The Guru National Report: Mid-Majors Make Nose And a Top 10 Showdown Won By Stanford Lacked the Luster

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

Because the cold win and loss is all that matters when it comes to achievements time will tell how much of defending NCAA women’s champion Stanford’s 86-67 win over No. 2 Maryland Saturday afternoon as part of the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship in Nassau, Bahamas is a reality.

Stanford (5-2), which already has as many losses as all of last season, came into the contest having dropped from its preseason spot of third to seventh and in danger of taking another plunge in the next poll that will be released Monday afternoon following the Cardinal’s upset loss to No. 18 South Florida during the week.

And after Maryland shot up to No. 2 in the current poll passing a UConn squad that dropped a spot following No. 1 South Carolina’s wipeout in the fourth quarter in last Monday’s 1-2 showdown and the Terrapins’ home court win over No. 6 Baylor on Sunday, coach Brenda Frese’s Big Ten favorites arrived in the tropics missing key players off injuries and illness.

That resulted in a blowout by Maryland falling to No. 5 North Carolina State, it’s former rival from the Terrapins’ Atlantic Coast era, and then Saturday’s wipeout that extended Hall of Fame coach Tara Van Derveer’s NCAA Division I women’s record of wins to 1,130, nine in front of the 1,121 held by UConn’s Geno Auriemma, whose Huskies next play Friday opening up the Big East slate at Seton Hall in South Orange, N.J.

But the Stanford win is official and as a result the Cardinal can claim the program’s largest top two win in its history.

Haley Jones had 15 points and 13 rebounds, while Hannah Jump, a last minute insertion into the starting lineup due to Cameron Brink’s sudden illness, had 21 points, all courtesy of connecting on seven shots from deep.

On the plus side, Stanford did edge No. 4 Indiana 69-66 prior to the loss to USF.

“This has been a real grind of a week,” VanDerveer said afterwards. “Playing last Sunday at Gonzaga (Spokane, Wash.), 19 hours to get down here, play such great competition, I’m really proud of our team.

“Thought today I challenged our team to play their best basketball. Wed rebounded. Hannah had a breakout game.”

By halftime Stanford had bolted to a 46-24 lead.

The ongoing illness and injuries caused Maryland (6-2) to only have seven players in uniform to play.

But Frese wasn’t one to make excuses and paid tribute to the opposition.

“That’s what a championship team looks like,” she said of Stanford. “That’s where we strive to be. They showed it for four straight quarters.”

Ashley Owusu scored 29 for Maryland.

“We didn’t come out to compete this whole tournament,” she said of the event in which opponents in all rounds were predetermined. “We came out flat against both teams. With top-five, top-10 teams, this is what happens.”

Brink, who averaged 22 points and 17 rebounds in the first two games, pulled herself together to enter the game with 3:43 left in the second quarter and finished with eight points in nine minutes of action.

This was just the third meeting in the series and the teams were tied 1-1.

Stanford is off until hosting Pacific on Dec. 12 giving Auriemma a chance to narrow the career win gap with VanDerveer.

Maryland next takes part in the Big Ten/ACC challenge, hosting Miami Thursday in the Terrapins’ XFINITY Center.

Mid-Major Flexing: Back in mid-October when the AP women’s preseason poll was released, nearly the entire Top 25 listings consisted of teams from the Power Five conferences plus UConn in the Big East and South Florida in the American Athletic Conference.

Now the Mid-Majors are starting to stir.

On Saturday South Dakota State defeated a young No. 19 UCLA squad, which also lost to Kent State in the Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Fla. 

That relegated the Bruins to a seventh-place game Sunday against St. John’s. The fifth-place game has Charlotte playing South Dakota State, while Penn State will play Kent State for third, and then No. 13 Iowa State of the Big 12 will meet unbeaten UMass of the Atlantic 10 for the championship.

After BYU, the West Coast Conference coaches’ pick who upset Rutgers in the opening round of the NCAA in San Antonio in April, upset No. 17 Florida State in the St. Petersburg Invitational opening round Friday in Florida, the squad came back Saturday and caught No. 22 West Virginia 58-57.

Missouri State, the Missouri Valley favorite, on Friday, took down No. 24 Virginia Tech of the ACC 76-68 in the San Juan Shootout in Puerto Rico.

On Saturday, No. 12 Michigan beat Mississippi State 64-48 in the Daytona Beach Invitational in Florida, giving Wolverines coach Kim Barnes Arico her 200th win with the Big Ten program since coming from being head coach at St. John’s.

Cal Baptist, still going through the migration to full Division I participation, on Saturday beat TCU of the Big 12 with a 91-77 outcome, the program’s first-ever win over a Power 5 opponent.

Looking Ahead: This was probably the biggest weekend of the season in terms of non-conference play due to the participation in Multiple Team Events (MTE).

Things settle this week and then get relatively quiet through just before the Christmas break because of the number of teams whose players will be in the classroom taking final exams for the semester.

On Wednesday, Ivy favorite Princeton will visit No. 25 Florida Gulf Coast, while Delaware will be at Columbia.

And that’s the Guru’s national report off Saturday’s edition.