The Guru Report: Villanova Falls in Wave of Big East Upsets While Drexel and Princeton Win Big on the Road

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA — If launch night in the Big East for women’s basketball was any indication, a wide-open chase over the next two months might be looming until the seed placements settle for the conference championship in March at DePaul’s Wintrust Arena in Chicago.

Three underdogs of different dimensions prevailed in the four games played Saturday and the fifth game coming Sunday in South Orange, N.J., between host Seton Hall and St. John’s, the league’s travel partner duo out of the New York Metro area, could be a tossup.

Right here in a mid-evening tilt at Villanova in Finneran Pavilion for the second straight year Butler topped the Wildcats on one of their home courts, this time, 63-55, in a matchup that was between a pair of teams that had enjoyed the previous two months against opponents outside the conference with the visiting Bulldogs building a 10-1 resume that included Ohio State on their victims list while the hosts claimed Georgia here just before the Xmas layoff to establish an 8-2 mark.

It was a game of runs with Butler coming out of the gate with a 21-11 first period, Villanova countering in the second, 19-7, to take a 30-28 lead at the half, then build on it 17-15 in the third before the Bulldogs had the final say in the fourth with an overpowering 20-8 finish.

The Wildcats’ vulnerability to athletic teams showed again with Butler (11-1, 1-0 Big East) owning the boards 46-24 to produce a 36-12 domination inside the paint, including 12-1 on second chance points.

True, Villanova (8-3, 0-1) made the differentials a wash, getting 33 points off 11 treys while Butler connected on just three for nine points.

But in the end, field goal accuracy was telling as an x-factor with Butler shooting 45.1 percent, including 50 percent in the final period, while the Wildcats shot 32.7 percent on the night and were defensed into 12.5 percent off 2-for-16 from the field in the final period.

Thus Tori Schickel, a 6-1 senior post player from Evansville, Ind., collected 22 point, shooting 10-for-15 from the field, and grabbed nine rebounds for Butler, and Katherine Strong scored 15, shooting 6-for-10, while Shae Brey grabbed 12 rebounds.

All that along with eight rebounds from Whitney Jennings was enough to overpower balanced scoring from the Wildcats that saw Adrianna Hahn lead the team with 16 points, including nine of them from three treys, while dealing six assists. Mary Gedaka had a near double double with 19 points and nine rebounds, Jannah Tucker scored 15, fueled by four three-balls, and Kelly Jekot scored 11.

Of course where things had seemed improving in the desires of bench contributions for veteran coach Harry Perretta, only the starters scored, the substitutes going 0-for-3 while the Bulldogs got nine points from their reserves.

Hahn’s three-ball shot before the end of the third gave Villanova a four-point lead but then Butler used a 7-3 run to begin the fourth and take the Bulldogs’ first lead 51-50. 

 The ‘Cats came back one last time to be ahead 54-53 with 3 minutes, 47 seconds left in the game on a Tucker three-ball, but Butler finished with a 10-1 rout to get the upset.

“It was the difference down the stretch,” Perretta said. “They came down and throw the ball inside. We double, they kick it and they hit a dagger three on us down the stretch. If they don’t score, she (Schickel) scores. That’s the difference.

“We executed well in spurts,” he added. “We ran the offense pretty decently, but we didn’t make them shots down the stretch when we needed to.”

For the Bulldogs, the outcome made good on their prior performances following last season’s 15-17 record.

The Butler win on campus here a year ago was next door in the smaller Jake Nevin Field House the Wildcats women used during the renovation of Finneran Pavilion.

Villanova is still tops in the series 9-3 and avenged the loss a year ago here by winning later at Butler 69-67.

 Butler’s visit created a homecoming for Bulldogs deputy athletic director Tom Crowley, a native of South Jersey who was a star at Penn, being captain of the 1978 contingent that made the Sweet 16 his senior season. A year later he served as a coaching assistant when his alma mater made the Final Four in 1979.

