The Guru Report: Villanova, Rider, Princeton Gain Narrow Victories While Rutgers Drops Fourth Straight and Ranked Oregon and Ohio State Also Upset Victims

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Villanova got ready for its first wading into the Big East pool this weekend by rallying and avoiding an upset, beating defending Patriot League champion Lehigh 65-60 Wednesday night at home in the Wildcats’ Finneran Pavilion.

Among the locals, Princeton gained a nifty upset via poll designation with a narrow 57-55 road win at No. 21 Florida Gulf Coast 57-55 in Fort Meyers, while Rider snapped its season-opening five-game losing streak, beating NJIT 64-59 at home in Alumni Gymnasium in Lawrenceville, N.J.

Rutgers, however, in the opening night of the Big Ten/Atlantic Coast Conference Challenge, dropped its fourth straight, losing at rising Pittsburgh 58-50.

Also as part of the challenge’s 2-4 performance on Wednesday, the Big Ten’s No. 18 Ohio State was ambushed at Syracuse 97-91.

No. 18 Oregon, which was tied in this week’s Associated Press women’s rankings with the Buckeyes,  were also an upset victim, losing to visiting UC Davis 64-57.

At Villanova (3-3), which evened its early season record, the Wildcats trailed the Mountain Hawks 47-39 early in the final period and suddenly erupted with 24 points over the final 9:25 to rally over Lehigh (5-3).

The comeback began with successive shots beyond the arc from Brooke Mullin.

Lehigh, however, countered with a shot from deep from Megan Walker to give the visitors a five-point advantage with just over six minutes left in regulation.

But Villanova then erupted on a 7-0 outburst on a layup from Bella Runyan and a three and driving score from Lior Garzon to take a 56-54 edge with 3:16 left.

Inside the final minute, the Wildcats were up 60-59 before Lehigh’s Mackenzie Kramer tied it on 1-of-2 from the line.

Garzon, the Israeli celebrating Hanukah week, put ‘Nova up two on a layup but Lehigh going for another tie committed a turnover and the home team wrapped up the win making 3-of-4 from the line.

Freshman Lucy Olsen scored 22 points, shooting 7-of-14 from the field, while Mullin had a career-high with 16 points, three from deep, and had five rebounds and a personal best five steals.

Grad student Brianna Hurlihy scored eight and grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds.

Lehigh’s Emma Grothaus scored 16 points and Frannie Hottinger scored 12, while Kramer and Walker each scored 10.

By winning, Villanova extended the series mastery to 11-1 and 27-8 all-time against other Patriot League outfits.

There were 11 ties and seven flips of the score, in which at one instance in the third the Mountain Hawks took a 13-point lead.

“Obviously, we didn’t do a great job tonight of handling their pressure,” Lehigh coach Sue Troyan said. “Without Claire (Steele) for us, we had a younger set of point guards out there.

“Give Villanova a lot of credit. They earned the win. They did a good job of turning us over and not allowing us to get comfortable offensively in the fourth quarter and they really put  the pressure on us. That’s an area we need to get better at,” Troyan said.

“It’s going to be frustrating for our girls because it’s a game we should have won, honestly had we handled the pressure better. It’s just something we need to learn from going forward.”

Villanova will be on the road in Big East opening weekend, visiting Providence Friday at 7 on Flohoops, and  at Creighton in Omaha,  Nebraska, Sunday, at 2 p.m., also on Flohoops.

Rider Gets First Victory:  The Broncs broke from a 56-56 tie with three minutes left to go on a closing 8-3 run and finish with a 64-59 victory over NJIT (4-4) at home.

Lenaejha Evans hit from the top of the key to snap the deadslock and stay in front the rest of the way.

Eight seconds were left when the Highlanders were in position to seek a tie and force overtime but Amanda Mobley stole an inbound pass and went to the line after being fouled and hit both free throws.

Rider (1-5) built an 11-point lead near the end off the third only to yield an NJIT 14-3 lead to tie the game off a pair of three-pointers from Maria Faux. The game then went indecisive off three more deadlocks before the Broncs finished.

“A pretty good game for us and one that we needed,” said Rider veteran coach Lynn Milligan. “We needed to get ourselves on the winning side of things. I thought we had some really good possession, and overall I thought it was a good home win, and a good stepping stone for us.

“It’s nice to see these ladies get rewarded for the work they put in the last few weeks,” Milligan said.

“I think every game is going to be different for us. We need to be smart with our numbers, and we got a couple of breakouts today. We definitely did a better job not giving up fast break points. We put an onus on that in practice, because I think we can be a pretty good defensive when we’re back and set.”

Raphaela Toussaint commented, “Coach always says, `The play isn’t over until the ball is in the basket.’ So going into every ppossession with that mentality and doo whatever I can to help the team.’

“Defense is something we work on constantly in practice, and we are building that mentality of keeping people in front of us and relying on each other. We’re just buying into that.”

Evans finished with a new career high again, this time with 22 points, while Toussaint had 17 points and 10 rebounds, Makayla Firebaugh dealt a personal best five assists.

It had been a struggle until Wednesday night when the Broncs topped the Highlanders 17-7 in fast break points.

Rider next heads to upstate New York, visiting Army at West Point on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.

Princeton Gets Milestone Victory: In recent seasons the Tigers under previous coach Courtney Banghart, now at North Carolina, and Carla Berube have had successs with an unbeaten regular season, the only Ivy team to get an NCAA at-large bid and also appear as an Associated Press ranked team.

