The Guru Report — Local: Villanova Gains Big East Weekend Sweep With Second Narrow Triumph While Penn and Princeton Get Off to Winning Ivy Start

Guru note: This report drawn on wire, email and school website submissions

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Villanova rang in the New Year Sunday afternoon at its Finneran Pavilion in a Big East meeting with St. John’s the way the Wildcats bid farewell 48 hours earlier on Friday to the one just departed playing a Big East game against Seton Hall — picking up a sweep with narrow victories rallying in the closing minutes.

“Sometimes you just got to get a little lucky, too,” said former longtime ‘Nova coach Harry Perretta, who punched his retirement button on the Main Line at the end of the 2020 season.

On Sunday, Perretta said those words as an excellent TV analyst to John Fanta on the FS1 conference telecast from FOX, which picked up the game and moved it to noon when the teams on the original schedule had their game postponed under COVID-19 pandemic protocols.

Coach Denise Dillon’s club at her alma mater got the 2021 farewell/2022 welcome celebration going first with a comeback 76-73 win over Seton Hall before finishing by rallying to a 70-68 triumph.

“It’s great to get two wins when your next game is UConn,” Perretta quipped over Friday’s visit from the No. 11 Huskies, who may slip back into the Top 10 after Baylor’s loss when the new poll is out early Monday afternoon.

This time around, it may not be outlandish that Villanova has some chance to make it interesting on UConn’s second annual visit since rejoining the Big East, this one with fans who were extremely limited a year ago. And at the moment, the Huskies are under-womaned with their key star Paige Bueckers rehabbing from knee surgery and several other players missing.

But for the moment, enough time exists to look back to the immediate past and showing the Wildcats  (8-5, 2-2 after Sunday) know what it’s like when the star is sideline since junior Maddy Siegrist recently returned from missing six games with a hand injury and was the big factor, though not the only one, in both victories.

In the Friday win, the native from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., closed out the Pirates with back-to-back baskets, scoring a game-high 23 points overall on the way to her 36th career total after hitting the milestone again Sunday afternoon. She also got nine rebounds and four assists Friday.

“It feels great. I’m glad we got it,” Siegrist said afterwards. “Seton Hall is a great team. They beat a lot of good teams.”

None of them were on Sunday, however, the Pirates (6-6, 1-3 Big East) finding themselves without an opponent when COVID-19 protocols took Georgetown off the books.

“Credit our defense,” Siegrist said of the first win. “We got the stops when we needed to. (Dillon) pointed out for every basket we get, we’ve got to get two stops, and we all kept that mentally which really helped us.”

Bridget Herlihy recorded her third consecutive double double with 17 points and 12 rebounds. She also dished five assists while Lior Gorzon scored 14.

“Get the ball into the hands of players that are confident as they’re not going to get rattled,” Dillon said.

Seton Hall’s Andra Espinoza-Hunter scored 20 points, Sidney Cooks had 15 points and 12 rebounds, Lauren Park-Lane scored 12 and dished 10 assists, Mya Jackson scored 16, and Curtessia Dean scored 10.

On Sunday, Villanova looked like things were getting under control with a 7-2 run at the end of the third that included layups from Siegrist and Christina Dalce and a shoot from by deep from Brooke Mullin for a 55-49 lead.

But that’s now it plays out traditionally against the Red Storm (5-8, 1-2), who beat Temple earlier in the season down on North Broads Street.

In the final period St. John’s fought back to take a one-point lead and was going for more before Bella Runyon made a key block into Villanova, which had possession with a meager 25,2 seconds left in regulation.

Two attempts to go ahead failed but maintaining pressure Siegrist scored and was fouled. Completing the three-point play for a lead 70-68 with 4.5 seconds left.

St. John’s had two chances to tie but couldn’t score and the Wildcats were on to hosting UConn next.

Siegrist scored 28 with 11 rebounds, four assists and a steal, while Garzon scored 13, and Herlihy had her four straight double double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

For St. John’s, Leilani Correa had 20 points and 10 rebounds, while Rayven Peeples had 13 points and 11 rebounds. Unique Drake scored 19 points.

Penn and Princeton Roar to Ivy Liftoffs: Princeton and Penn were 1-2 picks in the Ivy League race, which became an active reality Sunday afternoon when league competition began anew for the first time in 666 days Sunday and the two powerhouses Ivy-wise lifted off toe-to-toe but for the first time in a very long while toe-to-toe but not against each other.

The revamp on the league portion of the season schedule set to begin last winter, had not the Ivy presidents shut down competition reacting to the coronva virus, called for the Quakers and Tigers to be elsewhere and not against each other.

That will come later in the month.

Suffice for now, Penn, which is now missing key star Kayla Padilla for a pair of games under COVID protocols, had a replacement reserve help lead the squad to a 66-37 victory at Brown in Providence, R.I., while league-favorite Princeton dominated Harvard 68-50.

Thus, did Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith, who will retire from her Boston court home (Cambridge if you prefer), make her last Jadwin Gym visit in central New Jersey not a happy one.

