The Guru Report: ‘Nova Falls to Creighton While Penn Continues Streak Beating Hawaii

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA, Pa. – Creighton lived up to the school nickname Tuesday afternoon in the form of senior Jaylyn Agnew, who gave the Bluejays flight over Villanova in the Wildcats’ own specialty in Finnernan Pavilion, shooting 6-of-11 three-pointers on the way to 31 points and a 58-42 victory in the second Big East game of the season for both squads.

Elsewhere, Penn prevented a total sweep of the Guru’s group on a limited schedule, where out in the middle of the Pacific the Quakers took down host Hawaii, 70-55, in Honolulu in the final NCAA Division I game of 2019.

Rutgers fell at home to No. 14 Indiana, 66-56, and Penn State lost at Michigan, 82-48, in their Big Ten games of two others from the four of the Guru’s 11 local Division I teams who played and were involved in New Year’s Eve matinees. 

And, nationally, in two big upsets of ranked teams in the Big Ten, Ohio State won at No. 24 Minnesota 66-63 while Northwestern at home shocked conference favorite No. 12 Maryland 81-58.

Meanwhile, back here, Creighton’s Agnew, a 5-11 senior forward from Andover, Kansas, who also grabbed nine rebounds, arrived in town as the newly named conference player of the week after scoring 23 points in Sunday’s  65-56 victory at Georgetown in the nation’s capital that enabled the Bluejays (10-3, 2-0 Big East) to assemble a 2-0 road sweep to begin conference competition.

Temi Carda provided 12 points and dealt eight assists in a game whose outcome loomed well before the end of the half in the second quarter in which Creighton bolted from a seven-point lead and outscored Villanova 22-10.

The loss dropped Villanova (6-6, 1-1) to both an overall .500 record as well as an opening weekend split at home.

The Wildcats also provided a conference honoree to the matchup here in freshman Maddie Siegrist, who has won several rookie awards and last time around earned her second national freshman citation from the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) after scoring 41 points against La Salle.

But while Mary Gedaka was able to equal Sunday’s 18-point performance in the win here over Providence, Siegrist was held off also scoring the same total twice, though she still produced a commendable combination of 10 points and eight rebounds.

The game also matched two veteran coaches in Creighton’s Jim Flannery, a graduate of the school who has been on the sideline of his alma mater for 18 seasons, while Villanova’s Harry Perretta is in his 42^nd and final season here on the Main Line, having announced his forthcoming retirement this spring.

After completing the 2019 portion of the schedule in the early hours of New Year’s Eve, Perretta offered some philosophical approach to handling a game in which Creighton upped the series total to 8-6, though the Bluejays had lost three straight to the Wildcats and are now 3-4 here in The Finn.

“This team plays offense more with a system, and we’re worse guarding a system than athletes,” Perretta explained in dealing with the Bluejays. “In a system, our inexperience comes to the surface.”

He also noted Gedaka and Siegrist need to be supplemented by additional weapons “to score the ball” for Villanova to succeed.

“If they don’t shoot it, we can’t win, if they shoot it and shoot it poorly, we’re not going to win, but if you have a chance to shoot half decently, you have a chance to win.”

Perretta related that at the half with the game already out of hand, his players had a hard time understanding strategy to spend the next two quarters just doing things for improvement that will make the team better down the stretch of the season.

“The biggest thing that I was taught when I was younger was how to win,” he said. “This is what you have to do. If you don’t do this, you can’t win.”

Heading into the next Big East weekend following the arrival of 2020, Villanova steps into one of the deeper ends of the competition pool on the road, visiting Seton Hall in South Orange, N.J., Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. and then staying in the Metro area to visit St. John’s in Queens, N.Y., on Long Island Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.

The Pirates of Seton Hall made it an opening sweep in the conference, winning easily at Xavier, 83-61, in the Musketeers’ Cintas Center in Cincinnati, as Shadeen Samuels, the preseason Big East player of the year, scored 17 for the visitors and Xavier’s A’riana Gray scored 22.

Saint John’s took a similar opening road sweep at Butler 67-42 in the Bulldogs’ Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The other conference teams were idle.

The Wildcats are back here on Friday, Jan.10 at 11:30 a.m. for a school day promotion hosting Butler, and then hosting Xavier the following Sunday at 1 p.m.

Penn Closes Decade Beating the Rainbows of Hawaii

The last score of the 2010s in all NCAA Division I women got posted from the middle of the Pacific Ocean where Penn opened its two-game swing continuing to handle non-conference foes, beating Hawaii 70-55 in this one in Honolulu.

