The Guru Daily Report: Villanova Gains No. 2 Big East Seed While Drexel and Delaware Keep Rolling on CAA 1-2 Path

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — It was quite the day for Villanova in the Big East while here at Drexel the Dragons moved within a win or Delaware loss of claiming the No. 1 seed in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tourney they will host just two weekends away.

Because one makeup game needs to be played Tuesday with Xavier and Seton Hall to decide a seed the Guru didn’t yet go into a separate Big East separate mode in these multi-blogs though there is plenty of Big East things to discuss.

But first, let’s get the other two locals taken care involving their CAA affairs.

There were plenty of reason to feel that Drexel could have its hands full hosting Elon Sunday afternoon considering the Phoenix nearly upended Delaware Friday night on the way up here to the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

As it turns out the only time the Dragons had their hands full was pre-game in ceremonies bidding farewell to an ample supply of experience in Tessa Brugler, Kate Connolly, Maura Hendrixson, Mariah Leonard, Hannah Nihill, and Keishana Washington along with honors to Kayla Bacon from a year ago and five-year manager Sam Banks.

Then it was off to work and another solid and steady balanced performance sent Drexel once again into the winner’s column 72-57 in the final regular season home game, but not the final game at home.

Brugler scored 23 points, grabbed nine rebounds, dealt four assists, besides adding a pair of locks and steals for the Dragons (23-3, 15-1 CAA).

Washington had a game-high 27 points, while Nihill scored 16, dished seven assists and was free of committing turnovers.

In transition, the home team forced Elon (15-11, 7-9) into 18 turnovers worth mining 27 points on the day’s yield.

“To have a win on Senior Day, that’s the what you want, but to do it the way we did it, we took control from the very beginning,” said Drexel coach Amy Mallon. “And that’s what we talked about to do a job for 40 minutes.”

Drexel next heads to James Madison Thursday at 7 at the Atlantic Bank Union Center in Harrisonburg, Va. The Dragons then finish out the regular season at third-place Towson on Saturday afternoon at third-place Towson in the SECU Arena in suburban Baltimore.

Meanwhile just to the South, Delaware had its Senior Day in the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark and then went out and pulverized William & Mary 67-45.

The win by the Blue Hens (20-6, 14-2 CAA) gave coach Natasha Adair her first 20-win regular season for the first time since 2012-13.

Delaware also had a big group of departing seniors in Ty Battle, Jasmine Dickey, Tee Johnson, Paris McBride, Lizzie Oleary, Maddie Sims, and managers George Class-Peters and Mollie Patmore.

“Anytime that you can compete on your home court on Senior Night and play the way they did is great,” Adair said. “That was probably one of our best starts that we have had all season and it started with our leaders.

“They will leave their legacy and how awesome was it to be able for it to be done today in front of the home crowd.”

Senior Days a year ago were held in empty arenas in front of cardboard cutouts of fans because of covid protocols.

Dickey dominated again, scoring a game-high 22 points and grabbing 15 rebounds, while Battle scored 17 and grabbed 10 rebounds.

Riley Casey scored 10 points for the visiting Tribe (10-17, 5-11).

Delaware finishes up on the same road trip as Drexel in reverse order, visiting Towson Thursday night and then James Madison Saturday afternoon.

The game with JMU will be the Dukes’ last appearance in the CAA, having announced a move for the entire program to the Sun Belt Conference, they were kicked out of the CAA tournament, which they were also set to host before that was taken away and awarded to Drexel.

A Gritty Day Ends Happy For Villanova: Once DePaul managed to get past Creighton 90-84 in Omaha, Neb., in the first of the closeout regular season days on the Big East schedule the rest should have been easy in Cincinnati to whack a Xavier team team the Wildcats decimated in their first meeting in January back on the Main Line in Finneran Pavilion.

But the Musketeers forgot to follow the script and hung around all afternoon in their Cintas Center.

At the half it was a slim one-basket 24-22 lead for the visitors who then seemed to get their affairs in order pulling away in the third quarter. However, Xavier came right back until finally in the closing minutes, Villanova said, enough, and moved in front for a 58-49 victory.

The perk for the 15-4 record coming as part of the now-overall 21-7 mark is the Wildcats will be a No. 2 seed, highest in some time, in this week’s Big East tournament at the Mohegan Sun Casino-Resort in Uncasville, Conn.

That means, if Villanova takes care of business and all other things happen according to expectation, never a sure thing other than one team in the Big East women, the Wildcats would be free of No. 7 UConn, whom they snapped a Huskies 169-straight win conference domination last month in Hartford.

And ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme aside, that should be enough to earn an at-large bid into the NCAA field, though there are many who believe a lock status should be applied right now to all that’s been accomplished.

As for pieces of the tournament available, Villanova gets a first-day bye into the quarterfinals to the 7 p.m. game Saturday playing the winner of the 7-10 game from Friday’s three-team opening rounds.

