The Guru Report: Penn and Rider Survive Ivy and MAAC Challenges

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — For the second Saturday night in a row the Penn women fought their way out of an imperiled fourth quarter on the back end of an Ivy weekend to stay unbeaten and atop the league standings.

A week ago fending off a Columbia rally up in New York City’s West Side meant maintaining the status quo the Quakers established with an upset early last month at preseason favorite Princeton to get the league chase for one of four playoff spots in the annual tournament under way.

Saturday at home in The Palestra in which the greats of Quakers Past participated in the annual alumnae  game in a late afternoon reunion prelim, Penn turned aside a closing challenge from a new nearby standings  competitor to deny Yale a second straight night of causing mayhem with a 54-48 victory.

The outcome opened a two-game distance in the loss column for Penn (15-3, 5-0 Ivy) over Yale (14-7, 4-2), Harvard (11-8, 4-2), and Princeton (11-9, 3-2) heading into next weekend’s road trip to Dartmouth (10-9, 3-3) and Harvard to complete the first half of the league schedule.

“They’re a very good team and they’re very well coached,” Penn’s Mike McLaughlin said of Yale. “And we found a way. 

“We didn’t play the offensive end great, we didn’t make as many shots as we would have liked, but we found a way to rebound and defend consistently for four quarters.

“And when we really struggled to score in that third and fourth quarter, we didn’t let these runs get too big, and outside of that one run I thought we contained.” 

The Quakers and Bulldogs met off two different experiences the previous night in which Penn zipped through Brown here while Yale shocked Princeton in overtime up in the Tigers’ Jadwin Gym to set up an early wider gap at the top of the standings if Penn prevailed, though a Yale win would have flipped the Bulldogs into first by a half-game in the win column.

“We talk about this, regardless would happens the night before, it’s a fresh start the next day. They’re tired, we’re tired, we just have to get it done. There’s no other way to do it,” he continued.

“We talk about that with our players all the time, and they responded. In two of the Saturday nights in the back-to-back weekend, they responded by playing really hard.”

Penn’s inside tandem were the main force with Eleah Parker getting a double double of 16 points and 12 rebounds along with blocking five shots while Princess Aghayere had 15 points and nine rebounds.

Yale’s Roxy Barahman, who had more than 30 against Princeton, scored 14, while Tori Andrews had 10 points.

Elsewhere, the previous night a second straight stunner occurred  Friday when Columbia rode a 22-2 opening quarter at home to knock off Harvard.

Princeton, which makes next weekend’s trip to Harvard and Dartmouth in reverse, celebrated its alumnae from the overall regular season 30-0 unbeaten run in 2015, while also recovered for a weekend split by beating Brown 93-74, and Harvard also bounced back for a split by winning at Cornell 68-61.

The Tigers also honored former star Blake Dietrick, who is with the WNBA Atlanta Dream.

Columbia, however, fell short of gaining its first weekend sweep since 2011 when the Lions got clipped at the finish at home in Levien Gymnasium by Dartmouth 70-69 to fall to 6-13 overall and 2-4 in the league.

In the old days before the tournament, which was held at Penn the previous two seasons, the standings would mean much more right now since the Ancient Eight were the only group who did not have a playoff  to determine the automatic bid to the NCAA tournaments for men and women.

But the first emphasis now is to land in the top four next month to earn a playoff trip , whose destination this time is Yale in New Haven, Conn.

Still, first place means a regular season title and while that didn’t get disrupted the first two times around with Penn topping Princeton before the Tigers held serve over the Quakers, the one seed gets a little more turnaround time for the Saturday night semifinals and Sunday afternoon championship.

Of course by the standings finish, the top seed gets to play the number four seed but weakest by standings result may not mean a weak opponent this year given the free-for-all at the moment behind Penn.

But judging by the last two Saturdays, one does not have to wait till next month to enjoy the competition the Ivies are trotting out.

Conventional wisdom here prior to the opening tip was that Penn was in great shape from Friday in having to be able to rest starters and top reserves while Yale had to extend throughout the entire 40-minute regulation portion of the contest at Princeton and an extra five minutes of overtime.

The break for the Bulldogs was afterwards they were on the shortest weekend swing  in the Ivies, with the trip from Princeton to here being less than an hour.

Nevertheless, Penn’s 16-point lead at 41-25 with 4 minutes, 17 seconds left in the third period did not send Yale toward exhaustion and the Bulldogs kept chipping away from that point beginning with a 10-0 run to the end of the period.

Furthermore, McLaughlin had to contend with Parker dealing with foul trouble which also hit Aghayere by the last period.

The final 10 minutes it was a matter of limiting the runs and getting a timely score and McLaughlin managed to not lose his two inside players through disqualification as Parker’s layup got the lead up to six with 45 seconds left.

