The Guru Report: Ionescu Now Star For The Ages as Oregon Sweeps Stanford

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Oregon senior guard Sabrina Ionescu is now a collegiate basketball player for the ages after a day of emotion off the court and another night of superior talent on the hardwood as the No. 3 Ducks defeated No. 4 Stanford 74-66 in the Cardinal’s Maples Pavilion to claim a piece of the regular season PAC-12 championship, their third straight.

With her ninth rebound early in the third period, Ionescu, who was in her stomping grounds this weekend courtesy of Oregon’s road swing to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit Cal-Berkeley and Stanford, became the first male or female in NCAA history to reach career totals of 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 1,000 assists.

In the two games, including Friday night’s win at California, she notched two more triple doubles to add to bring her combined men’s and women’s record total to 26. 

Against Stanford (24-4, 13-3), which became swept on the season by the Ducks (26-2, 15-1), Ionescu had 21 points, 12 rebounds, and 12 assists, while her teammate Satou Sabally, who recently declared to forego her senior year for the WNBA draft, scored 27 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Lexi Hull had 27 points for Stanford.

By winning Monday, Oregon clinches the top seed in next month’s PAC-12 tourney, which begins March 5 in Las Vegas.

 Holding a two-game lead with this weekend’s remaining pair of games on the slate, a Ducks win or Stanford loss in either gives Oregon the season crown outright.

Meanwhile, for all those people involved in remaining stages of voting players on watch lists, much time could be saved by right now naming Ionescu national player of the year by acclamation.

On the other hand, for all the remaining candidates worthy of watch list mention, between now and when Ionescu starts filling her arms with hardware for individual excellence, it is a chance to get some spotlight for their season’s performances.

It was noted at the outset of this report that the game itself was just a part of the day for Ionescu, who earlier was in Los Angeles at the Lakers’ Staples Center for the memorial service for Lower Merion’s Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and the other individuals who died in the recent helicopter crash commuting over to a youth basketball event last month.

Ionescu, who had come to be mentored by Bryant, was one of the many famous speakers who addressed the crowd of 20,000 and a nationwide TV audience.

Then came a trip back up north to the Bay Area for what became perhaps her greatest performance yet considering the surrounding circumstances.

Ironically, the game was played on 2/24/20, which were the uniform jersey numbers respectfully of Gianna, Kobe, and Sabrina herself.

“I tried to do everything I could to hold it together tonight, and my team helped me a lot,” she commented to ESPN afterwards off what had been a pre-scheduled Big Monday women’s basketball broadcast.

 “In true Sabrina fashion, she goes out in the biggest day in the biggest moment, and shines bright,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves praised his superstar. “It was really neat to see how hard she competed tonight. Gave it everything she had.”

Ionescu did not warm up after she returned because she felt sick to her stomach, according to the email story from Nate Krueger, the Ducks’ athletics communications representative upon whose information this Guru section is sourced.

“That one was for him,” Ionescu said of Bryant. “To do it on 2/24/20 is huge. We talked about that in the preseason; I really can’t put that into words. He’s looking down and really proud of me.”

Ionescu likely will be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, April 17, going to the New York Liberty, which will play at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, after a two-summer hiatus in White Plains caused by the previous Knicks ownership ousting them from their long existence with Madison Square Garden as their home court.

Duke Upsets North Carolina State

Don’t look now, but the long absent Blue Devils are playing their way into NCAA tournament contention, especially after Monday night’s 70-65 upset of No. 8 North Carolina State up the road at the Wolfpack’s Reynolds Coliseum in front of 5,500 fans.

The win in the Atlantic Coast Conference was Duke’s first road win in five seasons back when No. 8 Louisville was taken on Feb. 2, 2015.

Graduate student Haley Gorecki had 24 points for the Blue Devils (17-10, 11-5 ACC), while three others also scored in double figures.

 Elissa Cunane had 23 points and 12 rebounds for North Carolina State (23-4, 12-4).

Duke has won 10 of its last 12 games, eight of its last nine, and six straight games.

Small Colleges: Lincoln Gains CIAA Awards

Off its landmark season and prior to playing in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association tournament in Charlotte, N.C., Lincoln received several awards, announced Monday by the conference at the tipoff luncheon.

Darrell Mosley was named women’s coach of the year, joining Jessica Kern in 2015 as the only two in program history to gain the honor.

 Mosley cited his players and staff but expressed regret the Lions (who dropped their last two games) failed to win the division title, which would be reflective of the team’s season, which was still historic with a record 23 wins.

Lincoln, the No. 2 seed, will open play Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Spectrum Center against the winner of the Winston-Salem State/Claflin game.