St. John’s already has a seven seed while the 10 slot coming out of Tuesday’s result will go to Xavier or Georgetown.

As for the stats from Sunday’s game, all-American candidate Maddy Siegrist scored 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, though with the gap left from where she is now at 1,714 career points until getting near second and first on the Villanova all-time scoring chart, will have to wait till her senior season.

Brianna Herlihy had 11 points and 11 rebounds, while Lior Garzon had 10 points.

Ayanna Townsend scored 13 points for Xavier (9-19, 4-15), while Mackayla Scarlet had 11 points and Courtney Prenger grabbed 11 rebounds.

The Wildcats have won 12 straight over the Musketeers and lead the all-time series 17-1, while they also have won 13 of their last 14 games.

Siegrist was also part of two individuals cited for historic seasons. 

The native of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., set the Big East games scoring average at 27.9 points per game over 17 contests, coming within four points of the total record. She is the eighth player to win multiple conference scoring titles.

In DePaul’s win freshman sensation Aneesah Morrow had her 23rd straight double double and set the freshman single game record, scoring 41 points. The Chicago native finished with the highest scoring and rebounding totals in freshman history in the Big East.

Her rebounding total (305) and average (15.3) were both Big East frosh and overall conference records. She also grabbed the rookie marks for average (23.5) and total points (469). 

Meanwhile, UConn is thriving with the return of Paige Bueckers, who started in the 88-31 rout of Providence, and overall health of the squad.

Since the loss to Villanova, the Huskies (22-5, 16-1 Big East) have won seven straight games by an average of more than 39 points.

Dorka Juhasz had 14 points and 10 rebounds, Azzi Fudd scored 14, and Olivia Nelson-Ododa scored 13.

Janai Crooms scored 12 for Providence (11-18, 6-14).

“They’ve got some fluidity now,” said Providence coach Jim Crowley. “They play with a much greater urgency. They know what time of year it is and what they have to do it. Their urgency level today was much higher than it was a month ago and much higher than ours.”

Looking long range, UConn’s Christyn Williams said, “I think we can go far. We have a lot of potential within this team, just getting everybody healthy. We obviously still have  a lot of work to do and things to work on and sharpen up before the NCAA tournament but I feel like we have a good shot.”

The Big East Tournament Schedule As of Now

Friday (Flohoops TV)

1st Round

11 a.m. No. 8 Providence vs. 9. TBA; 1:30 p.m. No. 7 St. John’s vs. No. 10 TBA; 4 p.m. No. 6 Seton Hall vs. No. 11 Butler.

Saturday (FS1-TV or FS2-TV)

Quarterfinals

12 p.m. (8-9) Providence-TBA winner vs. No. 1 Connecticut (FS1)

2:30 p.m. (4-5) DePaul vs. Marquette (FS2)

7 p.m. No. 2 Villanova vs. (7-10) St. John’s-TBA winner (FS2)

9:30 p.m. No. 3 Creighton vs. (6-11) Seton Hall-Butler winner (FS2)

Sunday

Semifinals

3 p.m. (1-8-9) Connecticut-Providence-TBA winner vs. (4-5) DePaul-Marquette winner (FS1)

5:30 p.m. (2-7-10) Villanova-St. John’s-TBA winner vs. ((3-6-11) Creighton-Seton Hall-Butler winner (FS1)

Monday

Championship

8 p.m. (1-8-9-4-5) Connecticut-Providence-TBA-DePaul-Marquette winner vs. (2-7-10-3-6-11) Villanova-St. John’s-TBA-Creighton-Seton Hall-Butler winner

Locally Noted: Temple plays the first of two in Texas (one a makeup) at SMU Monday night in a American Athletic Conference game at 8 p.m., while Lehigh finishes its Patriot League schedule at Navy Wednesday at 7 p.m., the same night the second Temple game at SMU plays at 8 p.m. All games are on ESPN+.

Drexel’s Tess Brugler is the CAA player of the week while her sister Talya is the Atlantic 10 Freshman of the week.

More Tourneys: Precision will come in the next 24-48 hours but here are other conference tournaments getting under way in the frontal week:

Big South — First Round - Tues; Quarterfinals - Thurs.; Semfinals - Sat.; Final-Sun.

Horizon - First Round - Tues; Quarterfinals  - Thurs.

Sun Belt - First Round - Wed; Quarterfinals - Fri.

Atlantic Sun - First Round - Wed; Quarterfinals - Sun.

Ohio Valley - First Round - Wed; Quarterfinals - Thurs; Semifinals - Fri.; Final - Sat.

West Coast - First Round - Thu: Second Round - Fri; Quarterfinals - Sat.

America East - Quarterfinals - Sat (Maine won regular season)

Patriot - First Round - Sat.

Summit - First Round -1 Sat; First Round - 2 Sun.

Mountain West — First Round - Sun.

And that is your Guru daily report for the moment.