No. 3 Oregon several weeks ago, used a 31-12 run at the end of the third quarter to subdue the Tigers.

Syracuse’s Gabrielle Cooper had 20 points to lead three other teammates who all scored in double figures.

Gabrielle Rush scored all 15 of her points for Princeton with a career-high five three-balls while Carlie Littlefield scored 11, and Neenah Young scored 10.

The Tigers’ final game at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya will be against Kansas State at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Prior to arriving in the tropics, Princeton squandered a rally at home, losing to Seton Hall, and then yielded a seeming upset at Penn State, when the Lady Lions rallied to force overtime and take the win.

On Thursday against DePaul, the Tigers jumped to a 10-6 lead on the Blue Demons (3-1), but DePaul clamped down on them, limiting just nine points in the fourth quarter to take an 82-67 victory.

Sydney Boyer had four treys and a career-high 16 points for Princeton, while Carlie Littlefield scored 16 points, and Sydney Jordan and Julia Cunningham each scored 10.

After routing Kansas State 79-59 on Friday, DePaul will wrap up its Cancun schedule playing Syracuse at 1:30 p.m. reuniting a rivalry from the old Big East before the Orange left for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Princeton next week visits Villanova on Wednesday at 7 in Finneran Pavilion.

Nationally Speaking: A Day of Upsets and Near Upsets

Holiday traveling was anything but a holiday for many of the ranked team in the Associated Press women’s poll as well as several other prominent programs.

Your Guru starts at a normally unlikely place, that would be No. 2 Connecticut, who except for the two upsets at the buzzer in the last two NCAA semifinals, is rarely extended but was challenged by unranked St. John’s before pulling away in the fourth quarter for 65-55 victory at the Paradise Jam in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

Katie Lou Samuelson scored 19 points for the Huskies (4-0), Napheesa Collier scored 17, and Crystal Dangerfield had 14 to make it 119 straight wins in the regular season.

For the moment, the win kept a 1 vs. 2 billing alive when UConn travels to Notre Dame next Sunday for their first meeting since the Irish felled the Huskies in the semifinals last spring on the way to the national title.

“Not every game is going to be us scoring 100 and the other team scores 50,, and we all live happily ever after,” said Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma. “Some games are going to be a struggle.

“But if you’re going to be a championship kind of team, you’ve got to win all kinds of games. We just as easily could’ve lost that game as we won that game, but we made some big, big plays in the last five minutes. That was the difference in the game.”

Saint Johns (3-1) got 13 points from Tiana England, while Alisha Kebbe scored 12, Kadaja Bailey scored 11, and Oadashah Hoppie had 10.

The last loss in regular season for the Huskies was the second game of 2014-15 in overtime at Stanford and the last loss to an unranked team was to Saint John’s, Feb. 18, 2012, which also was a buzzer beater 57-56 and it stopped an NCAA home win-streak record at 99.

Meanwhile, several other teams needed rallies.

No. 10 Texas edged Quinnipiac 56-55 on Audrey Warren’s shot with 47 seconds left at the Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Fla. The Longhorns (4-0) had trailed the Bobcats by 15 points and suffered a potential season-ending loss when point guard Lashann Higgs with 6:55 left in the first half was sidelined with a left knee injury.

Quinnipiac of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference is one of the top mid-majors in the nation and advanced to the Sweet 16 several seasons ago.

Sug Sutton and Jatarie White each scored 12 points for Texas while Danni Williams scored 10.

Jen Fay had 15 points for the Bobcats.

“A lot of good things happened in this game,” said Quinnipiac coach Tricia Fabbri, who grew up in South Jersey and whose team rallied over Drexel here in the season opener for both earlier this month. “Our bench really contributed, and I hope we can build on that.”

No. 12 Iowa needed the biggest rally in the Lisa Bluder coaching era with the Hawkeyes erasing a 24-point deficit to beat No. 25 West Virginia 84-81 in the Junkanoo Jam at Bimini, Bahamas.

The Hawkeyes (5-0) will meet Florida State, Saturday, while the Mountaineers (3-1) will meet Eastern Kentucky.

