The Guru Report: Rutgers Rallies, La Salle Fades, While UConn and Stanford Toppled

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — Take your pick from the Guru three-game local D-1 schedule for Thursday plus some other notes or big doings in several national games.

First, anong the locals in which the word “comeback” loomed large up at No. 17 Rutgers, which rallied to overcome Indiana and stay one game in front in the Big Ten; here at La Salle in which the Explorers came from a 16-point deficit in the third period to draw close and then get dead even with Fordham in the fourth before the Rams regained control; and at Michigan State, which had to postpone its Big Ten game with Penn State because of the frigid conditions in the Midwest and the two sides won’t be coming back to play the game until Feb. 27 at a time to be announced.

Here are Tom Gola Arena, for most of the night in the Atlantic 10 game Fordham’s Bre Cavanaugh had been held in check with others finding ways to compensate for the shutdown.

But after La Salle had evened it all at 49-49 and riding momentum with 6 minutes, 11 seconds left in regulation with a threat to win its first conference game of the season, Cavanaugh hit a jumper for two and followed with a pair of three-pointers around a Michelle Nicholls basket as Fordham rode to the finish and back to Queens with a 65-54 victory.

Chalk it up as another successful homecoming for Fordham coach Stephanie V. Gaitley, a former Villanova star and Saint Joseph‘s coach though also chalk it up for signs of progress for La Salle first-year coach Mountain MacGillivray.

“We’ve been getting killed all year in the third period,” he said of where many competitive games have come to untimely demises, but on this night the Explorers outscored the opposition 15-7.

On Fordham (14-8, 5-3 Atlantic 10), Cavanaugh had eight of her 11 points in the final period with Lauren Holden tying the Explorers’ Jeryn Reese for game honors with 15 points each.

Reese’s total was a career high.

Two other Fordham players posted double doubles with Mary Goulding accounting for 14 points and 12 rebounds while Megan Jonassen had 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Shalina Miller had a near double double for La Salle (3-19, 0-8) with 12 points and nine rebounds while Janay Sanders scored 11.

The Rams dominated the boards 43-24, including 16-5 on the offensive glass to translate into 28-16 scoring inside the paint and 14-4 on second chance points.

But La Salle shot 39.6 percent from the field causing MacGillivray to quip, “there were times early in the season when we had a party in the locker room if we would get to 30 percent.”

La Salle next goes to Davidson Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.

As far as implication on the visitors side from the outcome, Fordham is tied for fifth with George Washington, two games behind the A-10 frontrunners VCU and Davidson in the loss column and one behind Dayton and Duquesne.

However, four teams sit one game right behind the Rams so this is not your grandmother’s Atlantic 10 but a conference that is wide open all the way for now until the title game of the conference tourney, which this year moves from a long stay in Richmond to Duquesne in Pittsburgh.

Of course, that begs the question concerning the A-10 legends program that in recent seasons at the men’s and women’s tourneys has spotlighted former coaches and players who have been impacts at conference schools.

But due to the various realignment moves that have been made there have been honorees who never played an actual game in the conference.

 And then, considering the site in Steel City, there sits an all-time A-10 player whose whole collegiate career was in the A-10 but her alma mater Penn State moved on a long time ago to the Big 10.

That would be former Duquesne coach Suzie McConnell-Serio who would later win two Olympic medals with USA Basketball and become a WNBA All-Star.

One more in that unique situation would be Sue Wicks, whose alma mater Rutgers moved on later to the old Big East and now the Big Ten.

Rutgers Comeback Foils Indiana

Just 12 months ago Rutgers was transitioning from a dynamic start to a two-month slide that delayed the arrival of Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer’s 1000th career victory until early this season and ultimately knocked the Scarlet Knights out of what had approached a near lock for an NCAA tournament bid.

This time around Rutgers is finding ways to shake off opposing rallies or slow starts and is even being speculated as a potential Top 16 seed that would entitle the school to be home for the first two rounds if it advances off the opener.

The latest tale of ducking trouble occurred Thursday night when the Scarlet Knights were on the short-end of a 14-point deficit early in the third period but knocked off all but one of that total by the end of that period and went on to a 69-64 win over Indiana to stay perfect at home at 11-0 in the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, N.J.

Overall, Rutgers, which won just six games two seasons ago, is now at 17-4.

The comeback eclipsed a previous season largest rally of erasing 13 points against Penn State in early January at home.

Unlike a year ago in which a return to the Associated Press poll lasted just two weeks, Rutgers is now in week three in the current season in which the only loss since early December was a narrow one recently at nationally ranked Iowa and the 9-1 conference record is the best start since the Knights began Big Ten conference competition in 2015.

Like many teams opposing Stringer over the years, Indiana (16-6, 5-5), the reigning WNIT champs, was  unable to stop the press and Rutgers hounded the Hoosiers into 21 turnovers to help the rally become successful.

Ciani Cryor had a career-high 22 points for the home team while Stasha Carey had 13 points and nine rebounds, and reserve Arella Guirantes had 12 points.

Indiana had four players reach double figures paced by Breanna Wise, who scored 15 points.

Next up is the first of the home and home with Minnesota and new coach, former Gopher and WNBA star Lindsay Whalen. This one is set for Sunday at 4 p.m. in Minneapolis.

Meanwhile Over in Division 2 and Division 3 …

Yeah, Saint Joseph’s and La Salle are not high in the A-10, Villanova is trying to figure the Big East, Penn and Princeton are opening Ivy action on the road, Temple is also out of town, as are Drexel and Delaware, so time to chat a little about some small colleges, which we’ll do more next week.

