The Guru Report: Drexel Tops Delaware To Cap Homecoming Weekend

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA – Narrow outcomes were the predominating theme for most of the Guru’s five local Division I teams, two who played against each other, Sunday afternoon.

Furthermore, two streaks, one in each direction, came to an end.

As usual, pre-game records meant little here at Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center in the long-running area rivalry between the host Dragons and Delaware in the Colonial Athletic Association.

The home team entered the fray locked in a three-way tie at the top of the standings while the Blue Hens were struggling near the bottom.

In a suspenseful outcome after Drexel had squandered a 12-point lead from the middle of the third quarter, the Dragons regained the advantage for good on Bailey Greenberg’s two foul shots with 1 minute, 27 seconds left in overtime, and they made three more in the final 21 seconds of the extra period to claim a 63-59 victory.

Elsewhere, La Salle’s 10-game losing streak ended with a 67-61 win over St. Bonaventure at home in the Tom Gola Arena in an Atlantic 10 contest, but Temple’s five-game win streak narrowly went by the side with the Owls losing at Wichita State 72-70 on the Shockers’ layup from Trajata Colbert with 3.9 seconds remaining in regulation in an American Athletic Conference contest.

In the other local D-1 in action, Penn State fell in a lop-sided 85-59  result at Northwestern in the Big Ten with the Wildcats, tied at the top of the standings, making further claim to gain entry to the Associated Press women’s poll, whose next release is early Monday afternoon.

Nationally, No. 4 Connecticut which had won by just single digits in its previous outing for just the second time in its lifetime perfect record against AAC opponents, slammed Tulsa, 92-34, at home on campus in Gampel Pavilion in Storrs.

No. 5 Louisville held off a rallying and unranked North Carolina group to win 74-67 on the road in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which also saw host Clemson edged Duke, 62-58; Notre Dame slam visiting Miami 76-53 for a rare enjoyable victory this season of dismay, while in the Southeastern Conference, unranked LSU at home in Baton Rouge upset No. 11 Kentucky 65-59.

In the wild PAC-12, No. 3 Stanford recovered from its Thursday shellacking from No. 3 Oregon to win at No. 6 Oregon State 61-58, and two rallies were needed on the road for No. 18 Arizona State to win at Washington State 65-56 in Pullam, and No. 21 Arizona to win at Washington, 66-58, in Seattle.

Drexel Delights Homecoming Crowd Beating Delaware

The Blue Hens still lead the series 49-36 but in recent decades the battles, though usually close, have gone in Drexel’s direction.

Such was the case here Sunday where despite a Delaware losing record, which is now 5-11 and 1-4 in the CAA, the Blue Hens rallied to extend the Dragons (11-6, 4-1 CAA) before losing in the last minute.

It’s the 10^th straight triumph in the series for Drexel and 12 out of the last 13.

The Dragons are in a three-way tie at the top of the conference, placed under preseason favorite James Madison and above Northeastern, who Drexel recently defeated here.

“It hurts because you know they left it all on the floor and they were exhausted by the end,” said Delaware coach Natasha Adair. “We have to keep this fire and keep this momentum going because something great will come of it.”

Bailey Greenberg was the lone Dragons player scoring in double figures with 26 points and three steals and recipient of an impressive floor game from Aubree Brown, who dealt eight assists, shot 3-for-4 from the field for six points, had two steals and blocked a pair of shots.

Niki Metzel and Mariah Leonard each scored nine points.

Delaware’s Nicole Enabosi, the 2018  CAA player of the year who missed last season due to a knee injury, had 16 points and nine rebounds and blocked three shots, Abby Gonzales had 15 points, fueled by three triplets, and Jasmine Dickey had nine points and 14 rebounds.

“Well, that was a great one,” said longtime Drexel coach Denise Dillon. “We knew going in what Delaware was capable of doing, they have a lot of great pieces, and it would take a lot of work to contain them, throughout.

“Yeah, a lot of highs and lows, luckily it ended up on the high end with the girls sticking together and carrying the win.”

