The Guru Report: Saint Joseph’s Takes Flight While Another Philly Product Set to Become The Next Women’s Olympic Coach

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — For the second straight game on Tuesday night, the Saint Joseph’s women’s team showed consistent growth at the expense of a rival out of the Ivy League — this one more familiar in Penn, whom the Hawks found separation here in the fourth quarter to spurt to an 83-70 Big Five win in The Palestra and snap a three-game losing streak in the series with the Quakers (4-6, 0-3 Big Five).

Things did not go as well for the other two locals who played, Delaware losing down in Texas 61-55 to SMU of the American Athletic Conference in Moody Coliseum in Dallas while Rider’s two-game win streak ended at the hands of Wagner 62-58 of the Northeast Conference on Staten Island, N.Y.

On a day that the world learned Connecticut star sophomore Paige Beckers, the current face of the sport, could be lost for at least six weeks following a non-contact knee injury suffered at the close of Sunday’s win over then-No. 24 Notre Dame, Delaware’s Jasmine Dickey, the current nation’s leading scorer (27.9 ppg.), may have suffered an injury during the loss to SMU.

Away from the court, following UConn’s Geno Auriemma out of suburban Norristown, Pa., South Carolina’s Dawn Staley out of North Philadelphia,, South Jersey and former La Salle star, as well as ongoing coach/GM of the WNBA Minnesota Lynx, Cheryl Reeve, is set to be formally announced late Wednesday morning as the next coach of the U.S. Olympic squad.

First, let’s take care of the game action that occurred here at The Palestra and involving the other two locals.

Numbers that are used to being addressed on the side of the opposition came the way of the Hawks (3-6, 1-1) against the Quakers with four Saint Joseph’s players scoring in double figures.

Gaining her first double double, freshman Laila Fair had 20 points and 11 rebounds, while Katie Jekot had 20 points helped by a personal best five shots from deep, Tayla Brugler had a career high with 18 points, and Kaliah Henderson scored 16 points. It’s the most 20-points scorers for the Hawks in two seasons.

“Those are some pretty good stats there,” smiled Hawks coach Cindy Griffin, who minutes earlier was given a warm embrace of congrats from Saint Joseph’s athletic director Jill Bodensteiner.

“What a great game, a typical Big Five battle against a very good team. We’ve been really coming into our own as of late. We had a really good win over Yale the other day. I think that helped our confidence coming into this game. We were looking at the boxscore. We haven’t seen this in a while and it’s exciting.”

Parrying and thrusting, the outcome was in the balance at the end of three quarters by a point with Saint Joseph’s clinging to a 54-53 lead resulting from Penn rallying after the break trailing by a point off a a 21-10 explosion coming out settled after the break.

But the Hawks then settled and used a 29-17 closeout to head back home with the victory.

Quakers sophomore Kayla Padilla after a recent record 36-point effort on the West Coast had another explosive performance with 31 points, hitting five from deep, but not much came from elsewhere with Mia Lakstigala scoring nine points and grabbing eight rebounds for a near double double while Kennedy Suttle had eight points and grabbed five rebounds.

“We’re just struggling to find that second consistent scoring option,” said Penn coach Mike McLaughlin, who had his full roster for just the second time this season following Sunday’s loss here to Duke that then vaulted into the national ranking for the first time in two seasons.

McLaughlin had been dealing with a wave of suspensions of four games each over eight games to his seniors and juniors for breaking a university rule.

On Sunday following the loss to the Blue Devils he said it had been near impossible to figure out his rotation to date.

On Friday Penn heads to Long Island to play America East reigning champion Stony Brook while on Saturday Saint Joseph’s will visit longtime rival Saint Joseph’s dating to the former Atlantic Ten wars playing at noon in McGonigle Hall on ESPN+.

Temple has an upset of Villanova  collected on the Main Line to be 1-0 in the Big Five and having a current 3-0 win streak with a narrow triumph at Georgetown after beating the Wildcats and then earlier this week posted a win over another former A-10 rival, visiting Duquesne in Pittsburgh.

Delaware Edged By SMU: The Blue Hens ventured down to Dallas in Texas to meet the Mustangs, a rival from Temple’s American Athletic Conference.

Delaware (6-3) had recently lost a thriller at Penn’s Ivy rival Columbia up at New York City’s Upper West Side and the Blue Hens earlier had a fast start ruined at home by Ivy champion Princeton.

SMU (4-5) used a 15-8 run over most of the third quarter to go up 37-34 with one quarter remaining.

Delaware wasn’t done, Ty Battle’s foul shot launched a 13-6 run and a 47-43 advantage with 4:13 left in regulation.

Ty Skinner’s fourth trey made it 50-46 but it would not hold after Jasmine Smith countered with a shot from deep sending SMU on s 15-5 run and eventual 61-55 win the rest of the way.

Battle picked up her sixth double double 17 points and 15 rebounds for the visitors, while Skinner had 16 points and four rebounds.

Dickey had seven with the story narrative at the website not indicating any injury or severity but Blue Hens broadcaster Matt Janus had tweeted an indication of some kind of injury that if bad occurred sometime late in the third period based on the last points scored by the Delaware star..

The largest disparity indicated in the outcome shows the Mustangs picking up 12 points on 14 Blue Hens turnovers while the SMU bench produced a double advantage in scoring 23-11.

Delaware next goes to Northwestern (6-3) of the Big Ten in Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Ill., on Saturday at 3 p.m., a stop Temple will also make a week from Friday, putting Wildcats coach Joe McKeown of Northeast Philadelphia against the Owls he faced when coaching George Washington against them in the Atlantic 10.

Wagner Quickly Snaps Rider Streak A 25-18 fourth quarter and a career-high 23-point effort from Lenaejha Evans still lacked more, sending the Broncs to a 2-6 setback, 62-58, after a brief win combo following a previous 0-5 start or Rider while the NEC reps improved to 6-1.

“We had a slow start today that ended up costing us,” saod Rider veteran coach Lynn Milligan.

“We can continue to appreciate the fight to come back but ultimately we need to start games better.,” she continued.

“Lenaejha’s been terrific all season. She is a young lady that has built herself into a player that is consistent and will hopefully rub off everyone else. You always know what you’re getting from her. She’s done a great job and we can’t ask for anything more.

“We’re locked into who we have due to injuries, and we need to do work earlier on the glass. We have to get better at and continue to fight for every ball. “

Wagner dominated the boards 31-17, including 8-4 on the o-boards.

Next Navy visits Sunday at Lawrenceville, N.J., in Alumni Gym at 2 p.m. on ESPN3.

Looking Ahead: One D-1 Local on Wednesday, Md.-Eastern Shore visits La Salle at 6 p.m. in the Explorer’s Tom Gola Arena at Trumark Center while No. 12 Iowa visits No. 15 Iowa State Wednesday at 7 p.m. 

Nationally Noted: Rider’s Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference rival Quinnipiac at home in Hamden, Conn., won a MAAC game beating Northeastern 69-48 while  Oklahoma of the Big 12 came up with a 94-58  triumph  over visiting Eastern Michigan of the Mid-American Conference.

Pittsburgh in the ACC continued to win, topping Copping State. West Virginia of the Big 12 beat visiting Charlotte of C-USA 65-54 in Morgantown while Marist came up with coronavirus positive tests forcing cancellation of its game Tuesday with Stony Brook.

And that’s the report.