Though it got reduced to two with 26 seconds left, Aghayere came up with timely rebounds off missed Yale shots and with 16 seconds left made two free throws for a five-point lead followed by a Parker steal and then a foul shot from Phoebe Sterba to keep Penn still on top at the close of business.

A Yale win would have given the Bulldogs a half-game lead in the win column.

“We tried to nurse the game a little bit,” McLaughlin said. “Eleah got her fourth foul, we tried to massage when to put her back in with the game right there. We usually try to go to her when we’re struggling to get a basket, we didn’t have that option and with Eleah out we didn’t get a whole lot around the rim.”

Parker said of what was going on at crunch time from inside the game, “You have to know in the back of your mind, this game is ours, and it’s a dogfight, it was tough, there were points where it kind of got stagnant and they were going on runs but like “coach” said, we didn’t let them go on too long and we kind of found our way and grounded it out.”

Yale coach Allison Guth reflected on what might have been.

“I think if we didn’t play so bad the first part, we might get this one,” she said. “But Parker and Princess are really good on the offensive boards. But I don’t want to get moral victories. We want to move up. Next week we go to Columbia and they’re playing really well right now and their guards are really good.”

Chasing Penn

In the Columbia game, the Lions had an 11-point lead in the second half erased but went back in front with 13.4 seconds left when Madison Hardy made all three foul shots after being hit while shooting from beyond the arc.

However, Dartmouth got the ball inside and on missing a shot Isalys Quinones, who had a team-high 21 points, got fouled and made both with 4.7 seconds left for the 70-69 game-winner.

Janiya Clemmons, who had a career-high for the second straight night with 23 points, shooting 8-for-11 from the field for Columbia, drove but the shot hit the front of the rim.

It’s the first one-point game in the series since a Lions win on Feb. 9, 2002.

“We were completely undisciplined, which happened a little bit yesterday too, but we had a big enough lead in that game and held onto it,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith said.

 “We lost our heads in this game and I was disappointed … Dartmouth has three kids that can hit some pretty big shots down the stretch and full credit to them on coming away with the win.”

Up at Princeton in the Tigers win over Brown, Gabrielle Rush scored 22 propelled by a career-high six three-pointers, while Bella Alarie had 20 points, 16 rebounds, and five assists, along with a pair of blocked shots.

Sydney Jordan was a perfect 6-for-6 in scoring 12 points.

In Harvard’s win over Cornell, Katie Benzan had 20 points and Madeline Raster scored 18. The Crimson have been on the road five straight games.

Rider Rallies Over Marist

A 7-0 run late in the game capped by Stella Johnson’s three-point shot gave Rider a 62-59 lead over Marist, though the Red Foxes fought back to tie 64-64 with 47 seconds left in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game in the Broncs’ Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville, N.J.

Then Johnson, who had a game-high 23 points, found Lea Favre for the game-winner, got a steal and went to the line to make four straight foul shots and provide Rider with a 70-64 win and a sweep of the Red Foxes (17-8, 9-4 MAAC) for the second time in three seasons.

Favre and Lexi Posset each scored 16 points as the Broncs (13-9, 9-2) went up two games on Marist in second place behind ongoing frontrunner Quinnipiac though Rider has played two less games.

Daija Moses came off the bench to score a career-high 11 points. 

The 9-2 league mark through 11 games is the best in both the program’s overall history as well as under Lynn Milligan, who presided over an 8-3 start two seasons ago which was a landmark run overall for the program.

Rider has a tie break if the Broncs and Marist finish tie for second in the regular season in terms of the automatic WNIT bid unless they win the tournament in Albany, N.Y., next month to earn the automatic NCAA bid.

Alana Gilmer had 18 points for Marist and Rebekah Hand scored 17.

"That was a great MAAC basketball game. It was well played by two good teams that know what time of year it is,” Milligan said.

“Young ladies stepped up on both sides. It was a game of runs and great defense stops. I'm really proud of our effort today especially on the defensive end,” she said.

“ Lexi Posset might have played one of the better games of her career. It was just a great effort all the way around."

The Broncs go for a sweep of Iona Tuesday when the Gaels visit at 7 p.m.

Temple Streak Snapped at Connecticut

In the only other game among the Guru’s local D-1 schools, Temple’s four-game win streak was ended convincingly by No. 5 Connecticut 109-74 in an American Athletic Conference game at the Huskies’ campus Gampel Pavilion in Storrs.

Coach Geno Auriemma’s team is a perfect 111-0 in the AAC, including 96-0 in the regular season.

In this one, Napheesa Collier, who also had a big game with 30 points in the teams’ first meeting in Philadelphia, had a season-matching high of 30 points to go with 14 rebounds.

