The Guru Major College Report: Penn and Columbia Join Princeton in Ivy Field While Rider Keeps Winning

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA – The month of March Madness has arrived like a Tiger, Quaker, or Lion, in terms of the women’s portion of the Ivy League tournament in which the host school has shockingly behaved like a lamb and barring some turnabout will not be on the floor for the first time in the four-year history of the event.

Rider, meanwhile, easily handled the first of a three-game finish if executed successfully earns a first-year regular season championship designation and No. 1 seed in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

La Salle jumped back in the win column and though the Explorers could have started the Atlantic 10 tournament at home Tuesday had they not lost to Davidson in overtime last Wednesday, they will get a do-over with the same Wildcats down in North Carolina.

But Saturday was not great for Temple nor Saint Joseph’s, who were the other of the Guru’s local D-1 teams in action.

The small college action is in a separate blog to give the locals, who are doing well, their own headlines to spotlight their successes.

Princeton Celebrates While Penn and Columbia Become Part of the Ivy Tourney Field

Though the first-place Tigers clinched Ivy Madness qualification Tuesday with the win over Penn and three days later clinched another regular season crown Friday night, they waited until Saturday to add the salute to the seniors to the mix and celebrated it all at home in Jadwin Gym with a 64-49 triumph  over Yale, running the Princeton overall victory streak to 20 straight games.

Meanwhile, in separate places, Penn hosting Brown here in the Palestra and Columbia at Dartmouth got important wins accompanied by an unexpected Cornell 55-47 win at Harvard, the fifth straight Ivy loss consecutively for the Crimson that goes way back to the end of the 1984-85 season for a similar occurrence.

That was current longtime coach Kathy Delaney-Smith’s third season.

Yale has a two-game lead on Harvard and needs to win just once or the Crimson to lose to complete the field. The two programs collide at Yale in New Haven, Conn., Saturday afternoon, the final day of the season.

In the game at Jadwin Gym, in which seniors Bella Alarie, the two-time reigning Ivy player of the year, and Taylor Baur were honored, the visiting Bulldogs (17-8, 7-5 Ivy) jumped to an 8-0 lead but the Tigers (24-1, 12-0), ranked 23^rd in the nation, eventually found their footing and built a 23-point lead in the fourth quarter before the game settled to a 15-point differential at the finish.

Then the net-cutting and trophy presentation got under way.

Alarie had a game-high 19 points and 13 rebounds, with four assists, while Carlie Littlefield scored 18.

The Tigers had a 47-31 advantage on rebounding.

Yale’s Roxy Barahman had 14 points, while Ellen Andrews scored 11, and Alex Cade had 10 off the bench.

Princeton, whose only overall loss has been in overtime by two points at Iowa in December, finishes the regular season next Friday and Saturday visiting Columbia and Cornell.

Meanwhile, an hour after the Princeton tip up north, Penn got under way down here meeting a Brown team that had gotten decimated Friday by the Tigers, while the Quakers had been upset by Yale, sending them into a two-game losing streak coupled with the Tuesday wipeout at Jadwin with the prospect that getting to the tournament, which they had not missed, could become difficult.

Furthermore, post player Tori Crawford, who had made great strides, went down Friday night and was on crutches, signaling perhaps she could be done for the season, though the injury has not been revealed.

There was also the emotion of the salute to the departing quartet of seniors Phoebe Sterba, Emily Anderson, Kendall Grasela and Liz Satter, who were making their final home appearance, though an encore is possible if Penn were to land a berth in the WNIT if falling short in the pursuit of the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Brown showed fight after its loss Friday night and held an early lead but eventually Penn was able to grab hold of the game and go on to a 74-60 victory, learning at the conclusion that courtesy of the completed Harvard loss at the Crimson’s Lavietes Pavillion in Boston, the Quakers (18-7, 8-4 Ivy) had earned a bid.

Though Penn is tied with Columbia (17-8, 8-4), the Quakers for the moment, hold the No. 2 seed of a head-to-head win here over the Lions with the remaining game to be played Saturday in the season finale at 5 p.m. at Levien Gym off Broadway in New York’s upper West Side.