Megan Gustafson had 28 points and 16 rebounds for Iowa, while Makenzie Mayer scored 20.

West Virginia’s Kysre Gondrezick scored 22.

No. 9 Oregon State had to hold off a rally from No. 13 South Carolina to claim a 70-68 win and advance to Saturday’s title game in the Vancouver Showcase against top-ranked Notre Dame. The Beavers’ Katie McWilliams hit a pair of foul shots with 1.9 seconds left for the win.

Destiny Slocum, a former Maryland player, hit a half-court bomb at the half that was also a factor in the win.

McWilliams and Taya Corosdale each scored 14 points for Oregon State (6-0), while Mikayla Pivec scored 11.

Te’a Cooper had 21 points for the Gamecocks (3-2), who were routed at home last week by Maryland.

“Broken plays, more times than not, are the difference makers,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. “Tonight, I thought Destiny Slocum made two great plays, one before the half and then one when the game was on the line. I thought that was a great heads up play.”

South Carolina will play Drake for third place.

No. 4 Baylor had to pull away late to stay unbeaten at 5-0, winning over  South Dakota State 72-66 as Lauren Cox had 28 points and 10 rebounds at the South Point Thanksgiving Shootout in Las Vegas. Kalani Brown had 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Madison Guebert had 22 points for South Dakota State (3-2).

In another game at the Shootout in Las Vegas, No. 5 Louisville edged No. 19 Arizona State 58-56 as Sam Fuehring had 18 points, which included a game-winning shot with 2.5 seconds left in regulation to keep the Cardinals unbeaten at 4-0. 

The Sun Devils fell to 2-2.

In other competitive games of note, No. 18 California beat Tulane 65-57 at the San Diego Thanksgiving Tournament to keep the Bears unbeaten at 5-0 as Kristine Anigwe and Kianna Smith combined for 33 points.

Unranked Michigan made a bid to make its first poll appearance of the season next week by upsetting No. 21 Missouri 70-54 to stay unbeaten at 4-0 in another Gulf Coast Showcase game as Deja Church scored 15 points. The Tigers fell to 3-2.

North Carolina, also unranked and absent from the poll in several seasons, took down No. 17 South Florida 71-69 at the Paradise Jam, the second straight loss for the Bulls, who recently lost Kitija Laksa, their top player, to a knee injury.

Stephanie Watts scored 24 points for the Tar Heels (5-1), while Laura Ferriera scored 22 for South Florida. (4-2), which lost unranked Kentucky 85-63 on Thursday.

The Wildcats edged UCLA 75-74 in overtime to face UNC, which on Thursday routed the same Bruins.

UCLA will meet South Florida for third place.

Duke (2-2), which started the season in the rankings, fell to Washington 71-64, at the Florida Gulf Coast event as Leonna Odom had 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Blue Devils, while Missy Peterson scored 17 and grabbed 9 rebounds for the Huskies (3-1).

Looking Ahead: Hawk Classic Features Reunion of Sorts

Though Rider is in the area, there’s still a homecoming aspect when the Broncs meet host Saint Joseph’s at noon in Hagan Arena in the opening round of the Hawk Classic Saturday before Loyola of Maryland meets Boston College at 2 p.m. The final rounds are Sunday afternoon.

Rider coach Lynn Milligan is a former Saint Joseph’s assistant to veteran coach Cindy Griffin and Broncs assistant Pam Durkin is a former aide at Drexel and star high school player from South Jersey.

Loyola of Maryland coach Joe Logan also was previously on the Hawks staff under Griffin.

Penn continues to make its bid for early season success, playing Navy at 1 p.m. at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and then Sunday will meet Maine at 3:15 p.m.

Villanova, the other of the three locals mentioned way in the beginning of this report, opens against Virginia Tech at noon in UCF’s event in Orlando, Fla., and then Sunday meets the hosts at 1:30 p.m. in a predetermined arrangement.

Penn State, following its comeback win over Princeton at home last week and other Bryce Jordan Center win over North Dakota in State College, remains home Sunday to host Stony Brook in a non-conference game at 1 p.m.

All the other locals playing Saturday were mentioned above off their Friday results and ensuing competition.

And that is one big report.