The Guru Report: Stringer’s Date With History Set at Rutgers While Temple Edges Saint Joseph’s

Guru’s note: Content beyond the Drexel and Saint Joe’s games were drawn on email, wire, and website reports.

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — The two big-time Division I matchups in town lived up to their hype in terms of competitiveness, Friday night, while earlier in the day Rutgers’ C. Vivian Stringer, via the Scarlet Knights’ 61-47 win over Stony Brook at home in the RAC, moved on to the staging ramp to add to a glorious Hall of Fame career.

In business as usual in terms of the differential when these two Big Five rivals meet, Temple emerged at the finish with a 58-52 win at the Hawks’ Hagan Arena to go 2-0 while the home dropped its season opener.

Drexel, at home for its before a lively crowd of 1,370, fell late in the game 56-52 to Quinnipiac, the defending Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champions and No. 1 ranked mid-major. 

It was the season opener for both teams.

Of the remaining teams in action, Rider began a two-game road trip north, falling at Vermont 54-49, while Delaware fell at Northern Iowa 79-67, opening with a loss in the first round of the Preseason WNIT. 

Karli Rucker had a career-high 25 points for the home team, which moves on against Marquette while the Blue Hens next play against an opponent to be named in the consolation round.

The big national story of the night was the head coaching debut of former WNBA Minnesota Lynx all-timer Lindsay Whelan at her alma mater at the University of Minnesota and the Gophers did not disappoint the sellout crowd of 14,625 routing visiting New Hampshire 70-47.

Meanwhile, Rutgers’ Stringer, whose head coaching career began at Cheyney in the Western suburbs near here and then moved on to Iowa before landing with the Scarlet Knights in the mid-1990s, now has 999 wins.

And unlike the multiple attempts to get to the last milestone at 900, the odds are greatly in her favor to become the sixth NCAA women’s coach, fifth in Division I, to reach 1000 when Rutgers hosts Central Connecticut at 7 p.m. Tuesday night.

Prior to last season the legendary Tennessee mentor, the late Pat Summitt, was the first to reach the plateau, followed by Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, and then last season, Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma and North Carolina’s Sylvia Hatchell joined the club the same day, and Division II Bentley’s Barbara Stevens became a member soon thereafter.

By all means, this should have already been over and done for Stringer, but the squad went into a spiral in the back half of last season, sinking to the lower level of the Big Ten and missing an opportunity to break a long drought since the last NCAA tournament appearance.

But right now the squad is doing what teams with talent should do against under-matched opposition, and so Friday afternoon the Knights’ followed their 96-52 opening win over Saint Francis of Pennsylvania at home with another one-sided win over Stony Brook (0-1).

Charise Wilson had 14 points for the home team, while freshman Noga Peleg Pelc had 11 points.

The Seawolves, who were held to 31 percent from the field, were led by Shania Johnson, who had 15 points.

Temple 58-52: It seems most years this annual highlight in the Big Five, besides formerly in the Atlantic 10 when the Owls were in the conference, is undetermined until late in the game, no matter what happens in the opening half or, in recent seasons with the change, first two quarters.

Temple ripped off a 9-0 run to start the game in this one, fell behind later, took a seven-point lead near the finish and held off a game-tying attempt by the Hawks and wrapped the outcome up at the foul line.

Katie Jekot, who missed last season with a knee injury, had a game-high 16 points with Saint Joseph’s, while Alyssa Monaghan had 14 points.

Desiree Oliver led the Owls with 15 points and nine rebounds, while Mia Davis and Alliya Butts each scored 12 points.

Shannen Atkinson had a career-high eight points and six rebounds, a place where Temple dominated as a team 43-32 on the glass.

“It doesn’t matter who they put on the floor, it doesn’t matter if their best player is out for the season, but a Temple-Saint Joe’s game is always going to go down to the wire,” said Owls coach Tonya Cardoza, now in her 11th season.

“I told my players, Saint Joe’s does a very good job of running their offense, they’re very disciplined, they work very hard to get their shot. We just had to bear down, going down the stretch. … They’re a tough team to play against because they have so many guys who can shoot the basketball.”

On the other side, Cindy Griffin, a former Hawks star who recently signed a multi-year extension and is in her 18th season on the Hawk Hill sidelines, observed, “I was excited we were in a game where we could get as much experience as possible.

“It was competitive game, it was close at the end, we came up short at the end, we have a lot to learn from this game, but one thing I was impressed we battled and we battled till the end. You know we have only 40 minutes game experience on the court.”

Saint Joseph’s next visits Drexel Sunday afternoon at 2 in the Dragons’ Daskalakis Athletic Center while Temple takes the next stop on a long trip away from McGonigle Hall, visiting Mississippi Wednesday night.

The trip will continue with visits to Marist, Radford at Miami in Florida and then the host Hurricanes and on to DePaul before returning home Dec. 6 to host Iona.

Quinnipiac 56, Drexel 52: Poor ball control in terms of 22 turnovers and a 17-9 deficit in the third quarter were the key elements in stopping the host Dragons from upsetting the multi-MAAC defending champion Bobcats, the top mid-major off preseason rankings.

Bailey Greenberg had a double double for the hosts, scoring 17 points, off 7-for-14 from the floor, while she also grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds.

 Hannah Nilhill had 11 points and three steals, while off the bench Eline Maesschalck had eight points, including a three-pointer near the finish that kept the Dragons’ hopes alive until the closing seconds.

The Bobcats capitalized on Drexel’s miscues for 18 points while Jen Fay led the visitors, scoring 15 points and collecting eight rebounds, and Paula Strautmane scored 11. Aryn McClure scored nine points.