On Friday, the squad will be at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y., upstate.

Penn got the job done off a vintage performance from junior post player Eleah Parker, who had 24 points and 14 rebounds for her 25^th career double-double, seven of which have come in her last 12 games.

“When Eleah could get us a basket with a quality shot, it opened up the floor for everybody else,” said Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said.  

Freshman Kayla Padilla, the league scoring leader at the beginning of the weekend, scored 18 points, fueled by four triplets, while Sterba had 15 points, propelled by five from beyond the arc.

Grasela dealt six assists, as did Sterba.

McKenna Dale had 27 points for Brown (8-17, 2-10), while Justine Gaziano had 21 with each hitting long range with five three-balls.

The Quakers’ high tempo approach enabled them to outscore the Bears 25-10 in points off turnovers.

“I thought for the most part we responded pretty well,” McLaughlin said of his team’s addressing the urgency of the contest. “It was an emotional night, senior night, and we had to find a way to get a win and we did.”

Grasela, a Germantown Academy graduate who is one of the few locals on the roster, said, “Never knowing when your last time is going to be when you play on this floor, that was the motto we came in with this game. 

“We said we had 40 minutes left on this floor, and we have to give it our all. That’s how the emotion carried through.”

On getting the news of returning to keep a string of all four Ivy events going, Sterba said, “I was happy, I had no idea. That was our first goal, to get to the tournament no matter what.

“Getting there, now we have to go on to our next goal. Everyone was happy to get there.”

Finishing either second – Penn has been one or two in the previous three tourneys – or third becomes the same semifinal as well as getting away from Princeton in the opener, which also involves the fourth seed.

“That’s not how I look at it,” McLaughlin said. “because we’d like to get into the WNIT (highest seed from a conference not NCAA bound automatically goes). If it doesn’t go well in the conference tournament.

“We’re trying to get as much effort and increase our profile as we can.”

Meanwhile it’s been a reversal of fortune for Harvard, which has been a league power for the most part through several decades, and Columbia, which has been on the rise since former Princeton assistant and Lions’ alum Megan Griffith from King of Prussia became coach four seasons ago.

Getting help from Cornell on putting distance from Harvard, which Columbia swept, the Lions did their part Saturday with a dominating 62-50 at Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H., where they led by as many as 26 points.

It’s a program record sixth straight win in Ivy competition.

“This is the standard that we have,” Griffith said. “We want to win championships here and I’m really proud of them coming together tonight, battling through some adversity and everybody chipping in.

“That’s what having a team is all about and hopefully we can keep this momentum going.”

Freshman Abbey Hsu had a game-high 17 points and matched a career high with 12 rebounds, while Hannah Pratt had 13 points and a career-high 12 rebounds.

“We’ve been building this program from the ground up,” senior captain Janiya Clemmons said. “We always talk about championships and now we have an opportunity to go to the Ivy League Tournament and make it happen.”

The Ivy Tourney leading to an automatic NCAA bid, though, for the women, begins Friday, March 13, a day after the public shoot-arounds, with the women’s semifinals, and then the championship on Saturday after the men’s semifinal.

This is a change from the first three years – two here at Penn in The Palestra, and last year up at Yale in the Lee Amphitheater, where the men’s and women’s games were the same days Saturday and Sun. 

However, Harvard’s venue is smaller and cannot contain the same schedule.

It could be, given size of many Ivy arenas, and location in a few cases, that the rotation through each of the eight Ivy schools will yield to some other arrangement before its completion.

With 17 wins, including eight in Ivy competition, Columbia’s records are second only to the 2009-10 team, featuring Judie Lomax, which was 18-10 and 9-5.

MAAC: Rider Keeps Pace with Marist by Blasting Canisius on Johnson’s Triple Double

For a change, the Broncs had an easy go at it, routing Canisius 87-48 in Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville, N.J., to stay tied for first with preseason favorite Marist in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference as one week remains in the regular season.