The Quakers (9-1), who have just one more out of league game, which will be out in Hawaii playing  Chaminade Thursday, have lost just to Duke in Durham, N.C., in having their best season start ever.

Technically, there are two others this month visiting here at ‘Nova and at Temple seeking a first ever Big Five 4-0 sweep.

Following the Chaminade game, the Quakers return home  to The Palestra to begin preparing for their Jan. 11 Ivy opener against Princeton in the first meeting since they lost to the Tigers in the Ivy tourney title game at Yale in March.

However, Penn was a co-champion of the regular season with Princeton and had a win up there in Jadwin Gym.

In the Tuesday win in the Stan Sheriff Center against Hawaii (6-7), which was in the afternoon at the home team’s  local time, Penn’s rookie sensation Kayla Padilla had another high-volume performance, scoring 23 points off 9-for-23 shooting from the field.

 Kennedy Suttle scored 11, propelled by three three-pointers, and grabbed nine rebounds, while Eleah Parker had 10 points and nine rebounds, and Tori Crawford also scored 10 points.

Amy Atwell scored 12 for the Rainbow Wahines.  

Big Ten Setbacks: Rutgers Downed by Indiana While Penn State Taken by Michigan

The season-opening joyride enjoyed by Rutgers got jolted at home in Piscataway, N.J., by No. 14 Indiana, 66-56 as the Scarlet Knights (11-2, 1-1 Big Ten) were unable to completely repeat the closing rally they mounted in the conference opener Saturday at Wisconsin.

On the other side, the Hoosiers (12-2, 2-0) are having one of their best runs in the history of the program having been ranked in all nine weeks of the Associated Press women’s basketball poll after only six other previous appearances in the rankings’ 44-year history.

Rutgers until Tuesday had been also having equal success, reaching the Knights’ best start in the C. Vivian Stringer coaching era at the Central New Jersey program and best overall since the 1990-91 team under Theresa Grentz burst to a 13-0 start in the days they competed in the Atlantic 10.

 Indiana’s Jaelynn Penn scored 14 points while Grace Berger scored 13. 

Though Rutgers has a reputation for tough defense, the Hoosiers are also being unyielding in holding all but then-No. 2 Butler under 70 points to date.

The visitors opened a 13-point advantage in the last stanza and Rutgers trotted out another rally to cut the deficit to five at 59-54 in the last minute before Aleksa Gulbe hit two foul shots with 31.1 seconds left in regulation to end a scoring drought of 4:16.

Talented Hoosiers guard Ali Patberg, whose team blew a lead to the Scarlet Knights and their vaunted 55 press a year ago, said Indiana was prepared by the coaches to counter Rutgers pressure.

“It comes down for us to executing and being confident to handle their pressure,” she said. “When they did make their run, we stayed calm we stayed composed and that was huge for us.”

 Arella Guirantes, who led the comeback at Wisconsin and has won several Big Ten weekly awards, had 23 for the home team, which next heads to Purdue on Sunday at noon in West Lafayette, Ind.

However, the Rutgers star hurt her ankle near the close and Stringer has yet to know how bad she was affected.

“I hate that happened,” Stringer said. “I don’t know right now, she’s limping. Going through a lot. She wants to play all the time. We need to give her a break.”

Khadaizha Sanders scored 16 and had five rebounds for Rutgers.

As to the nick to the team record, Stringer said of the past successes, “Dealing with a mirage before, I readily admit that. This was the Big Ten.

“It’s disappointing. We can’t keep playing from behind and fail to find our second and third reads. It ends up exhausting with the way we press and play defense. We need to figure that out.”

The Hoosiers, after being held to 25 points in the first half, broke loose for 41 the rest of the way.

Penn State, meanwhile, seemed poised to build on a near-successful rally from a huge deficit at home to Minnesota, by knotting recently ranked Michigan 7-7 early in the action in the Crisler Center at Ann Arbor.

But then the Wolverines exploded on a 16-2 run and the Lady Lions were unable to come back, losing 82-48.

Siyeh Frazier and Kamaria McDaniel each scored game highs of 16 points for Penn State (6-7, 0-2 Big Ten), while Hailey Brown had 15 points, Amy Dilk scored 13, Kayla Robbins scored 12, and Naz Hillmon scored 11 for Michigan (10-3, 1-1).