D2-Jefferson U., formerly known as Philadelphia U., and to get technical before that Philadelphia Textile, is still undefeated at 20-0 and 11-0 in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference after Wednesday’s 77-56 home conference win over Wilmington in the Gallagher Center.

Jessica Kaminski scored 18 points, shooting 7-for-10 from the field, and grabbed eight rebounds.

This week Jefferson is ranked second in the D2SIDA Poll and fourth in the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association poll, highest ever for the Rams in both polls. Coach/Athletic Director Tom Shirley is now at 768 career wins and 619 at Jefferson.

The 20-0 start is approaching the program’s best-ever 22-0 start in 1992-93.

Next up is Showdown II Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Bobby Morgan Arena at USciences, which is ranked ninth in both polls.

The Devils are 19-1 overall and 10-1 in the CACC. The 1?

That would be Jefferson earlier this season, a 67-61 win at the Gallagher Center.

The Bobby Morgan Arena is in Southwest Philadelphia near The Palestra.

USciences’ latest win also came Wednesday, beating Georgian Court 69-49 at home as Alex Thomas scored 22.

A year ago, USciences won at home 72-67 over Jefferson.

And these two teams have a history from the summer where both teams under NCAA rules can play in tact in the Philly League in suburban Hatboro where Jefferson dealt the Devils their only loss through the schedule but then USciences got revenge in the title game of the playoffs.

While Jefferson is off until Tuesday, USciences still has one more game on Saturday, traveling to CACC Northern Division Leader Dominican up in Orange in Rockland County, N.Y., Saturday near the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Rosemont Ties Win Record

And in Division III, locally, Rosemont’s 85-47 triumph over host Bryn Athn Wednesday night extended the program’s longest win streak at 12 and the Colonial States Athletic Conference’s Ravens have now matched their  all-time season record for wins at 17, equaling the total attained at 17-9 in 2012-13.

Rosemont (17-3, 11-0 CSAC) can set the new win mark Saturday when the Ravens host Wilson at 1 p.m. in Alumnae Hall, which is near Villanova.

The coach Rayne Reber is in her fifth season after being promoted to succeed longtime mentor Andy McGovern, who oldtimers will remember from way back during a brief stint at Temple where he recruited Gratz star and future All-American and Philadelphia Sports Hall of Famer Marilyn Stephens.

Her daughter Adashia Franklyn graduated Saint Joseph’s after last season and is now a member of Geno Auriemma’s staff at Connecticut, which is a way like previous move in this report is a way to segue to the next section but we will address this section again next week.

Nationally Noted: Connecticut and Stanford Suffer Losses

There was a time that invincible was what Stanford was in the Pac-12 and Connecticut was many seasons in the old Big East, let alone all those overall undefeated runs.

So the odds that both the Cardinal and Huskies could lose this time of year the same night have been quite steep.

But that’s exactly what happened Thursday night.

In reverse order Stanford, which had been as high as sixth until a recent upset loss at Utah 74-58  knocked the Cardinal down to eighth, fell at the buzzer at Bay Area rival California.

Kristine Anigwe, the likely heroine, had 25 points and 24 rebounds for the Bears (14-6, 5-4 PAC-12), who had been ranked earlier, but she was gone Thursday on fouls when the moment of high drama arrived.

Ashe Thomas took over the role with a layup to give Stanford (17-3, 7-2) its second straight conference loss for the first time since 2015.

DiJonai Carrington had 23 points and 12 rebounds for Stanford, which under the way the conference schedule is annually set, gets to come right back and host Cal Saturday at Maples Pavilion.

Meanwhile back in the southern part of the Eastern sector, Connecticut got to make one of two stops outside the American Athletic Conference the next several weeks and in a two vs. three game among teams in the Top 5 of the AP poll, No. 3 Louisville hosted and finally bested the No. 2 Huskies 78-69 snapping a 17-game losing streak in the series dating back to the Cardinals’ first-meeting win in the 1993 NCAA tournament.

In between were ongoing losses in the old Big East, two NCAA title games, and non-conference setbacks after Louisville (20-1) moved over to the Atlantic Coast Conference and its one loss this season to defending NCAA champion Notre Dame.

Way back when the Irish were also in the old Big East, they had a couple of multi-wins over the Huskies (18-2) but this is the first time in quite a while that with the loss to Baylor that knocked UConn from No. 1 last month the Huskies lost twice clear cut to different teams in the same season.

The two previous seasons UConn arrived in the national semifinals unbeaten and fell in buzzer-beating losses.

Asia Durr had 24 points and Dana Evans scored 20 for Louisville while Napheesa Collier had 20 points and Crystal Dangerfield scored 19 for UConn.

In 2013, Louisville upset favored Baylor in the Elite Eight, opening the door for the Huskies to win four straight NCAA titles to fulfill the forecast of Breanna Stewart, then a freshman that initial season in the run.

In two other results of note involving teams not ranked, Old Dominion at the start of a big weekend road trip in the C-USA won at North Texas 72-71 for the Lady Monarchs’ seventh straight triumph to reach an overall mark of 16-5 and 7-2 in the conference.

It is the second season under former Tennessee star Nikki McCray, who had been on Dawn Staley’s staff at South Carolina. The Monarchs won just eight last season.

ODU Sunday goes to Rice, which is unbeaten in the C-USA.

And over in the ACC, Makayla Dickens had 25 points and the game-winner at the buzzer in double overtime to give host Boston College a home win over Duke 92-90 as the Blue Devils fell to 9-11 overall and 1-7 in the league.

And that’s the report.