The two frontrunners beat each other on each other’s home court while Rider’s other loss is to lowly Saint Peter’s but the Broncs swept Fairfield and Marist split, so if they finish deadlocked next weekend, Rider will gain the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament at Jim Whalen Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J.

Lea Favre had a game-high 24 points for Rider (23-4, 16-2 MAAC), while Stella Johnson, the nation’s leading scorer, had a triple double of 15 points, a career-high 12 assists, and 10 rebounds.

It’s the sixth straight win for the home team, which earlier had a program-record 14 game win streak snapped by a two-game slide at Saint Peter’s and at home to Marist.

Marist (23-4, 16-2) finished sweeping Quinnipiac, winning 64-51 on the road in Hamden, Conn., which the Broncs had already done over the longtime reigning rulers of the conference.

The Broncs went on a 9-0 run over the Griffs (5-23, 4-15) at the end of the first period and weren’t threatened the rest of the afternoon.

“Obviously, I’m really pleased with our performance today at both ends of the floor,” said longtime Rider coach Lynn Milligan, who recently became the winningest coach in the Broncs’ history. “I thought we shared the ball about as good as you could with 38 field goals and 29 assists.

“I thought that was really special. I thought that’s a credit to our team and to understanding the game plan and where we thought we could get shots and just playing incredibly unselfish. I thought our defense was solid. And a great home win at the end of February.

Amari Johnson improved her league leading double double collection to 15 with 15 points and 11 rebounds. 

Daija Moses made her first start since Nov. 23 and had 13 points, shooting 5-for-9 from the field. Amanda Mobley dealt seven assists.

The Broncs get a chance to avenge the earlier loss to Saint Peter’s, hosting them at home Thursday at 7, which will also be senior night. 

They finish Saturday at Monmouth.

 Ending up first in the MAAC would  be a first for the program, which just missed several years ago during its breakthrough season when Rider fell at Fairfield on the final day of the schedule.

The American: Temple Drops Third Straight Narrow Outcome

Even playing the last place team in the American Athletic Conference wasn’t opportunity enough for Temple, which fell to Tulsa 68-64 at home in McGonigle Hall on Senior Day, making it the third straight narrow loss heading into the Monday’s season final at Tulane, in New Orleans, the home of the Women’s Final Four in early April.

Committing 19 turnovers led to Tulsa (8-20, 3-12 AAC) getting an 18-10 scoring advantage off of miscues as well as 19-4 on fastbreaks.

Rebecca Lescay had 24 points for the visitors while Kendrian Elliott scored 18.

On the home side, Ashley Jones had 2 points, while Mia Davis had had 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Owls (15-13, 7-8).

Early in the fourth quarter, the outcome was a 50-50 proposition both in score and moving forward, which the Owls never did, falling behind the rest of the way.

The recent slide has cost Temple any shot at a bye when the conference once again holds the tournament at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., perhaps for the last time with local favorite UConn heading for the Big East, which may be the replacement.

As fast as the action began when the opening tip occurred, Owls coach Tonya Cardoza sensed this might not be a totally joyous day.

“I felt right from the start, we didn’t play like it was our last home game,” Cardoza said. “We didn’t have any energy; we weren’t passionate about it being our last home game.

“That’s never happened. I’ve always been part of senior nights where I feel I’ve had to calm people down and try to let them know that we can’t win in the first minute and it was completely different today.

  “When you’re trying to make a postseason run, that’s not something we should be asking for – energy. I felt right from the outset, Tulsa, they’re a scrappy team and they’re going to do everything to outwork you, and that’s what happened. 

“I felt they were bringing the passion and energy we should have been playing with in our senior night or our last home game,” she continued.

”And then we were careless with the basketball. They barely pressed us and we turned it over. It’s been hard to win games when you’re turning the basketball over, but hats off to them, they came in here and they beat us.”

The longtime Owls coach said there was always someone not doing what they should be supposed to do in the offense.

“I just felt we weren’t in tune,” she said. “Every play we tried to run, someone wasn’t doing their job. I just felt like our mental, we weren’t into the game.