Coming out of the halftime break, Drexel built a 12-point lead at 37-25 on Greenberg’s two foul shots with 5:44 left in the third period.

But the Blue Hens began to make their move back with a 12-0 run to tie the score with 1:11 left in the period.

Greenberg gave Drexel the lead back in the paint with 53 seconds left and it expanded by two more at the start of the fourth on Brown’s outside shot.

Then it became the Dragons-Blue Hens fight it usually is more times than not.

Enabosi tied it 50-50 but after a video review as the last minute arrived, she was hit with a technical foul.

Greenberg made one of two foul shots but also scored on the retained position for a 53-50 lead with 38 seconds left in regulation.

Delaware’s Kayla Shaw got the differential to a point with a shot as 26 seconds remained but Metzel hit two free throws to make it a three-point lead again with 10 seconds left.

The Blue Hens were then chased around and some observers said even fouled to prevent a chance for overtime but nothing was called and Shaw got to the top of the key and launched a desperation tough shot that fell through as regulation ended to make the score deadlocked.

Other than Metzel from the outset, neither team could make a shot with points on both sides coming from the charity stripe and the Blue Hens took a 59-58 lead with 3:12 left in the extra period.

Drexel hung in with its defensive philosophy and Delaware missed several shots enabling Greenberg to get the Dragons the lead with her two foul shots with 1:27 left.

Shaw missed a triplet from outside and Drexel got the ball with 57 seconds left and then Metzel made 1-of-2 free throws for a 61-59 lead with 31 seconds left.

A three with 18 seconds left was launched by Shaw but Brown blocked it.

The Blue Hens got the ball back on a Greenberg turnover but Gonzales missed a layup with ten seconds left, Leonard grabbed the rebound, and went to the line on an ensuing foul and made both free throw attempts with one second left to clinch the win.

“It was great to see us build that lead through matchups,” Dillon said of the third-quarter margin, “but of course they made some adjustments on the defensive end. 

“The biggest thing was what we gave up. We missed a couple of shots. We started going after rebounds we couldn’t get. So now they got some easy transition buckets. So it became more of a situation where we were afraid to lose the lead instead of just continuing to build off of it.

“I just said it to the team, it’s a great win but it’s an opportunity to learn a lot. Not just start to finish but that third quarter, especially.”

Drexel and Delaware have played overtime three of the last five games here in the series. The Blue Hens’ points against the Dragons are the most in five seasons and the two will meet in the return match at Delaware on Feb. 16 at 1 p.m.

Drexel next heads to a weekend road trip to Elon Friday night at 7 in North Carolina and then to William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., on Sunday at 2 before returning here the following Friday at 7 to host Towson.

Delaware reverses the trip as Drexel’s travel partner going to William & Mary Friday at 7 and then on to Elon Sunday at 2 before returning to the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark at 7 the following Friday to host James Madison.

La Salle Snaps Losing Streak Prevailing Over St. Bonaventure

The Explorers closed out with a late run to beat St. Bonaventure 67-61 in an Atlantic 10 game at home in the Tom Gola Arena that snapped a 10-game losing streak and enabled them to surpass the entire win total following the 6-25 debut of coach Mountain MacGillivray last season.

Opening last fall at 6-1 to equal the win total, La Salle (7-11, 1-4) had been stuck on that number since before gaining the first conference win of the season Sunday.

Claire Jacobs, a freshman along with her twin sister Amy from Australia, scored 16 points and grabbed a career-high eight rebounds, with 13 of the points collected in the first half.

Kayla Spruill in scoring in double digits for her sixth straight game had 15 and got nine rebounds with nine of her points achieved in the final quarter and six of those in the final 2:09 of regulation.

Jordon Lewis scored 11 with seven rebounds while Kate Hill had a career best nine points off three triplets.

Board work was a key to the win with the Explorers out-rebounding the Bonnies 44-31, including 16-5 on the offensive glass that offered 20 second-chance points to just three scored by the visitors (4-14, 1-4).

The Bonnies led 61-59 with 2:21 left in the game when the Explorers launched an 8-0 run to finish and also limit the opposition to just one shot.

