The Guru Report: Temple Wins Big, Princeton Throttles Rider, Rutgers’ Stringer Gets No. 998 in Local Openers

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — Opening night of the 2018-19 NCAA women’s basketball season at the local level of the Guru’s D-I Group was a mixed bag but tilted more on the positive from the four games played.

Here in Temple’s McGonigle Hall, the Owls had signs of better things ahead off their 75-61 victory over Delaware State, which was under first-year head coach David Caputo.

But several miles up the street, La Salle took a lead, fell behind and then had a comeback fall short to Howard 57-54, spoiling the start of the head coaching career of former Quinnipiac assistant Mountain MacGillivray.

Over in central New Jersey, despite the absence of reigning Ivy player of the year Bella Alarie due to a broken arm, Princeton, favored to repeat as league champs, took an impressive local battle, cruising over host Rider 89-65 in the Broncs’ Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville.

And just up the road from that matchup, host Rutgers rolled over reigning Northeast Conference champion St. Francis (Pa.) 96-52 in Piscataway, bringing Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer to 998 victories, two short of becoming the sixth women’s coach at either the D-1 or D-2 levels to reach 1,000.

The late Tennessee Hall of Famer was the first followed by Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, and last season North Carolina’s Sylvia Hatchell and Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, both Hall of Famers, hit the mark the same day, followed by Barb Stevens of D-2 Bentley.

With what was considered the most potential for an upset loss from any of the first three visiting opponents out of the way, the big night for Stringer is likely to come Tuesday against Central Connecticut, assuming Rutgers can dispense of Stony Brook at home Friday night.

There was some interesting outcomes elsewhere on the national D-1 circuit.

But let’s first start from here in McGonigle where the Guru spent opening night.

The Owls are healthy once more following a nightmare season of injuries that began before the opening tip when Alliya Butts was lost with a knee injury.

The Big Five rookie of the year in 2015 celebrated her official return scoring 18 points, shooting 4-of-9 three-pointers, which extended her career program record of 1,485 from beyond the arc.

Sophomores Mia Davis and Emani Mayo, who were on the all-American Athletic Conference newcomers lost a season ago, made good on their past performances with Davis scoring a game-high 21 points and grabbing 12 rebounds, while Mayo scored 13 points. Newcomer Alexa Williamson had 11 points in limited minutes, due to the opposition matchups.

Delaware State’s Najai Pollard had 19 points and 11 rebounds, while Lanayjhi Ashe scored 14, and Genell Addision scored 11.

“This was a good win,” said Temple coach Tonya Cardoza, whose 11th season on the sidelines with the Owls got under way. “Obviously you want to get off to a good start.

“Del State, you really don’t know much about because you can’t watch them on film (this early) and you’re not sure what they are going to do. They basically just played a lot of guards so the matchups were difficult for us.

“We really couldn’t play a lot of our post players but I thought we hung in there in the first half and then in the third quarter we did a good job pulling away. Then our brains just got fried in the fourth quarter and we stopped shutting down, making a lot of careless mistakes and not really focused on finishing the basketball and made it a lot closer than it needed to be,” she said.

“But I’m happy we got the victory, but we have to make sure we’re a little more solid in the fourth quarter and not allow a team to outscore us.”

Temple has only 11 home games and now head out on a long trip that won’t see the squad back here until Dec. 6 hosting Iona.

The first STOP will be Friday at Saint Joseph’s, the home opener for the Hawks in Hagan Arena at 5 p.m. in what will be the first of the four-game Big 5 City Series round robin for both teams.

Though technically Temple will still be in its home city nearby, Cardoza quickly countered, “But it’s their place, it’s not in McGonigle.”

Stops on the trip thereafter include places like Marist, a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference heavyweight; Mississippi, and Miami, which is currently ranked.

The Owls also visit defending Big East champion DePaul, another ranked team, in Chicago.

Howard 57, La Salle 54 — A 22-10 third-quarter advantage by the visiting Bison proved to be the Explorers’ disaster moments, though they rallied from a nine-point deficit to go up a point 49-48 before Howard regained the high ground to take the win.

Rayshel Brown led La Salle with 10 points, while Shalina Miller grabbed 12 rebounds. Kayla Spruill added 10 points to the La Salle total.

Sarah Edmond had 22 points for Howard, Krislyn Marsh had 11 points and 17 rebounds.

The Explorers next play, hitting the road for a Sunday game at Robert Morris.

“Obviously that’s a disappointing ending to that game and clearly wasn’t the prettiest basketball for either team, but as we as we build things here at La Salle, we’ve been asking our team to be competitive, to battle for loose balls, to battle for rebounds,” MacGillivray said. 

