Guru’s March Madness — II: Delaware Comes Up Short to Rice in WNIT Semifinals While Ole Miss Blasts Thru Other Side

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

With Delaware and Villanova colliding in the WNIT title round of the Charlotte Regional, only one local team was going to be left standing among the two national tournaments.

Now there are none.

A late Delaware rally on a hot-shooting rice squad out of Conference-USA fell just short Friday night in Memphis enabling coach Tina Langley’s squad to prevail 85-75 and conclude the Blue Hens’ best season since the 2012-13 end of the Elena Delle Donne era abs head to Sunday’s championship against Ole Miss at at 2 p.m. on the Flohoops streaming site.

The Rebels, who had their best season for a while in the Southeastern Conference defeated Northern Iowa  60-50.

Two sophomores for Rice (22-4) showed a lot of firepower with Lauren Rice Schwartz scoring 25 points and Katelyn Crosthwait scoring a career-high 20 points.

The Owls shot 54 percent from the field, but Delaware (24-5), the regular season champions in the Colonial Athletic Association, who were upset by a Drexel comeback in the title, whittled a 22-point deficit down to a nine-point margin at 74-65 with 3 minutes, 25 seconds left but that was as close as the Blue Hens could come.

Rice’s Jasmine Smith had 17 points and 10 rebounds for Langley, a former assistant at Maryland, which is a surviving No. 2 seed heading into this weekend’s Sweet 16 and possibly Elite Eight rounds of the NCAA women’s tourney in San Antonio, Texas,  at the Alamodome.

Sydne Wiggins dealt seven assists, but the Blue Hens’ defense did decent job on Nancy Mulkey holding her scoreless in the wake of a 16-points average, though she still grabbed 11 rebounds.

Jasmine Dickey, who became the star of the Blue Hens’ revival, earning CAA player of the year honors, had 25 points and 13 rebounds; Ty Battle had 11 rebounds, while Lizzie Oleary and Jewel Smalls each scored 12.

As they were tripped by Drexel in the CAA comeback, the Blue Hens’ shooting was again on the downside, shooting 33 percent.

The leading offensive rebounding squad in the nation, Delaware got 20 in rhe first half and 30 on the night but couldn’t cash in having a program-record 93 attempts from the field.

“Not the outcome we wanted,” said Delaware coach Natasha Adair, “but I’m so proud of our fight, oh my goodness, and so proud of our year.

“We are going to be in the record books, this is going to be a season to remember for the good things.

“So we’re not going to let today’s outcome outweigh the positives of a phenomenal season,” Adair continued. “And the fun thing is, we get everybody back. So I am excited for this group. 

“I’m super pumped already for next year. And my thank you is to the whole group, to my staff, to my support staff, to all the people who have made this season a season to remember. Go Hens!”

In the second game, Ole Miss (15-11) jumped on Northern Iowa in the opening quarter with a 20-11 advantage and stayed well ahead the rest of the way.

The Panthers (17-13) were held to their lowest scoring total of the season.

Shakira Austin, a former Maryland player, had 18 points and eight rebounds for Ole Miss while Madison Scott scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, and blocked four shots.

The Rebels overcame 17 turnovers, outproducing the Panthers 12-4 in blocked shots.

Defensively, Ole Miss allowed just one UNI player scoring in double figures, Karli Rucker gaining 16 points.

In the wake of the year-long coronavirus that took down virtually the entire sports world a year ago along with many other facets of day-to-day life, the WNIT was able to revive this season in a revamped format, reducing the field from 64 teams to 32, which was then set up in four bubble locations of eight teams each playing three-game winners and consolation rounds.

Flohoops aired the entire tournament.