While longtime Bobcats coach Trish (Sacca) Fabbri, who starred at Fairfield, gets a near home-coming every season up at Rider in the MAAC, this one brought her back to her roots in South Jersey while Taylor Herd from Lansdale Catholic and Brittany Martin from Sicklerville, N.J., and Timber Creek High also enjoyed home visits.

Fabbri, who is in her 24th season with the Bobcats and three turns ago was sought by La Salle for its then-vacant opening, starred at Delran High.

“It wasn’t pretty basketball, as far as how we like to identify ourselves, assists to turnovers, shooting percentage, however, it was really a pillar of who we are,” Fabbri said of the contest. “Our defense, all game long, but particularly in the third quarter, getting us going in transition.”

Denise Dillon, who led the Dragons to the top seed in the Colonial Athletic Association last season before falling to Elon in the title game here in West Philadelphia, summarized the outcome, saying, “We knew it would be a battle with a very experienced team as Quinnipiac, and it was just that.

“I thought we missed opportunities very well, and when you make 22 turnovers, you’re not going to get many wins,” the former Villanova star said.

“On the positive, defense,” Dillon said of what went right and wrong. “The goal was 54 points. This is a team that can really score, for us to have a chance we had to play defense. I was most pleased with our full court press, being able to play at that tempo and disrupt their continuity.

“But again, the offense, helter skelter.”

As mentioned above, the Dragons host Saint Joseph’s Sunday in what becomes a City Six game when Drexel goes against Big Five teams.

Vermont 54, Rider 49: A 14-2 finish by the host Catamounts in their season opener in Burlington at Patrick Gymnasium doomed the Broncs to a setback at the outset of their two-game road swing and an extended 0-2 start on the season.

Rider held a 47-40 led with 3 minutes, 29 seconds left in the game when the momentum began to swing the other way.

The win was the first on the sidelines by Alisa Kresege, the interim for the Catamounts.

The Broncs were 0-for-6 from the field in their final attempts.

Lexi Posset tied the score with two foul shots at 49-49 with 49 seconds left in regulation.

Vermont then broke the deadlock and grabbed a Rider missed shot and finished off by connecting on three foul shots.

Stella Johnson had a game-high 23 points for Rider while Lea Favre had a career-high 13 rebounds.

“We couldn’t get a shot when needed and we couldn’t get a stop when needed down the stretch,” said Rider coach Lynn Milligan stating the obvious. “We dug ourselves into a hole. Defensively, we were strong but we couldn’t get anything to drop early on. We need to be able to put together a full 40 minutes.

Rider completes the New England swing Sunday night at 7 at Holy Cross in the Hart Center in Worcester, Mass.

Northern Iowa 79, Delaware 67:  As mentioned above, in a Preseason WNIT opener, the Blue Hens fell in the first round as the home team’s Karli Rucker had a career-high 25 points and moves on to meet Marquette Sunday in Milwaukee in the next round.

Delaware’s opponent was not yet named. The Blue Hens’ Jamine Dickey had 23 points and 12 rebounds, while Abby Gonzalez scored 12, and Simone DeFreese scored 11 and had six rebounds.

Nationally speaking: Minnesota Wallops New Hampshire for Whelan

Recently retired WNBA star Lindsay Whelan, who played on four league champions with the hometown Lynx, made her first trip to the sidelines a success Friday as her alma mater Gophers trounced New Hampshire 70-47 in the season opener for both teams before a sellout crowd that was a record for Williams Arena.

Annalese Lamke had 21 points, shooting 9-for-12 from the field for the Big Ten school, which also got 14 points and 14 rebounds from Taiye Bello.

The visiting Wildcats have just one senior.

“Hey, that was fun,” Whalen said to the crowd after the game as reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune. “As a player it was a great honor to play in front of a crowd like this. I’m just thankful our players got to experience this. And we’re going to keep it going.”

Elsewhere, the defending national champion Notre Dame squad got off to an easy 103-58 win over Harvard at home and will host another Ivy school Monday when Penn returns last year’s Palestra visit and the banner is hung from the rafters.

The Quakers open their season at Siena, Saturday, near Albany, N.Y., at 2 p.m. and your Guru is set to be there.

The closest win of the Top 25 in action was by No. 15 DePaul, hosting Green Bay with a 73-64 win in Chicago. Otherwise it was comfort all around for the rest of the ranked teams resulting in No. 25 Miami 81, Stephen F. Austin 60 at home; No. 14 Georgia 67, St. Bonaventure 40, at home; No. 22 South Florida 74, Albany 37, at home; No. 6 Mississippi State 72, Virginia 44 in Charlottesville on the road; No. 5 Louisville 75, Chattanooga 49 on the road; No. 9 Maryland 93, Coppin State 36 at home in College Park; No. 19 Marquette 100, Montana State 52 at home.

Looking Ahead: Penn Opens on the Road

In the only D-1 local playing Saturday, the Quakers, as mentioned, open at Siena. A year ago Penn ventured into upstate New York and fell to Binghamton in the season opener. They move on to Notre Dame Monday before hosting Saint Joseph’s next week at The Palestra.

Two Top 25 teams will battle with No. 3 Oregon enjoying a program record-setting ranking hosting No. 18 Syracuse at 5 p.m. Eastern time.

As far as the locals on Sunday, as mentioned, Drexel and Saint Joseph’s match up after season-opening losses for both; Rider looking for its first win after an 0-2 start visits Holy Cross; Penn State, after a thrilling rally Thursday night at home to foil an upset by Providence, will host No. 24 California; La Salle tries to reverse its 0-1 start visiting Robert Morris; Princeton coming off a season-opening win at Rider tries to win at George Washington, which is coming off a season-opening loss at James Madison; and Delaware was waiting to learn its next PWNIT foe, which would be in the consolation round, but had yet to be announced as we signed off on the night.

We will update off the Penn game Saturday.

And that’s the report.