Guru’s WBB Report - II - National: Upset Free Sunday in Ranking World

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

With a clean slate among the ranked teams who played, and the fact that Siroky will be coming along in the next 24 hours with his weekly Southeastern Conference readback, this doesn’t nearly be as long as anticipated when going into split mode to give the Guru locals there due, which is already posted behind this.

But for the record, here’s how it went, score-wise, for the Associated Press women’s teams that completed their action for the past seven days.

In the Big East, No. 3 UConn coming off the upset loss to No. 19 Arkansas avoided what would be a two-game losing streak for the first time in decades, by finishing a sweep of No. 17 DePaul, winning 100-67 in the Blue Demons’s Wintrust Arena in Chicago.

In the aforementioned SEC crowd, it was No. 4 South Carolina over visiting Alabama, 87-63; No. 15 Kentucky over visiting Missouri, 61-55; No. 20 Tennessee over visiting Florida, 79-65; No. 19 Arkansas over visiting Auburn 77-67; and No. 8 Texas A&M over visiting No. 22 Georgia, 60-48.

In the PAC-12, No. 6 Stanford romped at host Washington 74-48; but with No. 11 Oregon and No. 10 Arizona in coronavirus-caused shutdowns, the Ducks’ game at Colorado, and the anticipated rematch Wildcats look to a sweep at No. 5 UCLA were postponed.

In the Big Ten, No. 16 Indiana bested visiting Michigan State, 79-67; and in the Big 12 No. 9 Baylor avoided a three-game losing streak in the series, winning at Iowa State 85-77.

Stanford Heading Home at Last: The Cardinal completed a three-game scheduled road trip that previously included a back-to-back 48-hour sweep of Washington State by handling Washington ((4-8, 1-8 PAC-12) in Seattle.

That extended coach Tara VanDerveer’s all-time Division I leading women’s coaching win total to 1,109, ahead of UConn’s  Geno Aurienna, who gained his 1,102nd win earlier in the day at DePaul.

The late legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt was at a long-time leading 1,098 when she retired after the 2,012 season battling Alzheimer’s Disease, which claimed her life several years later. VanDerveer past Summitt in early December, while Auriemma moved into second several weeks ago. No one is even close behind Summitt to further displace her standing on the list.

As for Sunday’s game, Reserve Hannah Jump matched a season-high with 15 points for the Cardinal (15-2, 12-2), while Lexie Hull and Kiana Williams each scored 12. Likewise, did Haley Jones, who played just 20 minutes after missing part of the game with a right knee injury but later returned to action.

The Huskies, so short-handed that a practice player was added to the roster and played a few minutes, were led by Quay Miller, scoring 14 points in Washington’s 10th straight loss in the series.

The bigger story is after being away from campus since the season started because of stringent COVID-19 rules in Santa Clara County that had the Cardinal using Santa Cruz for some home games, a recent relaxation allows Stanford to be back in Maples Pavilion this week for next weekend’s Friday and Sunday visits from Colorado at 9 p.m. ET on Friday and Utah at 5 p.m.on Sunday.

“I think our team is very excited,” said VanDerveer, whose team has also maintained a schedule with different stops in Northern California, Las Vegas, and other places within the PAC-12 footprint. “Quite honestly, we’re pretty tired, three games in five days and travel. Our team, they’ve been warriors and I’m really proud of them.

“”I’m really looking forward to getting back to Maples, being able to just go to the gym and get up shots whenever we want. we’re all super pumped to be back.”

Washington has had its own problems and was home for the first time since a loss to Oregon on Dec. 19, enduring postponed home games with Oregon State, Arizona, Arizona State, and California because of protocol issues either with opponents or in the Huskies’ own program.

South Carolina Ebbs Tide Climbing Back Near the Top: The No. 4 Gamecocks took care of their SEC business with Alabama (12-4, 5-4) as Zia Cooke 12 of her 21 points in the third period as and the team won its 18th straight over the Tide and a program-record 28th straight in the SEC, 25 for the record in the regular season.

As a result, coach Dawn Staley’s squad (14-1, 9-0) is likely to jump two spots in the wake of existing losses last week by No. 2 North Carolina State and No. 3 to take over second, one below the top where the Gamecocks finished last season and continued back in November until North Carolina brought them down in their own Colonial Life Arena in Columbia.

South Carolina’s last loss in the series was in 2008, the season before Staley was hired away from Temple in her native North Philadelphia.