“Well, it’s nice to get a win,” MacGillivray said afterwards. “It’s been a while. I forgot what it felt like. I actually didn’t forget.

“But it’s nice to be reminded. It was a really good effort. I thought our ladies  played really hard, competed well, made timely plays down the stretch, just proud of the way they got after it,” he continued.

“It’s what we’ve been talking about. Can we play hard the whole time, really compete, I think in our offense we could have been a little more disciplined, we weren’t great on our screening options in the half court, but we were competing and that leads to a win and that was really nice.

“Claire here, has been really challenged by the staff to give more on the defensive end, particularly on rebounding, she had a career high.”

 La Salle next visits Richmond in Virginia Thursday at 11 a.m. and returns here Sunday to host Saint Joseph’s at 2 p.m.

That game will also be the final Big Five contest of the season. First place will have already been decided with the result of Thursday’s Temple-Penn game determining which of the two tie with Villanova that clinched a share Wednesday by beating Penn.

The loser of the Thursday game will finish at 2-2. St. Joseph’s right now is 1-2 in the local City Series round robin while the Explorers are 0-3.

Temple Win Streak Snapped at the Finish

A 12-point lead early in the second quarter for Temple began to whither and was eventually erased, though it took till what became the bitter end courtesy of Trajata Colbert’s  layup with 3.9 seconds remaining  that gave Wichita State a 72-70 victory over the Owls (11-7, 4-2 AAC) in an American Athletic Conference game in the Charles Koch Arena in Kansas.

Coming after the upset of South Florida back in Philadelphia on Thursday, Temple failed to take the next step coach Tonya Cardoza had cautioned, which was learning to hang on to leads once they were attained.

Thus, a tightly contested game featuring seven lead changes and nine ties became the end of a five-game win streak for Temple while the Shockers (11-7, 3-2) joined the fray of contenders seeking premium seeding behind No. 4 Connecticut for the annual conference tournament in March which leads the winner to  a seat in the NCAA Tournament.

In looking at the tale of the statistics, one might think Temple had won based on the Owls holding a lead for 25 minutes, 53 seconds compared to the home team’s 7 minutes and 14 seconds.

The problem was the shots that were fired well in the first half stopped dropping over the final two quarters while Wichita State began to toss some heat.

The big guns for the Owls continued to do their thing with Mia Davis reaching her 12^th double-double with 23 points and 15 rebounds, while Ashley Jones scored 19, dished a game-high seven assists, and blocked two shots.

Melissa Matkins scored 15 points and fired 3-of-5 triplets while Alexa Williamson scored six points and Asonah Alexander scored five.

On the other side, the Shockers’ Mariah McCully scored 15 points, while Seraphine Bastin scored 12 points as did Shyia Smith.

Temple next comes home and temporarily leaves conference competition to host Penn in McGonigle Hall Thursday night at 7 to determine who shares the Big Five title with Villanova.

Penn State Handled by Northwestern

The remaining local team in action Sunday was Penn State, which became the latest Big Ten victim of revitalized Northwestern, losing on the road to the Wildcats 85-59 in Evanston, Ill.

Coached by Father Judge grad Joe McKeown, who recently claimed his 700^th career triumph, Northwestern (16-2, 6-1 Big Ten) is tied at the top with Iowa but listed in the first spot. The two teams could be joined by Rutgers, which is hosting Michigan State Monday night at 6.

The Wildcats have wins over nationally-ranked Maryland, the preseason favorite, and nationally-ranked Indiana.

The home team jumped to a 24-7 lead after the first period to settle the outcome quickly.

Kamaria McDaniel had 18 points for the visiting Lady Lions (7-11, 1-6), locked in a three-way tie at the bottom of the conference with Illinois and Wisconsin but listed in the very last spot. McKenna Marisa  scored a career-high 17 points.

Penn State next is back home in the Bryce Jordan Center Thursday at 6 p.m. hosting No. 15 Indiana, whose ranking number as this is written is subject to change later Monday when the newest ranking is released.

And that’s the report.