The Guru Report: Villanova Edged By St. Johns While Drexel and Penn Triumph

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA — Villanova went from shooting the lights out in the Wildcats’ win over Georgetown at home last Sunday in Finneran Pavillion to shooting itself in the foot back here Friday committing 18 turnovers in a 66-62 loss to St. John’s in a Big East matchup that earned the Red Storm (14-13, 7-9 Big East) a split in the season series between the two schools.

Elsewhere among the other four teams in the Guru’s local D-1 group who played, everyone had fun last night with wins, especially Drexel and Penn. 

Despite the miscues, ‘Nova (16-10, 7-8) had chances to pull this one out to avoid having its grasp slip further on the few straws of possibilities to return to the NCAA tournament.

Adrianna Hahn continued to extend her career record in the program shooting another three-pointer that tied the game at 62-62 with 37 seconds left in regulation.

But 12 seconds later Neumann-Goretti grad Alisha Kebbe treated her homecoming crowd to a tie-breaker for the visitors, and on the ensuing possession Mary Gedaka made a bad pass to put the ball back in the Red Storms’s hands.

Kebbe got to the line and put two more points up for what became became the final score with 10 seconds left, and then Hahn lost the ball on the Wildcats’ next possession with four seconds left.

In their first meeting up in Queens on Long Island, Villanova cruised to a 73-57 win.

But the Red Storm have since improved to upset No. 11 Marquette a week ago to give the Golden Eagles their first loss in conference play and knock them out of the Top 10.

On Friday Marquette fell again, losing at home to third-place Butler 61-57.

But while the loss by the Golden Eagles (22-5, 13-2), got DePaul (20-7, 11-4) within two games of the frontrunners and Butler (20-6, 10-5) within three, at this late stage whatever was to happen had no bearings on ‘Nova, in fifth 1.5 games behind Providence (16-11, 8-7), other than the need to piling up wins in the stretch drive to impress the NCAA folks who make the at-large selections.

“They’re a tough team and we didn’t make the right plays at the right time,” said veteran Villanova coach Harry Perretta of the way this one went similar to a loss here last month in overtime to DePaul after the ‘Cats lost a chance to win in regulation.

“We made one good play to make a three to tie it and then we didn’t switch a screen on defense and they get a layup.

“Yeah turnovers were big, but I just think our defense when the game was on the line, we were supposed to switch screens, we had a team foul to give, they didn’t do either. And then we wind up turning it over instead of getting a shot after.”

Hahn had 19 points propelled by five triplets, Gedaka scored 17, and Kelly Jekot scored 13.

Villanova shot 11 treys compared to just a pair from St. John’s, which got 16 points from Kebbe, 15 from Tiana England, and 10 from Brelove Courteeona.

The Red Storm capitalized on the ‘Novas mistakes to collect 24 points, double the 12 the Wildcats got on St. John’s mistakes.

Villanova is back here Sunday at 1 p.m. hosting Seton Hall looking to sweep the Pirates before finishing the regular season on the road next weekend at Xavier and Butler.

The Big East tourney will be March 9-12 in Chicago at DePaul’s Wintrust Arena.

Penn and Princeton Maintain 1-2 Spots in Ivy Race

Penn bounced back off its double-overtime loss at Harvard last Saturday to trounce Columbia 79-56 at home in The Palestra to maintain a one-game lead over preseason favorite and defending champion Princeton, which had had to hold off a rally from Columbia for a 68-64 win at home in Jadwin Gym.

On Saturday, Penn will host Cornell at the front end of a doubleheader with its men at 4:30 p.m. going for a sweep, while Princeton will be looking forward likewise in hosting Columbia at 5:30 p.m.

The outcomes will set up Tuesday’s game here at 7 p.m. when Princeton visits looking to avenge Penn’s upset of the Tigers in the conference opener at Jadwin last month.

Both teams are drawing close to guaranteeing their spots for the third straight year in the four-team Ivy men’s and women’s tourney, which moves from Penn the first two years to Yale at the Bulldogs’ Lee Amphitheater next month in New Haven, Conn.

Things got a bit more interesting for the race for the other two spots. While Harvard routed Brown 98-55, Dartmouth, on the outside looking in at the moment, upset Yale 56-54, to move within a game of the tournament hosts.

In the Penn game, the Quakers (17-4, 7-1 Ivy) gave the Lions (7-15, 3-6) their worst drubbing of the season in taking their 16th straight in the series improving the all-time record to 49-18. It’s the most lopsided win against Columbia since January 28, 2000.

Five players scored in double figures for the first time this season, paced by Princess Aghayere, who had 19 points and shot 3-for-3 from beyond the arc. Phoebe Sterba had 16 points, shooting 4-for-9 on three-point attempts, which Penn connected on a season high of 12, one short of the program record.

Ashley Russell scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds, while Eleah Parker scored 12, and Micae Jones off the bench scored 10.

The Quakers’ 32-19 third quarter was two short of their highest scoring quarter ever and was their highest ever in an Ivy contest.

Meanwhile up at Princeton (14-9, 6-2), a seemingly easy win gave way to a narrow escape from Cornell (9-11, 3-6) after the Big Red chopped what had been a 21-point deficit to just a bucket with 34 seconds left in regulation.

Reigning Ivy player of the year Bella Alarie, who else, got the clincher for the Tigers with 11 seconds remaining.