Destanni Henderson added 14 points for the Gamecocks, while Brea Beal scored 11, and Victaria Saxton scored 10.

Though afar, Staley was in mourning for the passing of her mentor, retired Hall of Fame Temple coach John Chaney, who died Friday after a short illness at the age of 89.

“I like this win,” Staley said of the game. “Alabama is a very good basketball team. They’ve got seniors, Kristy (Curry) does a very good job of putting her kids in position to score, and they look good doing it and they are a stingy defense. You have to be patient to beat a team like Alabama. If you’re not, they’re going to stay in the basketball.”

The Gamecocks take a two-game road trip beginning Thursday at Auburn.

Texas A&M Celebrates a Past Championship With a Win:  The No. 8 Aggies celebrated the 10th anniversary of their 2011 NCAA championship by beating No. 22 Georgia (13-4, 5-4 SEC) as N’dea Jones had 15 points and 12 rebounds to move back into a tie for leading double doubles in the nation with 12 for Texas A&M (16-1, 7-1).

Kayla Wells had 13 points, while Ciera Jones scored 12.

Georgia got 18 points from Gabby Connally and Que Morrison scored 12.

The Aggies are 6-0 against AP ranked teams this season, the sole loss was at unranked LSU.

Women’s Hall of Fame coach Gary Blair is now 830-331 overall and 421-168 at Texas A&M since arriving from Arkansas for the 2003-04 season. Also previously coaching Stephen F. Austin, Blair is among a small group who had three different teams ranked behind retired Jim Foster, who guided Saint Joseph’s in Philadelphia, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, and Chattanooga.

“I kept trying to be positive in the first half when we were getting great shots, but some days the shots don’t fall,” said Blair after the game in Reed Arena. “That being said, when you offensive struggles do not carry over to the defensive end, you know it’s going to be ok.

“I think you had a lot of different types of fans in the stands today, some of which probably wanted to see us scrimmage the 2011 team, and believe me, I wouldn’t want to scrimmage against them..

“Today we saw our largest attendance of the season. I thought they carried us. They wanted to honor the past, but they also wanted to enjoy what we’re doing in the presence.”

In an added item, the previous postponed game with No. 20 Tennessee has been rescheduled by the SEC for Sunday at 2 p.m. on the SEC network.

Rare Triple Double Difference for Tennessee: For all the greatness of the Lady Vols and the number of all-American class players to perform in Knoxville, sophomore Tamari Key’s 23 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in the win over Florida (9-8, 2-7 SEC) became just the fourth in program history and first since Jordan Reynolds performed the feat in a non-conference game against UNCW on Dec. 29, 2016.

Rae Burrell had  had 21 points and Rennia Davis scored 14 for Tennessee (12-3, 6-1), which is third in the SEC trailing conference unbeaten South Carolina and Texas A&M, whom the squad will visit Sunday.

“She played terrific,” Tennessee coach Kellie Harper said of Key’s performance at the end of a four-game home stand in Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville. “I wish we had gotten her the ball more. I thought we went away from it a little bit in the third quarter.

“Her teammates are looking for her. She’s getting on the offensive boards and her put backs are pretty quick. She’s done a much better job of that, recently. She wants the basketball. She’s looking for the ball on the block. A lot of people just aren’t going to get shots off on her when she’s helping around the paint. I’m really proud of her.

“We’re on a three-game road swing now, and absolutely, I thought this was a big game for us to get in the win column.”

Florida coach Cam Newbauer has been away from the team after coming up with a positive test for the coronavirus.

Key said of her day, “It’s exciting. I’m speechless, honestly. There are so many great people who have played here, and to be one of the four people to have a triple double is — I’m at a loss for words right now.”

The first stop on the road swing will be at No. 21 Misissippi State in Starkville at 8 p.m. on Thursday on the SEC+ streaming network.

Arkansas Avoids Letdown: Following their upset of No. 3 UConn on Thursday, the 19 Razorbacks were in Bud Walton Arena to resume the SEC wars and handled Auburn (5-11, 0-8 SEC) as Chelsea Dungee encored her 37-point performance on Thursday with 16 in this one behind Amber Ramirez’s 19 for Arkansas (13-6, 3-5) in Fayetteville, while Destiny Slocum scored 14.

They did get off to a slow start, however.

“The most predictable thing that happened in sports today,” said Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors. “Coming off emotion, big, listening to how good you are. We did all our social media, that’s fine, I wanted them to hear it, we took the extra day to hear it. So that’s part of it. Part of it is false positives keeping us from not having as much time prepare as we needed to. A combination of a lot of things. These are kids and Auburn’s a hard team to simulate in practice.”