“And I can’t be disappointed with that.”

Princeton 89, Rider 65 — The last time these two schools met was in a season opener two years ago, the Broncs gained an upset of the Tigers on the road at Jadwin Gym and went on to a landmark season.

After a year of rebuilding there was hope that there would be a repeat with the matchup being at home, but Princeton took care of business and was ready from the opening tip.

Gabrielle Rush and Carlie Littlefield combined for 41 points for Princeton as Rush got a career high 25 points fueled by a career-tying five three pointers. Littlefield was just short of her career mark with 16 points, two below the 18, Taylor Baur had 10 points and nine rebounds.

The Tigers wrapped it up quickly with a 15-0 run at the outset that created an 18-4 lead off an array of three pointers. Princeton went on to lead by 25 points.

Dominating the boards, coach Courtney Banghart’s squad out-rebounded the Broncs 37-23.

Stella Johnson had 21 for Rider, while Lexi Posset scored 11, and Amanda Mobley scored 10 points.

“They threw the first punch and got after us early and were a little shell shocked,” said Rider coach Lynn Milligan. “We responded in the second half, the way I anticipated, but the damage was already done.”

Princeton stays on the road, visiting George Washington Sunday, while Rider next hits the road to visit Vermont Friday night.

Rutgers 96, St. Francis 52 — After a disappointing slide to lose a clear shot at an NCAA bid and get Stringer to her milestone at the backside of last season, the Scarlet Knights took care of business against the one threat that could disrupt an early shot at glory for the legendary Rutgers coach.

Five players scored in double digits for the home team and three had double doubles as Mael Gilles had 13 points and 16 rebounds, Stasha Carey had 13 points and 11 rebounds, and Caitlin Jenkins had 15 points and 15 rebounds.

The Knights pounded the boards for 75 rebounds, a school and home arena record. 

Freshman Noga Peleg Pelc had 15 points and Arella Guitrantes scored 14.

Aunesha Williams had 11 points for the visitors and Northeast Conference star Jess Kovatch was held to 10 points after leading the nation a year ago with a 24.4 average.

Friday’s game hosting Stony Brook has been moved to noon.

Around the Nation — In a homecoming for Ruthy Hebard in Fairbanks, Alaska, No. 3 Oregon topped the D-2 Nanooks 115-36 in what was a special scheduled event for the Ducks’ star. She had 17 points in 23 minutes of play, while Satou Sabally scored 21 points, and Sabrina Ionescu had 18 points, 11 rebounds, and 12 assists. It was her 11th triple double, an extension of her NCAA women’s record and one short of the men’s record owned by BYU’s Kyle Collinsworth. Transfer Erin Boley scored 14 points.

No. 24 California nearly frittered away all of an 12-point lead in the fourth quarter but held on to edge Houston of the American Athletic Conference, 80-79, as USBWA 2016 freshman of the year Kristine Anigwe scored 21 of her 37 points in the third quarter in the game played at home for the host Bears in Berkeley. “I wanted to create a gap so we could manage the fourth quarter,” Anigwe said.

USF, picked second in the AAC, pounded host Ohio State, 71-47, as the No. 22 Bulls got 14 points from Carly Santoro while Kitija Laksa and Beatriz Jordao each scored 17 points. The Buckeyes have eight new players on their roster after being one of the dominant teams the last four years with now WNBA star Kelsey Mitchell.

Seniors Jordan Moore and Amy Okonkwo combined for 38 points as host TCU in Fort Worth, Texas, took down Atlantic 10 favorite Duquesne 61-48.

UCLA, ranked 23rd in the coaches’ poll, was upset on the road in a cross-town game, falling to LMU 69-63, though the Bruins nearly wiped out a 13-point fourth quarter deficit. Japreece Dean had 16 points for UCLA and Gabby Green scored 25 for the Lions.

Just Ahead — Villanova at 7 Wednesday night opens hosting Hartford, while Penn State Thursday night opens hosting Providence.

A busy Friday has Rutgers hosting Stony Brook, now at noon, as mentioned; Saint Joseph’s hosting Temple at 5, while Drexel hosts MAAC champ Quinnipiac and Rider visits Vermont, both at 7. Delaware opens play in the preseason NIT visiting Northern Iowa, 9:30 EST.

Nationally, on Friday, new Minnesota coach Lindsay Whelan, the recently retired WNBA Minnesota Lynx superstar, makes her debut in front of a sellout home crowd against New Hampshire.

Saturday has one game as Penn opens on the road at Siena before moving on to top-ranked and defending NCAA  champion Notre Dame on Monday night.

And that’s the news.