Guru’s WBB Report: Jasmine Dickey’s 4th Quarter Outburst Carries Delaware Over St. John’s While Kansas State Upsets No. 22 South Dakota State

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

Since the fabulous days of Elena Delle Donne era concluded back in 2013, there have been a bunch of times where the Blue Hens’ output was short of what the later WNBA All-Star and league MVP was capable of producing single-handedly in her collegiate career.

 

However, signs continue to show that perhaps memories of the past are being transformed into a thriving presence as coach Natasha Adair and her staff continue to deal with the scheduling hurdles presented by the ongoing global coronavirus.

 

In a hastily arranged matinee Thursday afternoon, after having been deprived of a game against Adair’s previous coaching stint at Big East Georgetown, the Blue Hens got to knock off another conference member using a Delle Donne-type scoring explosion from Jasmine Dickey to beat St. John’s 93-88 at home in the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark.

 

Dickey came to life in the final quarter of the only local game on the Guru’s books, scoring 23 of her career-high 31 points.

 

At 3-0 with a lot of time between the first two games, Delaware came out of Sunday’s win at Pittsburgh to stay unbeaten and match the Blue Hen’s best start four seasons.

 

It’s also the first time since Delle Donne’s senior year the Blue Hens, who compete in the Colonial Athletic Association, have beaten members of the Big East and Atlantic Coast Conference in the same season which ended with the superstar leading the team to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.

 

It’s the third straight game, the Blue Hens have scored 85 or more points over the same stretch as achieving it once before way, way, back in January, 1981, four decades ago.

 

St. John’s (2-2) was coming off a beatdown at home Sunday against Villanova in the Big East opener.

 

The home team had to rally, also, in this one, trailing the Red Storm by 11 in the third quarter before beginning a 10-1 run to trail 59-57 at the end of the period.

 

Then Dickey broke loose with Delaware’s first 11 points in the fourth period and after St. John’s briefly re-took the lead at 66-65, the Blue Hens powered on a 12-0 run that concluded with five points from freshman Tyi Skinner on a three-ball and a pair of foul shots.

 

Skinner had a career-high 18 points, shooting 6-for-8 from the field, while Ty Battle made it two double doubles in three games, in this one signing the boxscore with 19 points and 12 rebounds.

 

The win marred a career-high afternoon from St. John’s area product Leilani Correa whose 35 points were the most by a Red Storm player in the last 25 years.

 

Qadashah Hoppie, who missed her first three games for the Red Storm, had 23 points, while Kadaja Bailey and Unique Drake each scored nine points.

 

As of now, Delaware is back go being idle until a week from Sunday when the Blue Hens travel to George Washington.

 

Nationally Noted: South Dakota State Upset – A perfect night of cruising by this week’s Associated Press ranked women’s teams was punctured by host Kansas State knocking No. 22 South Dakota State out of the unbeaten column with a 62-53 win in Manhattan, no, not that Manhattan.

In the wire-to-wire win, Kansas State recorded its first triumph over an AP in-conference foe since winning at then-No. 15 Texas two seasons ago and a first over an AP team out of conference squad since beating then-No. 20 Drake of the Missouri Valley Conference four seasons ago in an NCAA tournament opener. 

 

The 3-1 Jackrabbits of the Summit League had just returned to the rankings this week for the first time in several seasons ahead of visiting the Wildcats (3-2) of the Big 12.

The Wildcats’ 20-point advantage in the third quarter did the trick.

Ayoka Lee was back in the lineup for Kansas State and scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds, while Christianna Carr scored 12 and Rachel Ranke scored 10.

Myah Selland scored 15 for the visitors and Paiton Burckhard scored 13.

 

Elsewhere, after two narrow escapes to open PAC-12 play at home last weekend, No. 6 Arizona stayed in place to thump its state conference partner Arizona State 65-37. 

The win at the McKale Center was the largest rivalry loss for the Sun Devils since 1998, more than three decades ago when Arizona coach Adia Barnes was the Wildcats’ star.

Overall, it was the worst loss for Arizona State (4-2, 1-2 PAC-12) in a year, losing at then-No. 3 Oregon 79-48.

“We’re just a young team without all our players,” said Sun Devils coach Charli Turner Thorne.

Aari McDonald had had 22 points for Arizona ( 4-0, 3-0), which also got 13 from Cate Reese, while Taya Hanson scored 14 for ASU.

