The Guru Report: ‘Nova Wins at Seton Hall While Drexel and Delaware Drop CAA Openers

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

The Villanova women took care of the part of the Metro portion of their Big East road swings Friday afternoon that they’ve been tending to in recent seasons by grabbing a 61-55 win over Seton Hall at the Pirates’ Walsh Gym in South Orange, N.J.

That was the only good news of the three Guru local 11 Division I teams, who played, all away, in the wake of both Drexel at Charleston and Delaware at UNCW dropping their openers in the Colonial Athletic Association.

But for the moment, let’s keep it with Villanova, where the next trick is to see how the Wildcats (7-6, 2-1 Big East) handle things Sunday afternoon when they drop in on St. John’s at 2 p.m. in Carnesecca Arena in Jamaica, L.I., in the Queens borough of New York City.

But considering all the unknowns and worry of the season when they started out 0-3 overall, the ledger is a bit better than what was feared.

Once again, it was the one-two punch doing the heavy lifting for veteran coach Harry Perretta with senior Mary Gedaka scoring a game-high 20 points, shooting 9-for-16 from the field, and grabbing seven rebounds, and dealing two each of a pair of assists and a blocking a pair of shots.

Gedaka, the daughter of former Villanova star Lisa Angelotti, a Big East player of the year, has had 15 games scoring 20 or more points in her career.

Meanwhile, redshirt freshman sensation Maddy Siegrist from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., near Albany, had a double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds, her fourth double-double which is tops in the conference. 

Some extra help was also provided from Bridget Herlihy, who scored 11 points, collected five rebounds and dealt four assists, while Sam Carangi, who came off the bench to score a career-high eight points, and junior Cameron Onken grabbed nine rebounds.

The came was relatively close but late in the third quarter, the Wildcats bolted on a run to open up a double-digit lead at 49-39 at the end of the period.

The Pirates (9-5, 2-1) were not done, however, scoring the first seven points of the final period. But the Wildcats did not yield what had once again became a tight lead.

The Pirates’ Barbara Johnson and Desiree Elmore each scored 12 points while Shadeen Samuels, the Big East preseason player of the year, had 11 points, including her 1,000^th career score, and a game-high 14 rebounds.

It was Villanova’s seventh straight win over Seton Hall and in recent trips to North Jersey, the Wildcats are now 14-3 in Walsh Gym while they have also won 7-of-10 following the 0-3 season start.

The Wildcats connected on 10 three-point attempts, double on the five long-range shots that went through the nets for the home team, which was held 16 points below its scoring average by the visitors.

Drexel and Delaware Drop CAA Openers

It’s still a up and down struggle for both the Dragons and Blue Hens who lost their conference openers on the road and now will switch sites for Sunday’s games before returning home.

Drexel fell at the College of Charleston 73-59 in the hosts’ TD Arena in South Carolina ending a four-game win streak in the series with the Cougars (8-4, 1-0 CAA), who took the lead in the second quarter and kept it the rest of the way.

Bailey Greenberg had 18 points and nine rebounds for the visiting Dragons (7-6, 0-1), while senior Mariah Leonard had a career-high 14 points, shooting a near perfect 7-for-8 from the field. She also had five rebounds, all offensive, while also dealing four assists.

 Drexel now moves onto UNCW in Wilmington, N.C., where Delaware gave a good fight but fell in overtime 71-65.

Nicole Enabosi, the 2018 CAA player of the year who missed last season with a knee injury, had a game-high 23 points for the Blue Hens, scoring at the end of regulation to extend the game until the Seahawks (4-8, 1-0) regained control.

Kayla Shaw, back for the Blue Hens (4-8, 0-1) after missing 10 games with a concussion, had 17 points of which most came off five three-balls,

“This was vintage opening night,” said Delaware coach Natasha Adair. “I thought we were going to steal one on the road, but you have to be perfect in a lot of areas because the opponent is going to protect home court.”

Delaware now heads to Charleston for Sunday’s 1 p.m. tip.

Small Colleges: USciences Upsets a Ranked Squad AA rate 

The Devils took some time away from their Central Atlantic Athletic Conference (CACC) wars and beat No. 21 St. Thomas Aquinas 59-55 in Aquinas Hall Gym in Sparkill, N.Y., near the Tappan Zee Bridge.

USciences has now beaten three Division II squads that were ranked at the time.

On Friday night the Devils (10-3) held a narrow lead to get the non-conference triumph.

Irisa Ye had a game-high 21 points for the visitors and also grabbed five rebounds, while Taylor Hamm scored 10 to add to a bench advantage of 20-8 against St. Thomas Aquinas (10-3).

USciences will stay in the area Saturday to return to CAA competition at Concordia.

Nationally-Noted: The PAC-12 Wars Are Under Way and Texas Suffers Big-12 Upset

With five ranked teams and sixth that was, and three of them in the top five, the anticipated battles out West in the PAC-12 have began and there were a few worth mentioning.

No. 10 UCLA edged previously-ranked Arizona State 68-66 at home in the Bruins’ Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles to run the overall record from this season’s start at 13-0, eclipsing the 12-0 unbeaten opening by the 1980-81 squad that competed in the final year before the program was a charter women’s competitor in the NCAA.

Japreece Dean had 15 of her 23 points in the second half for the Bruins, who are now 2-0 in the conference and also got 12 points from Lindsey Corsaro and 10 all before halftime from freshman Charisma Osborne.

Robbi Ryan had 17 points for Arizona State (10-4, 0-2).

No. 18 Arizona, having a vintage year, edged Southern Cal 65-57 as the Wildcats (13-0, 2-0 PAC-12) got 24 points from Aari McDonald, 17 from Cate Reese, who also had 11 rebounds, and 11 points from Helena Pueyo to extend the nation’s best active win streak to an overall 19 straight.

Aliyah Juene had 15 of her 17 points in the second half, while Angel Jackson scored 16, and Endyia Rogers scored 14 for the Trojans.

On Sunday, Arizona State is at Southern Cal and Arizona visits UCLA.

Down in the Longhorn State, TCU got its first-ever Big 12 win at Texas in Austin, edging the ‘Horns 65-63 in the Frank Erwin Center in what was the conference opener for both teams.

TCU’s Lauren Heard had 26 points and the game-winner for the first road triumph against Texas (8-5) for the Horned Frongs (10-3), who also got 15 points and 11 rebounds from Michelle Berry.

Lashann Higgs had 14 points for Texas, while Joyner Holmes scored 12, and Sug Sutton scored 10.

And that’s the report.