Guru Report: La Salle Makes Hay Beating Coppin State

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA – Just one game was played on the Guru’s local 11 schedule Tuesday night with Thanksgiving fast approaching and that event occurred right here at La Salle’s Tom Gola Arena where the Explorers kept their winning momentum alive with a 79-46 victory over Coppin State of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

It was over quickly with the home team taking a 7-0 lead and keeping the hammer down the rest of the way to extend the current win streak to four and overall record at 5-1 while the Eagles (0-6) are still looking to hang a larger number on the left side of their opponents’ outcome.

Although Coppin State hails from Baltimore, these teams have met just once a long time ago with La Salle getting a 71-57 victory on Dec. 29, 2003.

Right now, there are a lot of things going on up here the Explorers have not done in a long time like owning a winning record.

In Mountain MacGillivray’s second season, La Salle is just a victory shy of matching last season’s (6-25) overall total in which the first win occurred on Dec. 9 after eight previous attempts.

As far as first time, long time goes, the needle hasn’t changed since the previous game with the early streak the best in two seasons and it is the best start in 13 seasons, which at this stage of 2006-07 was 6-0.

In this one, it wasn’t the abundance of individual stats in the various categories but rather the overall number of players compiling them.

In all, 12 of the Explorers’ 13 players scored at least a point – reserve Sofilia Ngwafang only appeared for 5 minutes, 45 seconds, but did grab four rebounds. 

Freshman Claire Jacobs from Perth, Australia, scored 12 points while her twin sister Amy had eight and grabbed five steals.

A trio of players scored nine points, each: reserves Carley Lytton and freshman Kayla Braxton-Young, as well as freshman starter Jordon Lewis, who also qualified for the long-range travel connect of the night with a sizeable contingent of family members making the trip here from Houston.

Rutgers transfer Kate Hill dealt seven assists off the bench while senior forward-center Shalina Miller grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four shots.

“In practice we’re more of a team,” Miller compared last year’s unit to this one, which has a bunch of new faces. “We pay more attention to the details. 

“That’s something we struggled with last year. We weren’t able to close a game out. This year we’re able to come up with a win, cause we’re able to close a game out.”

Oluwadamilola Oloyede, whose name is a far tougher match for any spellchecker than her town of Beltsville, Md., had 14 points and eight rebounds, while Chance Graham had 10 points and 16 rebounds for Coppin State.

MacGillivray was pleased with the way the offense was run, the cutdown to 13 turnovers while forcing 24, and taking three charges.

The current run includes the two comeback wins – one here from down 14 at the half to Harvard and the 20-point erasure of Penn State’s big lead up there late in the game, while the one loss was a narrow setback to Robert Morris here.

Next up comes this weekend in Navy’s tournament in Annapolis, Md., with La Salle meeting UMBC at 1 p.m. Saturday and then on Sunday meeting the winner or loser of the Navy-Kennesaw State game.

But MacGillivray, whose team went 3-13 in the Atlantic 10 a year ago and was picked last in the conference coaches’ preseason forecast, doesn’t want to discuss the opposition to date or just ahead in terms of their value.

“Right now, our focus is just La Salle,” he said. “We’re not there yet. But when we do, we’ll be much better than we are now.”

As to what’s ahead through the rest of non-conference play, following the Navy tourney this weekend,  Penn visits here Wednesday in the first Big Five game for the Explorers, while the Quakers are 1-0.

 Then it’s at Rider, at Drexel, and then back home hosting Villanova and Temple before tipping off the Atlantic 10 hosting Dayton, which is one of the league’s frontrunners with a coaches’ pick of second.

Nationally Noted: Speaking of Dayton, the Flyers hosted No. 4 Connecticut Tuesday night and though the Huskies had an injury riddled contingent on the trip to Ohio, the Huskies still came away with a 75-37 non-conference victory.

Megan Walker had 23 points and tied a career-high with 12 points for UConn (6-0), whose Crystal Dangerfield was sidelined with back spasms. 

Jayla Scaife had 12 points for the Flyers (3-3), who several years ago challenged the Huskies in an NCAA tournament Elite Eight game in Albany, N.Y.

Connecticut is off for eight days until visiting Seton Hall, a future Big East opponent, next Thursday.

UCLA Upheaves Yale: Now other PAC-12 players are getting into Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu’s triple double act. Japreece Dean had 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists to lead No. 11 UCLA to a 100-65 win over Ivy Leaguer Yale out west in Pauley Pavilion. Jordan Canada, now in the WNBA, got the last one for the Bruins (5-0) in 2017.

Ellen Margaret had 22 points for Yale.

Drawing Blanks at Army: When Army women’s coach Dave Magarity coached the Marist men, he earned over 250 victories. Earlier this season he reached 249 and it seemed he might become the first to win that many coaching separate genders.

But since then, Magarity has lost three straight games, falling at St. Francis-NY (70-64), then at home on a late rally by Columbia (71-62), then this week Tuesday night, the Black Nights were victimized by TCU, 66-52, at home at Christl Arena in West Point, N.Y.

The visitors are 5-0 while Army is 1-5

Looking Ahead:  Locals Turkey Trotting

We’ll be back with the national stuff in the next 24 or even later today, but here’s how the locals shape up across the Thanksgiving Weekend Holiday:

Thursday – Temple plays North Carolina, now under former Princeton coach Courtney Banghart 9 p.m. in Cancun, Mexico. 

Rutgers plays Vanderbilt at 3 p.m. in the Junkanoo Jam in the Bahamas. 

 

Friday – Temple continues in the Cancun Challenge in Mexico, playing Creighton at 8 p.m.

 If Rutgers lost, the Scarlet Knights play today, meeting the loser of the Seton Hall/Georgia Tech at 7:45 p.m. 

Penn State meets Long Bach State, 6:15 p.m. in the first round of the Cal Classic at Berkeley;.

Delaware plays Cal State Fullerton at 9 p.m. in the Titan’s tourney.

 Penn visits Duke for a 1 p.m. single game in Cameron Indoor Arena in Durham, N.C.

 

Saturday – La Salle meets UMBC 1 p.m. at the Navy Classic in Annapolis (Md.) at the Naval Academy.

 Saint Joseph’s hosts American at Noon followed by Drexel meeting Buffalo at 2 p.m. at the Hawk Classic at Hagan Arena (predetermined games).

If Rutgers won Thursday, the SKs meet the winner of the Georgia State/Seton Hall game at 2 p.m.

 Penn State meets N.C. Central or California 4 p.m. or 6:15 p.m. in the Cal Classic;

 Delaware vs. Santa Clara at 5:30 p.m. in the Cal-State Fullerton tournament (predetermined game).

 

Sunday La Salle vs. Navy or Kennesaw State, 1 p.m. or 3:15 p.m. in the Navy Classic at Annapolis, Md.

American vs. Buffalo, 12 p.m.; Saint Joseph’s vs. Drexel, 2 p.m. Hawk Classic at Hagan Arena (predetermined games).

 St. Francis, Pa. is at Princeton, 1 p.m. for a single game.

 

Monday – Hartford at Penn, 7 p.m.

And that’s the report.