“ We didn’t play with the passion we should have. We definitely didn’t play the way we played at UCF, one of the top teams in our conference and we played with a lot more passion than we did at home on our senior night.

“At this point in the season, I’ve said the same thing over and over. The last home game and we’re still talking about the same thing. 

“We had it under control. 

“In early January, we put ourselves into position, all we had to do was take care of business and we didn’t take care of business, so whatever happens, happens, but we didn’t do our part.”

The top four teams get byes, but that is now out of reach and similarly landing a WNIT berth will be dicey depending how the Owls finish out and play early in the tournament.

Atlantic Ten: La Salle Finishes with Win While Saint Joseph’s Takes Loss as Tourney Field Is Set

Both Guru teams in the conference were on the road for their final games on the schedule and had a split result as La Salle completed a sweep of George Mason, winning 64-59 at the Patriots’ EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, Va., while Saint Joseph’s fell at third-place Fordham, 67-45, and will have to go right back to Rose Hill Gym Tuesday for a first round game.

La Salle (13-16, 7-9 A-10) in year two under Mountain MacGillivray are seven games better than last season and the tie for ninth with Richmond was better than the last-place prediction in the preseason by the coaches in the 14-team conference.

Instead, that’s where the Hawks (9-19, 3-13 A-10) landed, tied with George Mason (9-20, 3-13) but in the last spot for the tournament seed off a head-to-head loss.

“In the beginning, I thought we could be .500 minimally this season and go from there,” said veteran coach Cindy Griffin, who lost two prominent scorers from Australia and Ireland, who left for family reasons, that deprived her of key components to the offense.

“It’s fixable, but it’s going to take another year,” she said.

La Salle is on the mend, having played with a little more consistency down the stretch.

In the La Salle win, Kayla Spruill had a second straight double double with 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Australian freshmen twin sisters Amy and Claire Jacobs each scored 12 points.

Shalina Miller grabbed 10 rebounds.

The Explorers’ seven conference wins tie for second most in the last 10 years.

Claire Jacobs passed Crista Ricketts’ 394 points by a freshman (2003-04) and is second to Micahya Owens in 2013-14 setting the record with 411, that could be topped in the tournament opener.

Had La Salle not lost to Davidson at home in overtime last Wednesday, they would have finished as one of six teams after the top two bye teams to host. There were also two close losses to Richmond.

But in getting a do over on Tuesday at Davidson, it’s a winnable game to advance to the quarterfinals.

“Yes, we can take that,” MacGillivray said. “Getting to the semifinals would make this an exciting year but for now we can say it’s been a good one.”

Rough is the way to describe Saint Joseph’s situation because of the scoring deficiency that resulted in eight conference losses less than double digits that if won would have been good for somewhere in the upper group hosting.

It’s the first time Saint Joseph’s won’t be a host when not holding a bye in the current conference format.

Against Fordham (19-10, 11-15), ironically led by former Saint Joseph’s coach and former Villanova star Stephanie Gaitley, in the game in the Bronx, the host Rams took control in the second quarter.

Lula Roig had 10 points for the visitors while freshman Kaliah Henderson had six rebounds.

Fordham’s Bre Cavanaugh scored 30 points as the Rams shot 50 percent from the field.

Atlantic 10 Field Set

Dayton (22-8, 15-1 A-10), which was predetermined as the host for the quarterfinals, semifinals, and championship next weekend, claimed the top seed, good for one of two byes, the other going to Virginia Commonwealth (18-11, 13-3).

The next six seeded teams earned campus first-round hosting sites for Tuesday against the remaining six with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round at Dayton.

As mentioned, third-seed Fordham (19-10, 11-5) will host 14^th-seed Saint Joseph’s (9-19l, 3-13) on Tuesday. 

Three teams then finished 9-7 in the conference tied for the 4-6 slots.

Saint Louis (17-12, 9-7) won the tie-break and as the fourth seed will host 13^th-seeded George Mason (9-20, 3-13), while fifth-seeded Massachusetts (19-10, 9-7) hosts 12^th-seeded St. Bonaventure (7-22, 4-12), and sixth-seeded Duquesne (19-10, 9-7) will host 11^th-seeded Rhode Island (13-15, 6-10).

