Guru’s WBB Report: Temple Crushed While Baylor Bounces Back

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Inauguration Day of incoming 46th United States President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was a relatively quiet day and night on the women’s basketball front both locally and nationally.

Temple, off a week because the Saturday American Athletic Conference game at SMU in Dallas was cancelled due to the Mustangs’ previous decision to end their season, ventured on to another conference game in Houston Wednesday and got wiped out by Houston, the team, 80-46, while No. 9 Baylor bounced back from its home loss to Iowa State, beating Oklahoma State 77-58 in a Big !2 encounter.

In two other Big 12 matchups, Texas, now unranked, bounced back from its previous loss to beat TCU 71-54 in the Longhorns’ Frank Erwin Center in Austin, and West Virginia won its six straight, beating Kansas State 65-56 at home in Morgantown.

Over in the Big East, Seton Hall gained another win, achieving the triumph at home in Walsh Gym in South Orange, N.J., beating St. John’s 87-64.

In the world of 11 games cancelled or postponed, caused by testing for the coronavirus, Villanova hosting No. 18 DePaul, already changed previously, will now meet the Blue Demons, February 12 at Finneran Pavilion on the Main Line at a time to be determined.

No. 14 South Florida, the top dog in the AAC with the departure of No. 3 Connecticut to the Big East, had its game at Wichita State postponed.

Temple Whipped By Houston —  If one is writing this one from the Owls’ perspective in their 80-46 loss to the Cougars in The American Conference, there’s not much to say. After a promising start in conference play, Temple (4-5, 4-2 AAC) dropped its second straight, committing 30 turnovers, the most in a game in three seasons.

Furthermore, the Cougars (84, 5-3) grabbed 31 offensive rebounds to transform into 26 second-chance points and overall the board domination was 61-36.

Freshman Jasha Clinton continued to produce some positives for the visitors, scoring 14 points and grabbing a career-high six steals. Alexa Williamson has nine points and a career-high 13 rebounds, while blocking three shots.

Though it went for naught, the Owls had a season-high 14 steals.

Temple’s problems began on the penalty phase, with team leader Mia Davis and and Asonah Alexander each assessed two fouls in the first period.

By halftime Temple trailed 42-29, a deficit that was worst at the end of the next period after being outscored 24-11. The outset of the third period saw Davis get changed with two more quick fouls.

Five players scored in double figures for the Texans, led by Laila Blair’s 19 points, while Tatyana Hill had a double double 16 points and 11 rebounds.

Temple is next slated to host Wichita State at home in McGonigle Hall at 1 p.m. Saturday on ESPN+ but we’ll see what the status is on the Shockers, considering their postponement with USF.

Baylor Handles Oklahoma State  — The Bears got back on the winning side on the road in Stillwater, beating the Cowgirls (9-5, 5-3 Big 12) in a conference game, following Saturday’s loss to Iowa State to end a 61-game home win streak in Waco, Texas.

Moon Ursin scored 20 points for Baylor (92, 4-1) while NaLyssa Smith had a double double of 18 points and 12 rebounds, and DiDi Richards had 11 points, dealt seven assists, and grabbed four steals.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma State’s Natasha Mack scored 21 and Ja’Mee Asberry had 17 points.

“I thought we can learn from everything that happened that night,” Smith referred to the previous loss. “I thought we were real stagnant. “Defensively, we could have followed the scouting report a lot more.”

The Bears had not played since late December prior to Saturday because of Hall of Fame coach Kim Mulkey coming up with a positive test off contact with a family member at Christmas and among the contests claimed was a major national showdown visit from Connecticut on Jan 7 that was cancelled. The Huskies just managed to find a quality replacement, announcing they will visit Southeastern Conference power No. 15 Arkansas next Thursday, 5 p.m. on ESPN2 in Fayetteville. The only previous encounter was a win by the then-No. 3 Huskies over the Razorbacks 100-64 early in the 1998-99 season.

The Huskies have had four non-conference games previously dispensed this season.

Back in Stillwater, “Experience meant to the younger players, you have to be ready when opportunity knocks,” Mulkey said, in terms of getting production Wednesday from her veteran players. “I thought NaLyssa had one of her finest games this year. She let the game come to her early, she had a couple of turnovers, she settled in and quit doing that, battled on the boards, she made shots for us in the clutch, she involved her teammates, she didn’t take a break, she played the whole game.

“I thought Moon, I could have kept her in there to get her career-high, but the kid was extremely fatigued, she gave everything she had, she was our second leading rebounder, and then DiDi, I put heron Asberry in the second half, so, yes, experience matters.”

Baylor next hosts Oklahoma at home in the Ferrell Center Saturday night at 8 p.m. in Waco.

West Virginia Streaking: Over in Morgantown, West Virginia (11-2, 5-2 Big 12) used a 26-9 fourth quarter rally to put away Kansas State (5-5, 0-3) as Kari Niblack scored 23 for the host Mountaineers, Kysre Gondrezick scored 22, while Esmery Martinez scored 11,

Ayoka Lee had a double double for Kansas State with 16 points and 12 rebounds, while Christianna Carr scored 15.