Crowley also served in the front office of Temple’s Athletic administration.

What happened elsewhere in the Big East Saturday tempered the Villanova loss somewhat as the ‘Cats get a brief 48 hours to recover to complete the weekend conference openers hosting Xavier at 1 p.m. at home Monday.

Creighton won at No. 19 DePaul 85-82 in Chicago as Brooke Kissinger hit a career mark with six 3-pointers on the way to an equal best 20 points for the Blue Jays (7-5), who had lost nine straight to the Blue Demons (9-4).

Audrey Faber added 19 points and nailed a long three-ball with 39 seconds left to secure the upset.

DePaul, which was on a five-game win streak, got 17 points from Chante Stonewell, 15 from Ashton Millender, and 10 with five assists from Lexi Held.

Georgetown at home in Washington opened with a 68-61 upset of Xavier (9-3) as Dionna White scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to improve to 7-5. A’rianna Gray had 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Musketeers.

Only No. 22 Marquette ( 10-3) met expectations, beat visiting Providence 85–46 as Natisha Hiedman scored 25 points and Erika Davenport grabbed 20 rebounds, which was part of her double double, all important considering the home team’s star Allazia Blockton was held to six points in the game in Milwaukee.

However, those were enough to make her the all-time men’s or women’s scorer at the school with 1,989, topping the 1,985 scored by Jerel McNeal with the men’s team.

The visiting Friars (8-5) got 12 points as the top performance, coming from Jovanna Nogic.

The local schedule in the Guru’s group was light but Drexel at Richmond and Princeton at New Hampshire got easy wins.

Drexel Rebounds With Road Win at Richmond

The Dragons recovered from their recent 55-39 neighborhood rout by Penn by returning to their top defensive ways, beating host Richmond 58-35 in the Spiders’ Robins Center in Virginia to finish their non-conference slate at 8-3 while the Spiders are now 2-10 heading into Atlantic 10 competition.

Leading the nation in defensive scoring, it was the fourth time coach Denise Dillon’s group held the opposition to less than 40 points, limiting the Spiders to 33.3 field goal shooting percentage. The Dragons ruled the boards 51-36 tying a school mark with a 4-0 season start on the road.

Though struggling early, Drexel eventually pulled away and outscored Richmond 39-20 in the second half.

Bailey Greenberg had a double double with 11 points and 10 rebounds for the visitors, who never trailed. She was the only player to posts stats with doubles in either scoring or rebounding.

Now it’s time to head to conference play this weekend in the Colonial Athletic Association where Drexel was a preseason No. 2 pick from the coaches behind James Madison, which the Dragons shared season honors last spring and had the No. 1 seed in the playoffs where they finished runner-up in the title game to Elon.

Towson will come calling first on Friday night at 7 in the Daskalakis Athletic Center followed by none other than JMU on Sunday at 2 after the Dukes start their road trip Friday night at 7 at Delaware.

Princeton Handles New Hampshire

The Tigers have made it back to a winning record courtesy of a 90-42 road rout of New Hampshire for the first time since being 1-0 off the season-opening win at Rider in nearby Lawrenceville, N.J. last month, before enduring a seven-game slide caused by an injury-decimated roster.

The missing had included Ivy player of the year Bella Alarie, who had a broken shoulder prior to the first game of the season, which was last month.

The trip to Lundholm Gymnasium in Durham, N.H., enabled Princeton coach to make an extra homecoming to the state of her birth besides the ongoing annual visits to Dartmouth, her alma mater, in Ivy competition.

Alarie had 18 points while Gabrielle Rush and Taylor Baur each scored 12 points for the Tigers (8-7) and McKenna Haire scored 11.

With four block shots Alarie is within four of the Princeton record set by Ellen DeVoe at 157 in 1986.

Ashley Storey with 14 points was the only player to score in double figures for New Hampshire (3-10) while Caroline Soucy had a near double double with eight points and nine rebounds.