No. 7 Davidson (15-14, 8-8) won the tie-break with No. 8 George Washington off head-to-head competition and will host No. 10 La Salle (13-16, 7-9), while the Colonials (14-15, 8-8) gained the last hosting spot by beating No. 9 Richmond (14-16, 7-9) Saturday and will turn right around again and host the Spiders the same way Fordham ended up in back-to-back games with Saint Joseph’s.

Richmond and La Salle were tied but the Spiders off the head-to-head tie break got the nod to play the Colonials that the Explorers beat on the road in the nation’s capital during the season.

All Tuesday games start 7 p.m. local time, which in the case of Saint Louis is an hour later.

In the quarterfinals in Dayton, the schedule shakes out as follows:

On Friday:

Dayton meets the Richmond-George Washington winner at 11 a.m.

George Mason-Saint Louis winner meets the St. Bonaventure-Massachusetts winner at 2 p.m.

VCU meets La Salle-Davidson winner at 4:30 p.m.

Saint-Joseph’s-Fordham winner meets Rhode Island-Duquesne winner at 7 p.m.

The Semifinals on Saturday:

Dayton-Richmond-Geo Wash winner vs. Geo Mason-St. Louis-St.Bonaventure-UMass winner at 11 a.m. 

VCU-La Salle-Davidson winner vs. Saint Joseph’s-Fordham-Rhode Island-Duquesne winner at 1:30 p.m.

The Championship on Sunday:

Semifinal winners at Noon on ESPNU.

Looking Ahead: Drexel, Villanova, and Rutgers Chase Seeding

There’s actually two more Guru teams on the schedule with Delaware and Penn State, but the more meaningful stakes come off the ones mentioned in the section headline.

Drexel in the Colonial Athletic Association tries to recover from its pounding at James Madison Friday night when on Sunday the Dragons visit Towson at 2 p.m. in suburban Baltimore.

Despite the setback, if Drexel completes a sweep against the Tigers, who rallied on the Dragons in last season’s CAA title game at Delaware, then Drexel owns the tiebreak for the top seed at Elon because James Madison split with Towson.

 sbDelaware is at James Madison at 1 p.m. and the CAA finishes Thursday and Sunday with two games each. 

Drexel will host UNCW on Thursday and Charleston on Saturday, the team the Dragons lost to in the CAA opener before going on the 13-game win streak.

Villanova, in Harry Perretta’s last-ever regular season game before retirement, is at Providence at 1 p.m.

The Wildcats are part of a messy logjam where they could escape the out-bracket Big East game on Friday in Chicago or forced to play it as a seventh seed depending on a bunch of outcomes.

Rutgers is hosting No. 18 Iowa at Noon currently locked into a three-way tie in the Big Ten with Michigan and Ohio State for fifth and if the Scarlet Knights win, they are guaranteed the fifth seed and a first-round bye at the conference tourney this week in Indianapolis.

Penn State, the other Guru Division I team in action, is at the bottom of the Big Ten and on Sunday finishes at Michigan State.

Northwestern, by the way, finished as a co-champion with Maryland, but will get the No. 2 seed after splitting with the Terrapins.

 This assumes Maryland wins at Minnesota at 4 p.m. or Northwestern gets the top seed and regular season title outright.

The Wildcats are coached by Father Judge graduate Joe McKeown, who won his 700^th game earlier this season.

In other games of note Sunday as the first wave of teams finish to slot in power five conferences, No. 4 Stanford is at No. 24 Arizona State after its upset loss at No. 13 Arizona in overtime and tied for second with No. 9 UCLA, which is hosting Utah in the Pac-12.

No. 3 Oregon, which has already claimed the conference crown, is sold out for its senior day finish hosting Washington at 3 p.m. 

It’s the farewell game for senior Sabrina Ionescu, though the Ducks will be on their home court in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

No. 16 DePaul has won the regular season Big East but is matching with Marquette in an important tilt at 3 p.m.

And that’s the report.