Princeton had been in pause by default with UCF powerhouse of the American Conference pulling out of its Dec. 22 visit under pandemic protocols.

On Sunday, Princeton third-year coach Carla Berube, a former UConn star, told the Trentonian, which was staffing the game, the pause was “a blessing in disguise.”

“”It’s like another level,” she said. “Non-conference gets you ready for these games sdo when they’re finally upon us it’s exciting. There’s been such a great rivalry with Harvard for many, many years.”

Like the Penn game, which we’ll get to in a bit, a new face helped contribute to the victory.

Kaitlyn Chen, a sophomore guard, in her third start, ratchet up from her 7.0 scoring average to 17 points.

“My teammates have my back and I know whenever I have a question or anything I can ask any of them because they’re all so experienced,” Chen told the paper out of New Jersey’s nearby capital city.

The voice of experience being there comes from Abby Meyers, who 19 points and a career-high 11 rebounds for Princeton (8-4, 1-0 Ivy).

While Princeton started slow facing the Crimson (6-7,0-1), the Tigers turned into a well-oiled machine as the game went on.

Ellie Mitchell was forced to the bench with early foul trouble but Princeton improved on rebounding once she returned.

The Tigers, unlike Saint Joseph’s recently hosting Harvard, was able to hold Harmoni Turner to 20 points.

Meanwhile, Penn’s new face came off the bench in freshman Stina Almqvist, who had a career-high 18 points for the Quakers (6-7, 1-0 IVY), who have a 19-game win streak over the Bears (5-8, 0-1), dating back to 2012.

Jordan Obi had 11 points, while Kennedy Suttle had 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Silke Milliman had 12 points.

Maddie Mullin had 11 for Brown in a total shutdown that relating to the presidential ones that have struck the athletes.

“The team played with incredible intensity on the floor,” said veteran Penn coach Mike McLaughlin, whose bulk of the non-conference schedule was spent coping with the school assessed penalty to the upper class members of the roster for breaking a team rule, making building a rotation a near impossibility.

“Jordan Obi played her best overall game this season. She effected the game on both ends of the floor.

‘Stina came off the bench and played excellently. We needed an aggressive scorer from the wing and she provided that. She scored the ball from all over the floor. She was awesome tonight. It’s a great road win for our team.”

In the old world, Penn and Princeton would be traveling together switching opponents each weekend from the traveling or hosting end and playing each other on the front and back ends.

Those days are gone but next weekends means not totally. 

The two local teams down here will start Friday with Penn at Cornell and Princeton at Columbia and then a trade switch with the Tigers at Cornell and Penn at Columbia on Saturday.

Thus next weekend quickly tests whether a new member will be in the high seed pursuit for the tournament, which consists of the top four teams played at Harvard’s basketball facility.

Columbia got off to a winning start in its game, beating Yale with a big rally over Yale 65-55 at Levien Gym on Broadway by the Upper West Side in New York.

Trailing by 12, the Lions (10-3, 1-0 IVY), rallied in the third on the play of Sienna Durr and Mikayla Markham.

“The team is very hungry,” said Columbia coach Megan Griffith. “They’re mission driven right now and we just have to make sue to set the the tone earlier. I was really pleased with the way our team made a statement to start the second half.

Carly Rivera had a career-high 14 points while Kaitlyn Davis had 11 points, nine rebounds and 4 blocks, 5 steals. 

The game was played without spectators, a lockdown until Jan. 18 for now advised by the New York City Authorities.

 Lehigh Flies American: The Mountain Hawks after having a previous Patriot League team put on pause finally got its conference action started and rode to a slim six point lead at the half but expanded it soon thereafter to a 72-51 victory in the Patriot League opener at Colgate in Hamilton, N.Y.

Emma Grothaus had 17 points, while Megan Walker scored 16, and Anna Harvey had a career high 13 for Lehigh (9-3, 1-0 Patriot).

The Mountain Hawks have been missing players struck by positive tests.

The win was the third straight over Colgate (2-11, 0-2).

Next up is a visit to the Stabler Arena on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Rutgers Rally Just Misses: Close but not close enough and one couldn’t get particularly much closer than Rutgers Sunday afternoon, wiping off a 21-point deficit only to see Purdue beat the buzzer to win their Big Ten matchup 60-58 at the Boilermakers  Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.

The Scarlet Knights (7-8, 0-3 Big 10) outscored the Boilermakers 10-4, 1-2) over the final 14 minutes 30-12.

Rutgers turned the ball over with three seconds remaining and Jeanae Terry made good on the miscue driving the lane and banking a layup to just beat the buzzer.

Victoria Morris had 14 points for Rutgers, which missed four players, two assistant coaches and a support member.

Jeanae, Madison Lyden, and Abbey Ellis each scored 11 points, while Rickie Woltman scored 10 for Purdue.

Next up is a visit from Minnesota on Thursday at 7 p.m. at home in the Jersey Mikes Arena in Piscataway, N.J.

And that’s the local report.