''I don't know that there's a better player anywhere that does as much every night,'' Auriemma said. ''I'm sure people already have made up their mind who the best player in the country is or who the national player of the year is, whatever, any of that. I just don't know that there is anyone that on every single night does all the things that Pheesa does.''

Crystal Dangerfield scored 22 points and had nine assists for the Huskies (21-2, 10-0 American), who next host No. 12 South Carolina in Hartford Monday night.

In that one Auriemma will then go opposite his USA Olympic coach successor in Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley, who previously coached Temple before his former assistant Tonya Cardoza succeeded her in 2008.

Mia Davis had 20 points and nine rebounds for Temple (8-15, 4-6). 

In the series with UConn, the Owls won the first two in 1981 and 1982 and have since lost 13 straight.

Temple’s Lena Niang scored 15 points and Alliya Butts had 13 points and eight assists. Marissa Mackins and Emani Mayo each had 11 for Temple

The Owls are off until next Sunday when they host Cincinnati in McGonigle Hall.

Small Colleges: Jefferson, USciences, Rosemont Keep Rolling

Now that they have beaten each other, Jefferson and USciences have returned to beating everyone else.

On Wednesday, USciences at home ended Jefferson’s overall unbeaten run and got revenge for the Devils’ lone loss on the season last month.

On Saturday, both registered wins in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.

Jefferson at home in the Gallagher Center beat Dominican 69-47 as Caitlyn Cunningham had a career high 32 points. The Rams are now 21-1 and 12-1 in the CACC.

USciences, meanwhile, at home in the Bobby Morgan Arena in Southwest Philadelphia, beat Concordia 82-46 as Alex Thomas and reserve Kendall Keyes each scored 15 points.

The Devils are 22-1 and 13-1 in the CACC, in which they clinched their ninth straight tournament appearance.

The polls are likely to change Tuesday going down for Jefferson and up for USciences but this week the Devils are 8th in both the D2Sida and WBCA Division II Polls, while Jefferson is at an all-time high 2 in the D2Sida Poll and 3 in the WBCA poll, a drop of one from the previous week.

Meanwhile, D3 Rosemont continues to make history after Saturday’s 84-64 win against Cairn in Bucks County in the Colonial States Athletic Conference.

That was win No. 20 extending an all-time season high beyond the 17 previously broken while it is the Raven’s 15th straight win, also an ongoing extending record.

Wednesday at 5:30 is senior night. Rosemont is two wins short of becoming the second school and third roster to go unbeaten through the CSAC schedule behind two by Cabrini last season and in 2014 at 16-0.

Looking Ahead: Rutgers in Big 10 First Place Showdown Hosting Maryland

Six games are on the Guru local D-1 card for Sunday highlighted by No. 20 Rutgers hosting No. 10 Maryland at 2 p.m. looking for a sweep of the Terrapins and regaining first by a half game.

The Scarlet Knights had taken a two-game lead before losing at nationally-ranked Iowa and Minnesota.

Maryland drew even last Monday and went up a half-game in the win column Thursday beating Northwestern at home.

Elsewhere, Drexel looks to hold second in the Colonial Athletic Association when the Dragons host regional rival Delaware in the second of their annual series at 5 p.m. in the Daskalakis Athletic Center after beating the Blue Hens handily in their first meeting last month in Newark.

The game will be televised on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

Saint Joseph’s, fresh off its upset of Davidson, heads to the nation’s capital to meet George Washington at noon in an Atlantic 10 game in their first meeting since playing for the conference title last season as under seeds in the championship game won by the Colonials.

La Salle, fresh off its first A-10 win Wednesday is at Saint Louis in a conference game.

Penn State will be hosting Michigan at 2 in a Big Ten game at 2 p.m. in the Bryce Jordan Center while Villanova will be at No. 8 Marquette trying to pull a Big East shocker at 3 p.m. In Milwaukee.

The Wildcats got thumped Friday night at DePaul while Marquette holds a four-game lead, one short of the record, over the Big East and has yet to lose a conference game.

In some big national matchups out of conference scheduling elsewhere other than the Big 10 Rutgers game, in the Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 24 Florida State is at No. 4 Notre Dame at noon, where the defending NCAA champion Irish are coming off an upset loss last week to No. 25 Miami.

In the Southeastern Conference, unranked Tennessee is at No. 6 Mississippi State at 2 p.m. while in the Pac-12 No. 7 Oregon State is at California at 4 p.m. looking to recover from its loss to No. 11 Stanford while those very same Cardinal in a big showdown out of the Pac-12 hosts No. 3 Oregon at 4 p.m.

And that’s the report.

.