The Lady Lions stay on the road, heading to Wisconsin for a Saturday 4 p.m. game in Madison that will air on the Big Ten Network.

Big Ten Victims: Northwestern Ambushes No. 12 Maryland

On a day that Northwestern honored longtime coach Joe McKeown, the Father Judge graduate from Northeast Philadelphia who recently reached his 700^th victory, his Wildcats did something extra special, upsetting the Big Ten favorite, No. 12 Maryland, 81-58, as Lindsay Pulliam scored 24 points and Veronica Burton added a career-high 23 and swiped six steals. 

Northwestern (12-1, 2-0 Big Ten) had lost seven straight games in the series to the Terrapins (10-3, 1-1). 

“First of all, great respect for Maryland, they’re one of the best teams in the country,” McKeown said. “They raised the bar when they came into the Big Ten. The first year or second year they went to the Final Four and they’ve stayed consistent.

“We’ve had some tough games, some not so good. And today, we played through everything. We played through mistakes. We played through turnovers and tried to stay relentless on defense, and second half, I just thought we controlled the pace. 

“We handled their traps and presses for the most part. We just have competitive kids.”

The Wildcats also got double figure scoring from Abi Scheid (12 points) and Abbie Wolf (10 points) in reaching their seventh straight victory.

The home-team defense forced 24 turnovers, good enough to mine 29 points to help account for the wide lead during the game. Northwestern next plays Iowa on Sunday.

Maryland’s Stephanie Jones scored 14 and Kaila Charles, who earlier in the day added the USBWA national player of the week award to her set of honors for the weekend win over Michigan, scored 10.

“Northwestern was sensational,” said veteran Maryland coach Brenda Frese. “They punched first and had a tremendous game plan. They played extremely hard for 40 minutes.

“It’s disappointing for us. I don’t think we responded well on the road, first conference game. We turned the ball over too many times and put ourselves in a difficult hole to climb out of.”

The Terrapins next host Ohio State Monday night at the XIFINITY CENTER in College Park.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s return to the rankings will likely be brief after being taken down by Ohio State 66-63, as the Buckeyes (8-5, 1-1 Big Ten) upset another AP team after earlier in the season beating then-No. 2 Louisville.

In this one after the Gophers held a 63-59 lead with 2:55 left in regulation, OSU defensed a shutout the rest of the way to regain the lead and take the victory.

“We stuck together and made plays down the stretch, which was nice to see,” said Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff. “This is really a tough place to play and it’s always tough to win on the road in the Big Ten.

“I’m proud of how we played tonight and I hope this can help us take a step forward and we continue to get better.”

Aaliyah Patty had 13 points for the Buckeyes in the game played in Williams Arena in Minneapolis and teammate Kierstan Bell matched that total with all her points coming in the second half while Jacey Sheldon scored 10.

Destiny Pitts scored 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds for the Gophers (11-2, 1-1), who also got 11 points and 14 rebounds from Taiye Bello, while Jasmine Brunson scored 13.

Minnesota had trailed 30-17 in the first half but rallied for a 41-37 lead in the third period before the game stayed tightly contested the rest of the way.

Ohio State, as mentioned above, next heads to Maryland on Monday night.

 Small Colleges: Narrow Win Keeps Rowan Streak Alive

Off to one of the Profs’ better starts, Rowan pulled out an 87-85 overtime triumph against Cabrini in Radnor, Pa., near here, in the title game of the Cabrini Classic to expand the win streak to eight while also running the overall record to 11-1. 

Eliana Santana scored a game-high 23 points for the visitors and grabbed nine rebounds for a near double-double while center Ayanna Johnson scored 21 and completed a double-double with 17 rebounds, along with eight blocked shots and three assists.

Nicole Mallard scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds, Kennedy Brown scored 13 points, and Grace Marshall scored 10.

Cabrini’s Lexi Edwards hit a three-ball with a second left in regulation to force the overtime.

In a tight extra period, the Profs were able to build enough of a slim lead to withstand Cabrini’s Kate Lannon’s three-pointer as time expired.

Katie Rodriguez had 18 points for the Cavaliers (7-4), while Edwards scored 17, Ashley Tutzauer had 16 and Cassidy Gallagher scored 12, and Lannon scored 10 and grabbed nine rebounds.

Rowan took the tournament opener Monday beating Eastern University 109-86.

And that’s the roundup game report to close 2019 and the rest of the 2010’s decade.