After successive weekends in which Alarie had scored 45 points in a game on the first set of back-to-backs and 41 in a game a week ago, this time behind Gabrielle Rush’s team-high 16 points, Alarie and Sydney Jordan each scored 10. Alarie also had 8 rebounds and dealt 4 assists.

Laura Bagwelle-Katalinich had a game-high 21 points for the Big Red, and Samantha Widmann scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Dartmouth (11-11, 4-5) got its first home win over Yale (15-9, 5-4) since 2000 when in the last minute, Paula Lenart tied the score at 54-54 with 29 seconds left in regulation and then after the Bulldogs committed a turnover Lenart came back again to grab an offensive rebound of a missed three-pointer and put the shot back up and watched it dance on the rim and drop through the net with 1.4 seconds remaining.

Isalys Quinone had a game-high 18 points for the winning Big Green while Katie Douglas scored 13 and Lenart finished with 10 points and eight rebounds.

Yale, which led by as many as 10 points in the game, got 17 points from Robin Gallgher, the only Bulldog to score in double figures.

The results sets up a Saturday night with Dartmouth hosting Brown and a chance to move into a fourth-place tie since Yale will be hosting Harvard.

Drexel Keeps Its Streaks Alive While Delaware Also Wins

Over in the Colonial Athletic Association, second place Drexel made its toughest conference stop to date and in a battle of streaks the Dragons ran their current win total without a loss to 11 and true road win streak to 13 by handing UNCW its first home loss of the season in 13 games, prevailing 65-53 over UNCW in Wilmington, N.C., at Trask Pavilion for a season sweep of the surprising Seahawks (15-10, 8-6 CAA).

The 13 road wins by the Dragons  dating to last season lead the nation and are four better than newly ranked Rice and North Carolina A&T.

Delaware, which won at Charleston 72-60, was able to jump up to fourth a half-game ahead of UNCW after the Seahawks’ setback to the Dragons (19-5, 14-2).

Drexel, which dropped its first two games in the CAA, hosting Towson in an upset loss, and then losing to preseason favorite James Madison at home, hasn’t lost since and the Dragons are 1.5 games behind the Dukes (21-4, 13-1), who they will visit the final game of the regular season in two weeks.

JMU stayed on top beating Elon, 74-46, the eventual league champion who they lost to in last year’s semifinals at Drexel.

A year ago Drexel and JMU tied for first but the Dragons got the No. 1 seed only to Elon in the championship.

It looked like UNCW might top coach Denise Dillon’s squad at the finishFriday coming within three points but the Dragons with the nation’s top scoring defense (47.6) then shut the door with a 9-0 run to close the game in the last two minutes.

Freshman Keishana Washington had a career-high 21 points for Drexel, shooting 8-for-12 and scoring a career-high 21 points, eight of which were collected in fourth quarter.

Washington is the only other player to lead the team in scoring since Dec. 21 besides Bailey Greenberg, who had 14 points and 10 rebounds but fouled out.

Niki Metzel had 13 points, including 5-for-6 from the line with a cloding 4-for-4 to short-circuit the Seahawks’ late rally.

The Dragons will look to add another series sweep to their collection Sunday when they visit Charleston at 1 p.m.

Delaware, meanwhile, had four players score in double figures in the win over Charleston (7-18, 3-11) in TD Arena to go above .500 for the first time this season and run their win streak over the Cougars to nine straight in the series.

Allison Lewis personally put the lock on the door with all 13 of her points in a 6:15 span in the final quarter while Samone DeFreese had 16 points, and Makeda Nicholas and Rebecca Lawrence each scored 11 to extend the current overall win streak to three games.

In wining seven of their last eight the Blue Hens will be riding momentum Sunday into Trask Coliseum at 1 p.m. in looking to sweep UNCW and build on the fourth place standing.

Nationally Speaking: Oregon Loses Again in Wild Pac-12

The Pac-12 teams in the Associated Press Top 10 can hold their own against the rest of the world but it’s a different story in their weekend get-togethers after the New Year arrives.

Having reached second place nationally on Monday, later that night Oregon fell to state rival Oregon State and now less than a week later the Ducks were upset at home by UCLA 74-69 Friday night.

Stanford needed a shot near the end of regulation to avoid an upset and beat Arizona 56-54, while Oregon State fell behind on a 16-0 opening run by Southern Cal but rallied for a 68-61 win.

Thus, with three games left Oregon is still in first in the conference but just by a game to Oregon State and Stanford, who are tied.

Looking Ahead: Temple Tries to Recover

Other than the two Ivy League locals and the rest of the conference spoken to, the only other Guru team scheduled in Saturday Division I action is Temple, which 2 p.m. in Florida will be at UCF, which is second in the American Athletic Conference behind Connecticut.

The Owls will be trying to shake off their previous loss at SMU Wednesday in Dallas when they erased a 19-point lead Mustangs lead with a 25-2 run to go up 10, only to then submit to a 12-1 run and four turnovers in the closing two-minute span to lose when SMU scored at the finish.

In small colleges, Rosemont goes for its first Colonial States Athletic Conference title when the Ravens (23-3) in their historic season host Keystone in the championship at 4 p.m. in Alumnae Hall.

Rosemont has won 18 straight and all 17 in the CSAC including 86-69 and 85-41 in the two meetings this season with Keystone.

And that’s the report.