“It’s a very big priority,” Barnes said of the rivalry. “As a player, I never lost to ASU and we owned the state back then. I want to have the Territorial Cup (series point). We had a sweep last year and I felt we could have a sweep this year.”

Meanwhile, No. 7 Baylor traveled to West Virginia in the Big 12 and had a better experience than the SEC’s Tennessee had last weekend, beating the Mountaineers 65-45 in Morgantown. 

Dijonai Carrington had 18 points for the visiting Bears (3-1, 1-0 Big 12) in their conference opener, while Moon Ursin scored 12, and NaLyssa Smith and Didi Richards each scored 10. Kirsten Deans had 10 points for West Virginia (4-1, 0-1), and Esmery Martinez grabbed 12 rebounds.

 

No. 17 Northwestern finally launched its season after being Covid-19 stymied, beating Eastern Illinois 93-57, while in a non-conference game, No. 18 Ohio State found a replacement at home for Ball State, routing Miami of Ohio 104-65.

 

In two other games, No. 10 Texas A&M traveled to Little Rock and picked up a 79-56 victory while No. 20 Syracuse pulled away at the finish to beat host Miami 69-58 in an Atlantic Coast Conference game in Coral Gables.

 

In the Syracuse win, star Tiana Mangakahia, who missed all last season fighting breast cancer, suffered a lower body injury during the game. She scored all 14 of her points in the second half for the Orange (4-0, 1-0 ACC). Destiny Hardin had 11 for the host Hurricanes (3-1, 0-1).

Looking Ahead: Rutgers Opens in Big 10 - In local action, Rutgers, idle since its opening win at home over Monmouth, begins its Big Ten schedule, visiting Wisconsin on the road at 3 p.m. in Madison, while La Salle will try to bounce back from Wednesday’s loss at Villanova when the Explorers host Howard of the MEAC at 3:30 p.m.

In the revised setup in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), host Rider, which was the top seed in the conference tourney ahead of its shutdown at the outset of the coronavirus last season, is at home against preseason favorite Manhattan Friday and Saturday nights at 7 p.m. each in Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville, N.J.

On  Sunday, the two local unbeaten teams meet at 1 p.m. with Villanova (5-0) hosting Drexel (2-0) at 1 p.m. a year after Drexel won on the last play in overtime against the Wildcats.  Former Drexel coach Denise Dillon is now home at her alma mater coaching the Wildcats after the retirement of Harry Perretta, who guided the Wildcats for 42 years, and she brought along Michelle Baker from her former staff, while Dillon’s former associate head coach Amy Mallon succeeded her and her staff now has Wildcats alum Laura Kurz, who was on Perretta’s staff.

Saint Joseph’s finally starts its season, hosting Division II power Lincoln at 2 p.m. in Hagan Arena.

Idling Ivies: Want to know what life has been like for the eight schools on the women’s basketball side of the Ivy League shutdown of winter sports because of the coronavirus? Doug Feinberg at the AP Top 25 site at 11 a.m. Friday morning will be hosting Penn coach Mike McLaughlin, Columbia’s Megan Griffin, Princeton’s Carla Berube, and Harvard’s Kathy Delaney-Smith in a conversation.

Tara’s Date With History: Stanford’s road to history for Cardinal Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer has been reset again after the squad had a bunch of home games go by the wayside because of rules in Santa Clara County in Northern California trying to cope with the coronavirus.

As of now, the school, whose campus is in Palo Alto, is set to cross the San Francisco Bay on Sunday to visit PAC-12 local rival California in Berkeley at 10 p.m., EST in a game that with a victory would tie VanDerveer with the late and legendary Tennessee coach Paat Summitt at 1,098 for most wins by a Division I women’s basketball coach.

Of course, Summitt would still be way ahead of everyone else had not she had been stricken by Alzheimer's disease and forced to retire at the end of the 2012 season.

Inserted into the slate for Stanford, which returned to No. 1 last week in the AP Poll, is a non-conference visit to Pacific in non-conference action Tuesday at a time to be determined along with the broadcasting situation. Winning the two games moves VanDerveer to No. 1.

Close behind, but who would be much closer had not UConn also had some games dropped because of the disease, is Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma, who is at 1, 091 with a record 11 NCAA titles.

Reporting on the current blog was drawn on information from The Associated Press, plus school and local news sites.

And that’s the report.