Next up Thursday is a trip to Missouri in Columbia at 8 p.m. Thursday.

Baylor Finally Stops Iowa State: After the Cyclones had snapped a 35-game Big 12 streak at the end of the regular season in March by a point and then punctured a 61-home win streak earlier this month, the No. 9 Bears went into Ames and came up with an 85-77 win on Iowa State (11-6, 7-3 Big 12) for a split on the season.

NaLyssa Smith had 20 points and 10 rebounds for the winning Bears (12-2, 7-1), while Dijonai Carrington had 17 points, and Moon Ursin double doubled with 11 points and 15 rebounds.

The previous longest losing streak to a conference opponent for Baylor was a four-game skid to Oklahoma from 2005-2007.

“You don’t want to lose to someone three times,” said Baylor Hall of Fame coach Kim Mulkey. “But I’m never going to let one game be more than winning a Big 12 championship.”

Ashley Joens had 25 points and seven rebounds for the home team.

“Midway through the third quarter Iowa State took a two-point lead and came within two in the fourth.

“I thought our kids battled,” Mulkey said. “We could have lost that game. There was a lot of leadership in that timeout.”

She referenced the one taken after the Cyclones had rallied for a slim advantage.

The Bears owned the boards 51-26 and tossed a 4-minute shutout defensively at the close of the game.

“That was a great game,” said Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly. “I’m reall pleased with the effort of our kids and the way they competed for 40 minutes. Obviously, rebounding was the key.”

The win enabled Baylor to avoid danger of falling out of the Top 10 in the poll for the first time after 122 straight weeks.

Iowa State goes to No. 24 West Virginia on Wednesday, while Baylor next plays in order Kansas, Kansas State, and Texas Tech, who are all under .500 on the season.

UConn Avoids Losing Streak Again: So after the upset setback to Arkansas, facing the next best team in the Big East, which is also ranked, started speculation on whether the Huskies (11-1, 9-0 Big East) might lose two straight for the first time in eons.

It was not 1993 once more, however, as the the Huskies made it 65-0 after a loss to not hit the start of a losing streak, a span of 1,005 games.

Christyn Williams scored 29 points for UConn, while freshman Paige Bueckers had 22 points and 10 rebounds, Evina Westbrook had 12 points and 14 rebounds.

Afterwards, Hall of Fame Huskies coach talked about the current atmosphere in games caused by protocols involving the coronavirus.

“It’s just lousy playing basketball this time in their lives,” he said. “There’s nothing to get excited about. This is just glorified practice, except you’re playing against another team. There’s no crowd. There’s no energy. People think, ‘Well, what’s the difference?’ It’s a huge difference. Basketball is meant to be played with the emotion of the game. 

“These games that I see are devoid of emotion, so you have to create your own. And I thought we did today.”

Sonya Morris had 19 for DePaul (9-4, 6-2), which had won four straight since losing to UConn last month in Storrs on campus at Gampel Pavilion. Lexi Held scored 16.

Saylor Poffenbarger, who under a loophole enrolled recently at UConn because her high school team had yet to play, get into the game late, the second youngest to achieve that behind Russian native Svetlana Abrasimova. 

“You’ve got to like the kid,” Auriemma said. “She knows what she is. She;s not shy about it. I’m sure she must have been a nervous wreck. Paige told her to shoot the ball every time she passed it to her and she did. If she played three minutes she would have gotten 10 more shots.”

UConn hosts St. John’s Wednesday while DePaul heads to Seton Hall on Thursday.

Elsewhere, in the Atlantic 10, league leader Dayton had been in a 17-day pause but played Sunday and won at St. Bonaventure in Olean, N.Y., 68-51. The Flyers are in Philadelphia this weekend playing La Salle and Saint Joseph’s.

Looking Ahead: With the new AP Women’s Poll for the week set to debut early Monday afternoon it is not likely to be 1 vs. 2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference matchup at night when unbeaten Louisville  hosts N.C. State, which fell from the unbeaten column in overtime to Virginia Tech on Thursday, in the KFC Yum Center at 7 p.m. on ESPN2.

Later, in the Big Ten, No. 14 Ohio State visits No. 23 Northwestern at 8 p.m. on the Big Ten Network. The Buckeyes have beaten three straight teams in the league ranked 16th or less heading to play the Wildcats in Evanston, Ill.

And that’s the report.