On Wednesday dating back to beating then-No. 18 Rutgers on Jan. 5, 1978, the Tigers (6-1) in Alico Arena in Fort Meyers, Fla., upset No. 21 Florida Gulf Coast, snapping an 0-25 losing streak playing ranked opponents.

Abby Meyers had 18 points in dealing the reigning Atlantic Sun champions (7-1) their first season loss.Grace Stone added a personal best 17 points off shooing 5-of-10 from the field.

Julia Cunningham also scored in double figures with 10 points.

Florida Gulf Coast were defensed into 19 points below their 84.0 scoring average.

The fourth quarter had several swings with the home team launching a 7-0 run to go up a point 51-50 with 2:12 left in regulation.

The teams then exchanged baskets prior to Meyers scoring and getting And-1.

The host Eagles have been 63-7 the past three seasons and two of the seven losses were to the Tigers.

Princeton next goes on the road to the Bronx in New York to face host Fordham at 1 p.m. on ESPN+

Rutgers Losing Streak Continues:Coming out of the Paradise Jam in the Bahamas where the Scarlet Knights lost all three games last weekend, they tabbed it a learning experience.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, started bagging wins in their trip in the tropics.

The Panthers are now 6-2 following Wednesday night’s 58-50 win over Rutgers to stay perfect at 4-0 inside the Petersen Events Center for the first time in five seasons.

“Obviously, over the last week I think we really grew as a basketball team, said Pitt coach Lance White. “When you think about the three games we played down in the Virgin Islands, against three NCAA Tournament quality teams, and then come back home and face Rutgers, who you know is a perennial power with everything they’ve been able to do with their program.

“For us, it was about growing as a basketball team and I think we did that. And then today, to watch our team put a really gutsy performance and just really battle, start to finish, and just figure out a way to win, I’m really proud of them.”

The game was tied 50-50 with two minutes left in regulation when Rutgers missed a shot and Dayshanette Harris snapped the deadlock with two from the line on the ensuing possession.

With 1:48 left, Pitt forced a missed shot and turnover on the next possession that resulted in a four-point lead following two more free throws, this time from Jayla Everett with 47 seconds left in regulation.

Then the home folks produced another stop and Harris found Amber Brown for a fast break layup to sealed. The upset.

Everett, aided by three from deep had a game-high 18 points, Brown scored 12, Rita Igbowke grabbed 12 rebounds, and Kiatu King scored 11, with five of her six rebounds on the offensive glass.

Shug Dickson had 10 points, six rebounds, and three assists for the Scarlet Knights.

The Panthers snapped a losing streak in the series dating back 13 seasons to Feb. 10, 2009.

Rutgers (4-5), whose losing streak would be six were it not for the rally and win at home over Harvard in overtime, also got eight points and four assists from Jailyn Mason.

The setback came in a game in which the Knights had a season-low 16 turnovers, the big differential was Pitt 31-4 on free throw attempts.

This was the first meeting between the former Big East rivals since 20212, some ten seasons ago.

Next up isn’t helpful, the start of Big Ten play at the top, hosting No. 8 Maryland Sunday at home at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, N.J. at 2 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.

Ranked Upsets: Adding to the ragged start by the Big Ten in the challenge series, No. 18 Ohio State. Fell at Syracuse 97-91 for the Buckeyes’ first loss of the season in six games.

Ohio State wasted a 21-point performance by Taylor Mikesell, while Jay Sheldon scored 23.

“We were really competing and then we quit doing those things,” said Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff. “I think the biggest key was we gave them a lot of confidence early. I think we could’ve taken that from them if we kept playing as hard as we did to start the game.”

Teisha Hyman had a career-high 30 points for Syracuse (4-4), which also had 24 from hrislyn Carr, including an Orange best 22 in the final period. Naje Murray added 21 points.

Meanwhile, out in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, tied with OSU at 18th, fell 64-57 at home in Matthew Knight Arena to UC Davis, the first non-conference home loss in eight seasons, the first under Kelly Graves.

“Defensively, I thought we were good enough to have won the game,” Graves said. “But we’re just not real good offensively, right now. It’s kind of disappointing. We’ve got to get better.”

The Ducks fell to 3-3 and had just nine players available.

Elsewhere, noting scores around the country, Massachusetts of the A-10 and picked as a preseason conference contender topped a like from the MAAC in Fairfield, 74-61, while Quinnipiac of the MAAC beat visiting Yale 61-59. Wagner of the Northeast Conference upset the. MAAC;s Manhattan 54-50, and Troy beat Samford 65-61.

Looking Ahead:  On Thursday night, Delaware goes to Columbia, while in night 2 of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, Penn State goes to Boston College at 8 p.m.

Other Big Ten/ACC Challenge games have Duke hosting No. 9 Iowa, which shut down last week off positive coronavirus tests; Clemson hosting Northwestern; Michigan visiting Louisville as No. 12 travels to No. 10; No. 2 N.C. State goes to No. 6 Indiana; No. 23 Notre Dame hosts Michigan State; No. 24 Florida State visits Illinois.

The start of the SEC/Big 12 Challenge has No. 14 Iowa State traveling to LSU, while No. 20 Georgia goes to Texas Tech.

Looking way ahead the Colonial Athletic Association after taking away James Madison from participating and hosting in the Women’s conference tournament, has given it to defending champion Drexel at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

“This will be a great thing for our seniors,” said Drexel coach Amy Mallon.

And that’s the report.