Fifty of the points on the winning side came off the Princeton bench and Baur’s 12 points were a career high.

Alarie’s return and impact is obvious and though she was not yet on the court when the Tigers finally stopped the skid, she has been involved the next six on the current seven-game run.

Banghart’s teams have won at least seven straight in her last 10 seasons at the helm and with non-conference play done on the Tigers side, all of these facts feed into Saturday’s Ivy opening showdown when Penn, picked second behind the defending champs, visits Jadwin Gym at 2 p.m.

The two have won in combination the last nine league titles, 6-3 in favor of Princeton.

Now of course for the third year an Ivy tournament is in the mix, moving from The Palestra this time to Yale in New Haven, Conn.

Penn, which is a slim third nationally in defense behind Drexel and West Virginia, finishes most of its non-conference slate Monday morning at Stetson.

The big games remaining in that category involve hosting Temple and Villanova in The Palestra with a chance to win their first Big Five crown outright or share their third.

Looking Ahead: Big Five Action at Temple and Notre Dame’s McGraw Seeks 900th While Hosting Lehigh

There’s just one game on the Guru local slate with Temple making one of its soon not to be as rare home appearances at McGonigle Hall.

There’s definitely something to play for on Temple’s side in the 2 p.m. tilt despite the 3-7 record that has been impacted by a long road stint since the season opener.

“Temple is much better and not what their record says they are,” said DePaul coach Doug Bruno in a recent conversation in him mentioning the Owls’ visit to the Blue Demons at the start of this month.

Today the Owls host La Salle (3-10) holding a 1-1 record in the Big Five having beaten Saint Joseph’s and lost to Villanova.

A win means if they were to next month top Penn at The Palestra, they could land a tie for the title in a three-way 3-1 if the Quakers were to beat Villanova at The Palestra the following week.

Villanova can win outright at 4-0 with a win at Penn, while if the Quakers sweep Temple and beat the Wildcats a second straight year they could land their first outright 4-0 crown to go with the recent 3-1 finishes.

La Salle has started to make some progress under first-year coach Mountain MacGillivray after losing the Explorers first eight games. After snapping the skid, and then after following a home loss to Saint John’s they grabbed two more wins in Providence’s tournament before falling to the host Friars.

Bagging Temple after losses to Penn and Villanova would be a great way to end 2018 on their side of the arena.

Meanwhile, fate has confronted Lehigh on what was originally set as a fun what-the-heck trip to No. 1 Notre Dame at 1 p.m.

The Mountain Hawks (8-2) were the first collegiate group that McGraw, a former Saint Joseph’s star, guided as a head coach before being hired by the Irish (11-1) where she has won numerous Hall of Fame honors besides last season’s NCAA title, the second under her at Notre Dame.

Last month McGraw came home to be inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

Well by chance the ongoing adding machine that keeps track of victories under McGraw reveals that against Lehigh Sunday she will have her first chance to join the 900 victory club.

Elsewhere, Fordham will host Middle Tennessee in the title game of the Rams’ tournament in the Bronx near Manhattan, while in the Big Ten, No. 16 Iowa visits No. 21 Michigan State.

UCF (10-2) of the American Athletic Conference is at Quinnipiac (5-5) in an interesting cross match of mid-majors.

In Pac-12 openers, UCLA is at USC, Washington State is at Washington, and Arizona State is at Arizona, though the Oregons, and Stanford are not on Sunday’s slate and No. 14 California is hosting Harvard.

A result of Saturday had Old Dominion beat Coppin State for its ninth win, one more than all of last year when Nikki McCray-Person made her head coaching debut with the Lady Monarchs.

They begin Conference-USA competition next weekend.

Somewhere up above, the late Anne Donovan is smiling down on her alma mater.

And that is the report. We’ll wrap up Monday action previews to close 2018 with the report of Sunday’s action.