The Guru Report - National Edition: Upset of No. 4 Arizona Leaves Colorado Sole Unbeaten; Florida Takes Down No.25 Texas A&M

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Sunday’s Schedule in the PAC-12 played out differently than the original posting due to postponements from positive test results involving the coronavirus and there was shuffling elsewhere.

No. 11 Connecticut ended a 21-day hiatus caused by coronavirus results and again avoided a two-game losing streak with the one-game at a time only extending to 1,033 games for the Huskies back to 1993.

In the Associated Press women’s poll, Sunday’s winners were No. 1 South Carolina over No. 21 Kentucky in the SEC, No. 8 Michigan (covered in the local edition), No. 9 Texas, No. 10 Maryland, No. 2 Stanford, No. 5 NC State, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 15 Georgia, No. No. 11 UConn, No. 16 Georgia Tech, No. 19 North Carolina, and No. 22 Iowa.

The Wild, Wild West of the Pac-12: When No. 2 Stanford was postponed off Oregon State, the defending NCAA champions found a willing opponent in Gonzaga of the West Coast Conference to travel to Maples Pavilion near Palo Alto, Calif., and take another shot at Tara VanDerveer’s squad after losing back in Spokane, Wash., earlier this season.

The result was no different, this one 66-50 as Hannah Jump had 13 of her 21 points in the second half, but overall five three-balls, as Stanford (11-3) won a bit easier than the rally to edge the Zags 66-62 in their first meeting.

“They’re just so long and they communicate well,” said Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier whose team fell to 10-4. “We always say that when you play Stanford you learn exactly where you’re strong and where you need to improve.

Stanford’s Camron Brinkl had 14 points and 16 rebounds, while Haley Jones scored 15.

Yvonne Ejim scored scored 14 for Gonzaga.

On Friday night Stanford will head to Colorado, which defeated visiting UCLA 71-63 and remained the last unbeaten team in Division I women after in a reshuffled schedule No. 4 Arizona fell 76-67 at Southern Cal.

A year ago, besides the almost entire season-long journey that kept Stanford anywhere but home because of the stringent covid protocols in Santa Clara County, the one blunt point came after the Cardinal visited the Buffs as the No. 1 team and fell in overtime, the then-9th case of an unranked team upsetting the top AP team.

In the UCLA game in Boulder Sunday the triumph snapped a ten-game losing streak to the Bruins (5-4, 0-1 PAC-12) and completed what became the first time Colorado 13-0, 2-0) beat both the Bruins and Trojans the same weekend.

“I just told the team I’m really proud of them,” said Colorado coach JR Payne. “I think every team is going through some adversity or another. We’re no different.

“To come out and sweep our opening weekend in the PAC-12 on a short turnaround, when our opponent has had time to prepare for us. That just shows a lot of resilience. A lot of togetherness, a lot of cohesion and I’m, super proud of our ballclub.”

Jaylyn Sherrod had had a career-high 25 points for Colorado, while Natalie Chou scored 15.

Frida Formann added 14 for the home team and Mya Hollingshed added had 10 points.

Down in Los Angeles, Southern Cal in a reshuffled schedule off Covid postponements, beat No. 4 Arizona 76-67, benefitting from Alyson Miura scoring four shots from deep in the fourth quarter at the Galen Center.

The top 10 upset under new coach Lindsay Gottlieb was the first for USC (8-4, 1-1 PAC-12) was the team’s first since 2000 dropping the Wildcats to 11-1 overall and 1-1 in the conference.

“We completely embraced the opportunity in front of us,” said Gottlieb. “It’s not easy sometimes to look in the mirror and see what you can do better and figure out how you want to improve things, but with the way that we did that, against the opponent that we did it against, I think that makes it significant.

“I hope it’s a fun and memorable day, but also something that propels us forward.”

Miura’s five from deep were a personal best on the way to 15 points for the Trojans, while Jordyn Jenkins scored 14 points, all in the second half.

Desiree Caldwell scored 12.

Arizona’s Cate Reese scored 29, while Bendu Yeaney scored 12.

In the other PAC-12 contest, Oregon whipped Cal 88-53 in the game at Berkeley.

The Ducks (8-5, 1-1) connected on 14 three-pointers, while Te-Hina Papao and Sydney Parrish each scored 21 points.

Jayda Curry had 13 in the game for Cal’s Haas Pavilion and Evelien Lutje Schipholt scored 10 for the host Bears (9-4, 0-2).

“I was really proud of our effort,” said Oregon coach Kelly Graves. “Sometimes it’s difficult to come off of a loss and regroup two days later and play against a good team.”

Florida Gets Historic Win Over Texas A&M: The Gators got a career-tops 28 points from Zippy Broughton as Florida triumphed in double overtime rallying from a 19-point deficit in the third quarter to beat No. 25 Texas A&M and retiring coach Gary Blair for the first time in College Station in the Southeastern Conference. Kiara Smith added 27 points and Jordyn Merritt scored 17.

Florida (11-5, 1-2 SEC) had 13 three-pointers.

Blair, the veteran A&M coach in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, is retiring the end of this season.

“Prior to this game, we talked about who we are as a team and what we wanted to look like on the court,” said Florida coach Kelly Rae Finley.  “We wanted to be all that we are: relentless, determined, energetic and unbreakable. I feel like we showed that we are all those things and more.

“Player for player we gave remarkable effort.”

Qadashh Hoppie scored 25 points and Kayla Wells scored 23 for Texas A&M (10-5, 0-3).

“As a coaching staff and as a basketball team, we lost our composure during the ballgame,” Blair said. “I think when you blow a 19-point lead in the second half at home, that’s totally on us and I give them a lot of credit.”

Elsewhere in the SEC, No. 13 LSU made its bid to try to get inside the Top 10 beating Auburn on the road 76-48 at Auburn Arena in Alabama.

The Tigers (15-2, 3-1 SEC) were coming off a conference loss to No. 1 South Carolina earlier in the week.

“You’ve got to go on the road if you want to be a good team and you’ve got to steal some victories,” said first-year coach and Hall of Famer Kim Mulkey. “We’ve done that. Now what we've got to do is we’ve got to protect home court.”

LSU will host Missouri Thursday and Vanderbilt on Sunday.

Khayla Pointer had 24 points and 10 rebounds for LSU while Aicha Coulibaly scored 13 for Auburn (8-6, 0-3).

Mississippi State had just seven players available, the NCAA minimum, in its 70-63 win over Vanderbilt.

No. 15 Georgia rallied at home to beat Alabama 72-68 while No. 7 Tennessee won at Mississippi 70-58 to snap the host Rebels’ 13-game win streak.

In South Carolina’s win, Aliyah Boston had 18 points and 15 rebounds over No. 21 Kentucky.

Maryland Stops Minnesota: The No. 10 Terrapins (12-4, 4-1 Big Ten) saw all five starters score in double figures led by Chloe Bibby’s 23 points in a Big Ten win at Minnesota (8-8, 1-3) in Minneapolis. 

The Gophers, again under the helm of Carly Thibault-DouDonis while Lindsay Whalen recovers from emergency surgery on her appendix got 20 points from Deja Winters.

“A terrific response from Minnesota,” said Maryland coach Brenda Frese. “I thought Carly Thibault did a remarkable job in her place.”

The Hawkeyes rallied on the road to beat host Nebraska 95-86 in Lincoln as Caitlin Clark scored 31 and grabbed 10 eight rebounds and dealt 12 assists.

Iowa’s McKenna Warnock had 23 points and 10 boards, while  Monika Czinano scored 20.

And that’s the report from the national side.