Guru’s WBB Report: Temple Gets First Wn As Rutgers Completes Weekend Sweep While Delaware and Penn State Fall Just Short

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Four days after getting decimated at No. 5 South Carolina by Dawn Staley’s powerful Gamecocks, the Temple Owls snapped their season-opening three game losing streak Sunday afternoon by launching their American. Athletic Conference slate breaking away at halftime to down SMU 73-57 at home. In McGonigle Hall.

At the back end of the night, Rutgers followed up on its Friday rout of Hampton by jumping from a 5-5 tie on a 20-0 run and rolling to a 99-30 triumph in non-conference play over Sacred Heart at home in the RAC in Piscataway, N.J.

It’s the first time since thee 1982-84 season the Scarlet Knights, then under Theresa Grentz, went three straight games scoring 80 or more points.

In between, falling just short, Delaware  was edges on the road by George Washington 61-56 in the Colonials’ Smith Center in the nation’s capital while Penn State opened its Big Ten slate at home in the Bryce Jordan Center in State College where visiting Purdue was able to hold off the Lady Lions 91-87.

The ranked teams that played had a perfect day and night on the scoreboards with nothing of consequence to report here, other than one of the loser calls featured No. 10 Texas A&M at home emerging with a non-conference 57-53 win over in-state opponent Rice.

“This was a good win for us today,” said Temple coach Tonya Cardoza who noted having said a few choice words to her squad in Coljumbia, more concerned with execution than the outcome, considering the opposition.

After holding a narrow lead at the half, a 24-6 third quarter domination did the trick as well as the ability to show the best of the  Owls (1-3, 1-0 AAC) by running in transition.

“That’s the biggest thing since the start of the season,” Cardoza said of what was improvement. “We have not been having very good third quarters and today we did that. We came out of the locker room focused.”

Being  able to go inside to all-American candidate/WNBA prospect Mia Davis and Alexa Williamson was also important.

Using their height advantage in this particular game  got Temple to the foul line a bunch and the Owls made good of the opportunity as a team with a charity stripe production of 29-of-37 attempts, also providing the bulk of the 44 points scoring on the inside.

Davis had a double double of 22 points and 15 rebounds, while Williamson had a season-high of 15 points.

“They were playing a small lineup with four guards and one big, so we knew there would be a mismatch somewhere,” Davis said. “We focused on getteing the ball to each other.”

Kayla White had 18 points, the.best of three players in double figures for SMU (0-6, 0-2), which was left still looking for its first win.

As late as the starting date was off the NCAA declaration of Nov. 25 in dealing with the coronavirus, Temple got under way even later due to stops and starts caused by COVID-19 protocols at Temple.

When the Owls finally played, they got handled by Villanova in their opener, though there is no Big Five standings involved with Penn and its league rivals in the Ivy League being shut down for the winter by the conference. Next came a competitive loss at Florida Gulf Coast which was on the original schedule returning last season’s game here, followed by a ten-day break before resuming the ongoing intersectional rivalry with Staley, the former Temple coach who is a good friend and was a Virginia teammate of Cardoza.

Temple only had eight people make t he trip to Columbia on a youthful roster, though Cardoza points out that being young is getting old in terms of pointing to it as part of the excuse list for the start.

Still, with no UConn barrier at the top of the conference any more, getting as many wins as possible is attainable if the team can come together.

Cardoza did let it known that unlike a multitude of schools across the country, keeping their teams on campus as an artifical bubble, she has no intention of playing Grinch and is allowing players to enjoy Christmas in their homes.

Restrictions are so tight in Santa Clara County in Northern California that top-ranked Stanford has been on the road the entire time with another PAC-12/Top 25 matchup Monday afternoon at No. 11 UCLA in Los Angeles.

Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer recently passed the record of the late Tennessee coach Pat Summitt Division I women’s basketball milestone of 1,098 and is currently at 1,100.

Coming up fast at 1,095 is No. 3 Connecticut  coach Geno Auriemma, whose unbeaten. Huskies  in their return to the Big East for the first time in eight years, visit Villanova Tuesday night at 7 in Finneran. Pavilion near the Norristown, the boyhood home of Auriemma, who had Cardoza on his staff 14 seasons before she took the Temple job when Staley left in 2008 for South Carolina.

“They’ve done everything that’s been asked of them in dealing with COVID-19 and I can’t not let them go home,”  Cardoza said of her team. “But be smart, wear masks, do social distancing and all the things we’ve been doing here and be careful.”

The Owls have a chance to get another quick conference win. Wednesday morning at 11 in McGonigle Hall when Tulsa visits. Being inside the city limits, crowds are restricted.

Then it will be off on the break until play resumes next week.

Rutgers Swamps Sacred Heart: The heart of the Big Ten Conference will ultimately tell the tale of the Scarlet Knights but assessing her first five games, Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer, now in her 50th season combined art three stops, cause the progress of her team, “outstanding.”

Offense has never been the long-running forte of Stringer but with this roster, she said after the win Sunday night over Sacred Heart (2-3), “We got the guns now. We got the offense and the defense.It’s now only a matter of getting on the same page and getting experience.”

In the non-conference win, the Scarlet Knights (4-1) got 25 points and 10 rebounds from Big Ten co-preseason player of the year Arella Guirantes, while freshman Diamond Johnson had 21, and two others also scored in double figures. 

Delaware Suffers First Loss: The Blue Hens had an 11-point lead in the first half slip away but stayed competitive until falling in the closing minute to George Washington, which snapped its own three-game losing streak in a non-confernce  game in the Colonials’ Smith Center.

The game was a swap of Georges of sorts. At one point, Georgetown, the previous stop for Blue Hens coach Natasha Adair, was inserted as an added game in the ongoing exercise of coronavirus carousel in terms of how schedules have been impacted by the virus, When that went bcy the boards, the visit to the District of Columbia held with GWU as the new replacemengt.

For the visitors (3-1), double doubles were recorded by Jasmine Dickey with her 19th at 23 points and 11 rebounds, while  Ty Battle finished with 10 points and 14 rebounds.

Jasmine Whitney had 16 points for the Colonials (3-3), while reserve Aurea Gingras scored 12.

GWU is coached by former UConn all-American Jen Rizzotti, who is an assistant to Dawn Staley on the USA Olympic Squad.

Delaware resumes play in the New Year, getting started on the revised Colonial Athletic Association schedule on Jan. 2-3 with back-to-back games at College of Charleston in the same format being used by the Metro Atlantic Athletic Association.

The one exception for the two local cAA squads is the nearest of the two campuses will have Drexel and Delaware play each other the same weekend one game each in their own arenas.

Penn State Drops Big Ten Op;ener: The Lady Lions (3-2, 0-1)U finally got into conference action and came up just short to Purdue in the Byrce Jordan Center at home in Happy Valley.

Makenna Marisa had a career-high 26 points for PSU leading four other teammates in double figures, former Villanovan Kelly Jekot with 14 points, Anna Camden and Johnasia Cash each with 11 points, and freshman Tova Sabel with 10.

A 15-3 run midway through the fourth quarter broke the game in the way toward the Boilermakers (4-2, 1-1 Big Ten), who got 28 points from Traylor 

“I’m very disappointed in our defensive effortt,” said Prnn State second-year coach Carolyn Kieger, previously at Matrquette. “I have to fo back to our drawing board and we have to get better there. 

Penn State next visits Michigan in Ann Arbor on Wednesday.

And that’s the report.