West Virginia coach Mike Carey described the opposition strategy to an extent when his program was in the Big East playing Villanova against Harry Perretta.

“Needless to say, we really weren’t anticipating them holding for one shot at the end of the shot clock,” he said. “We knew we had to speed them up. I was looking to speed them up more in the second half. 

“I just hoped we could keep it halfway close in the first half, then try to speed them up. Offensively, we didn’t move the ball, we were taking bad shots, we weren’t getting a lot of possessions. I just felt like we were taking huried shots because we were worried on the other end that they were going to stall. We have to do a better job on that.”

The Mountaineers are off until next Wednesday, visiting Texas Tech at at 7 p.m. on ESPN+.

Texas Bounces Back: In the Texas win over TCU, all-American candidate Charli Collier had 23 points and a career-high 20 rebounds, 12 on the offensive glass, for the Longhorns (10-3, 4-2 Big 12), the first 20-20 game for a Texas player in nine seasons, only the sixth time in program history that a player collected 20 or more rebounds.

Joanne Allen-Taylor had 18 points for Texas.

The Longhorns defense came up with 18 turnovers by TCU (6-6, 1-6).

Texas next goes on the road Saturday to visit No. 21 Iowa State in Ames at 6 p.m. on ESPN2.

Seton Hall Tops St. John’s: Suddenly the Pirates are on a roll after reigning Big East player of the week and transfer from UConn, Andra Espinoza had 30 points for Seton Hall (7-3, 5-2 Big East) in the afternoon 87-64 win over St. John’s (4-8, 1-6). 

Qadashah Hoppie scored 18 points, while Kadaja Bailey scored 15, and Leilani Correa scored 12 for the Red Storm, now slated to play at Villanova, if the Wildcats are out of their quarantine, Monday at 7 in Finneran Pavilion.

Looking Ahead: The series, for now, is not as lusty as the heydays of the past, but No. 3 UConn (8-0) is at No. 25 Tennessee (9-2) Thursday night at 7 p.m. on ESPN, the Huskies’ first visit to Knoxville in 15 seasons, playing the return of the series renewal won by the Huskies a year ago in Hartford.

The beneficiary are the Pat Summitt Foundation, named for the late Tennessee Hall of Fame coach, whom UConn coach Geno just passed with 1,1099  wins for No. 2 on the all-time victory women’s Division I list behind Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer (1,105), who took the No. 1 spot last month and has added a few more.

On a call earlier in the week, Auriemma indicated that things aren’t the same as when both teams were the top two in the nation, in terms of whether the current deal would be extended but in a subsequent media chat said that if Tennessee coach and former Vols star Kellie Harper wanted to continue it likely might happen.

The Thompson-Bolling limit is now at 4,000 following COVID-19 protocols and only two spots for visiting media. 

In the heyday, a large national contingent would have gone on site to cover, likely dining Wednesday night at Calhoun’s on the eve of the showdown.

The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville is also a beneficiary and the Naismith Basketball Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., is also involved behind the scenes.

UConn won last year’s game 60-45 but while unbeaten with a talented roster, the schedule has been a roller-coaster in terms of the non-conference competition casualties besides a growing number of postponements in conference due to the pile of Big East pauses.

The Huskies lead the series 14-9.

In other key games, Thursday night, No. 22 Georgia is at No. 4 South Carolina at 6:30 p.m. in an SEC clash, No. 11 Michigan is at No. 17 Ohio State in the Big Ten, but the Big Ten matchup of local rivals Penn State at Rutgers is the latest postponements due to testing issues on the Scarlet Knights’coronavirus tests.

No. 23 Syracuse, recently back from a long pause but showing no rust, is at 9 p.m. in the ACC is at Louisville, recently earning its first-ever No. 1 rankin this week.

Iowa was due to visit No. 7 Maryland in the Big Ten , but the Hawkeyes got permission to postpone in the interest of caution flying into Terrapins territory near the nation’s capital and the strong safety presence associated with Biden’s inauguration that occurred Wednesday with no interruptions.

On Friday, Quinnipiac plays the first of two, the second Saturday, at Rider at 1 p.m. each day in the Broncs’ Alumni Gym in Lawrenceville, N.J., George Washington is due to visit La Salle, locally, in an Atlantic 10 game at the Explorers’ Tom Gola Arena, while in the PAC-12, No. 10 Arizona hosts Utah at 6, No. 13 Oregon is due to host Washington State at 8, a huge game, No. 5 Stanford, off its dislodging as No. 1, hosts No. 6 UCLA at 10.  Locally, Saint Joseph’s in another shutdown, is postponed hosting George Mason.

On Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. each day in the Colonial Athletic Association, Drexel hosts Elon in the Dragons’ Daskalakis Athletic Conference, while Delaware, President Biden’s alma mater, which is unbeaten in the CAA, hosts UNCW.

No. 3 Connecticut hosts Georgetown at 2 p.m. in the Huskies’ Gampel Pavilion arena on campus in Storrs for a Big East game. 

We’ll give you Sunday later considering how many cancellations and postponements keep coming up on the fly.

And that’s the report.

On Saturday,