Meanwhile, DeAshia Young, with her first citation, joined Kwanzaa Murray, who was named player of the year, on the all-conference team, the first time Lincoln has placed two players. It’s the first time with Murray’s honor that a Lincoln player received the award.

Rounding out the honors, Janya Lilly was named to the CIAA all-rookie team.

Centennial Conference Tourney Begins

Swarthmore as the 5 seed visits 4 seed Dickinson in Carlisle, Pa., Tuesday in an opening round of the D-III Centennial tournament and the winner will advance to Friday night’s semifinals, playing No. 1 Haverford, the weekend host, at 6 p.m., Friday.

No. 3 Johns Hopkins plays No. 2 Gettysburg in the 8 p.m. game and the winners advance to Saturday’s championship at 4 p.m. at Haverford.

Immaculata Drops Atlantic East Opener in Double Overtime

Hosting an opening round for the first time in five seasons, the No. 4 Mighty Macs in D-III quarterfinal action fell to No. 5 Marywood 79-77 as the Pacers held the home team to one basket in the last period.

Theresa Kearney had 22 points for Immaculata (12-14), while four other teammates also scored in double figures. Olivia Kosin had 26 points for Marywood (9-15), which advanced to Wednesday’s semifinal at top-seeded Marymount.

In another quarterfinal game, No. 3 Gwynedd Mercy beat visiting No. 6 Neumann 97-81 at the Griffin Complex in Gwynedd Valley, Pa., to earn a semifinal slot Wednesday at No. 2 Cabrini.

Tamia Wessels had 20 points for the Griffins (15-11), while Jaylin Ortiz scored 25 for the Knights (7-18).

The highest remaining seed will host the championship on Saturday.

Looking Ahead: Penn Visits Princeton in 1-2 Matchup

None of the Guru’s D-1 teams played Monday night and only one plays Tuesday, but it’s a big attraction.

What used to be the last game on the schedule and several times decided the Ivy champion is now a bit less urgent with the second game in the series now played several weeks in advance due to the coming on the conference tourney, which in year four next month will be played at Harvard.

Next year, however, under the Ivy season format it will return to how it was done in the past in terms of matching travel partners.

Princeton (21-1, 9-0 Ivy), which has won 17 straight and lost just to Iowa in Iowa City back in December in overtime by two points, will welcome second place Penn (17-5, 7-2) at 7 p.m. in Jadwin Gym.

These two have owned all the elite Ivy real estate for the last decade.

When the two met at the beginning of last month at Penn’s Palestra, the first matchup under Princeton’s new coach Carla Berube, the Quakers got rocked and then went on to lose at Villanova and Temple (on a fourth quarter Owls rally) to be deprived of either outright or shared Philadelphia Big 5 glory.

Then when the league schedule resumed, Penn fell deeply behind Harvard on the road though came close with a second half rally.

Since then, however, things have turned around and the Quakers have won seven straight games and Eleah Parker has played like the force she was her first two seasons.

But Princeton still has reigning two-time Ivy player of the year Bella Alarie.

So with Penn two games back in the standings but two in front of third place Yale and Columbia, yes, Columbia, here’s what the implications are.

Princeton wins and the Tigers will be close to wrapping up another regular season crown, but while that also sends Penn back to the pack a bit, the Quakers can regain the ground this weekend hosting Yale and Brown with wins, which moves them close to continue play in the Ivy tourney.

But if Penn wins, it offers some life to perhaps another shared regular season crown like a year ago, but it also means there will be suspense in the tourney title game if the two meet up for the fourth straight year.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, La Salle hosts Davidson at 11 a.m. in Tom Gola Arena in the annual Kids Day game and the Explorers, playing well of late, have a shot at landing a first-round home game that stays alive if they take the Atlantic 10 game against the Wildcats.

Later that night, Saint Joseph’s hosts Massachusetts at 7 p.m. at Hagan Arena hoping to right things following Saturday’s loss to George Mason.

In the other local game Temple visits UCF at 6 p.m. needing to recover from the weekend loss at ECU to land a higher seed for next month’s American Athletic Conference tourney.

On Thursday, the Big Ten local duo has Penn State, with just one conference win, hosting Michigan in the Bryce Jordan Center, while Rutgers, looking to finish strong, hosts Wisconsin.

The only other game has Rider, a half-game behind Marist in the win column, visiting Fairfield needing to complete a sweep after Marist beat the Stags Monday night.

That avenged an earlier loss, but a Rider win for a sweep could mean the No. 1 seed for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) tournament next month at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall.

With other small conference tourneys coming up the next few days and enough time to discuss the weekend in the next two blogs as well as the national scene, the report stops here.

The Guru will be on the scene at Princeton Tuesday night.