The Guru Report: Penn Recovery From Yale Opening Burst Not Enough While Princeton and Columbia Tie Up Ivy Berths

By Mel Greenberg @womhopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — It was briefly like the old days for the Penn women Friday night in an Ivy clash with Yale at home in The Palestra. Unfortunately, the recreation of the past got old quickly and the Bulldogs took a 68-58 victory and sent the opposition virtually on the way to the spectators section from afar to next month’s four-team conference tourney at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass.

Princeton, meanwhile, got a challenge from Brown in the first half and then wielded another hammer at home in Jadwin Gym in Central, N.J., to an 88-42 victory while Columbia at home on the Upper West Side in New York City edged Harvard 74-70 to clinch a spot via both the Lions’ win and Penn’s loss.

The sheets were not officially pulled over Penn’s season, but the lights were dimming pretty quickly in a disappointing result considering a week ago the Quakers earned renewed hope for a postseason by winning at Harvard in overtime after losing a 17-point lead in regulation.

The way things went here were almost a depiction of the season experienced by the Quakers (9-13, 4-6 Ivy), who at the outset quickly fell behind 17-2 and and were still 15 down at 26-11 at the end of the first period.

However, suddenly the image of those Penn contingents of the recent pre-covid past emerged and a surging 9-0 run into the half had coach Mike McLaughlin’s squad competitive within five points at 37-32 to the visitors (14-9, 7-4). At the outset of the third period the run carried the Quakers within a point at 39-38 with 7:34 left in the third.

“We got out in the half court, we got layups, we got transition,” McLaughlin described the sudden flow. “We were able to change the momentum of the game. We just couldn’t sustain it and fell back in the same hole.”

It got deeper fast as Yale popped three straight three-balls for a 10-point lead and ultimately the differential grew by as much as 19 before shrinking backwards into the final score.

“Either they had the flow or we had the flow,” said McLaughlin. “Outside of our flows, I didn’t think we were particular good on the offensive end. Outside of those momentum flows, we struggled.”

Yale’s Camillia Emsbo and Christen McCann each scored 18 points, with Emsbo grabbing 13 rebounds for a double double and Alex Cade grabbing 12 rebounds, while Jenna Clark scored 11 points, and Klara Astrom scored 13.

Jordan Obi scored 16 for Penn, while Kayla Padilla scored 15.

Penn, with chances to move closer to the top four, held fifth place, dipping further behind. 

“It’s tough, no doubt,” Mclaughlin said. “What we need to do is leave this one here and get a one-game winning streak tomorrow. This one hurt a little bit. We just didn’t play well enough against a quality opponent. There were too many breakdowns.”

Brown will be coming in Saturday night at 6 at The Palestra to play Penn at 6 while at the same time Yale moves up to Princeton to complete the weekend tradeoff between the traveling partners from New England southern hosts of the Ancient Eight.

Brown arrives having been thumped by the Tigers, which clinched a playoff spot courtesy of their 88-42 win.

Abbey Meyers had 25 points, shooting 11-of-16 from the field, with four steals and four assists in just 24 minutes being able to be rested for Saturday night by coach Carla Berube in the rout.

The Bears (6-17, 1-10) and Tigers (18-4, 10-0) were tied 23-23 with three minutes left in the half when Princeton broke on a 9-2 run and took a 32-25 lead in the half.

The Tigers kept going after the break for a 50-25 double score lead and then finished the third having outscored the visitors 32-26.

Julia Cunningham had 11 points and 10 rebounds, while reserve Maddie Plank had 14 points.

Princeton just missed by one its program record number of steals in a game having made 21 steals.

Columbia became the third team wrapping up an Ivy berth looking to continue unfinished business from two seasons ago when the Lions qualified for the four-team field but never got to play when the Ivies became the first conference to shut down its event with the arrival of the pandemic and then never played a year ago with the Ivy presidents closing the season.

On Friday the Lions edged Harvard for a season sweep 74-70 though the Crimson, who move on to Cornell Saturday night, are close to playing in their tournament, which wouldn’t have happened in 2020 with Penn clinching a spot for the fourth straight season after the league became the last to hold a NCAA qualifying tournament.

It was the first night Columbia allowed fans back into Schiller Court at Levien Gymnasium. The Lions have never played in the NCAA tournament.

Jaida Patrick scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds for Columbia (18-4, 9-1 Ivy) in her first season after transferring from Duke.

“It took her some time to figure out, now that she has and she has some trust of her teammates and our coaches, her career’s going to take off from here,” Columbia coach Megan Griffith said.

“I told them, `we’ve clinched a spot. That’s awesome. Let’s celebrate … but we have to treat every game like it’s the Ivy League tournament.’ To me, the Ivy League tournament isn’t in three weeks. The Ivy League tournament is tomorrow night if we want to go out and continue to do what we want to do.”

Dartmouth (3-20, 2-9) moves in Saturday night following its Cornell visit, while Harvard (12-11, 6-5) heads to the Big Red in Ithaca, N.Y. still in front of Penn because of the Quakers’ loss.

Abbey Hsu scored 13, grabbed six rebounds, and broke the previous single season record for three points by a player at Columbia with 74. Kaitlyn Davis scored 12 of her 18 points in the second half.

The Lions have now swept three series in the league. Carly Rivera dished a team-high nine assists.

“I’m excited to see where we’re going,” said Griffith, a native of King of Prussia in the Philly suburbs, who also played at Columbia and previously spent a long stint as an assistant at Princeton, when Courtney Banghart built the Tigers into a powerhouse before taking the North Carolina job three years ago.

Nationally-speaking: On Friday night in the mid-Atlantic and New England on the East Coast it’s Ivy night while out west the focus is in the Pac-12, where both defending conference and NCAA champion 2nd-ranked Stanford won at Oregon State 87-63 in Corvallis using a 14-0 run in the fourth quarter to break the game open and stay unbeaten in the conference.

The Cardinal (22-3, 13-0 PAC-12) won its 14th straight and has won 28 straight conference games.

Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer has won an NCAA Women’s Division I record of 1,147, ten ahead of Geno Auriemma, who kept the distance behind with his 10th-ranked Connecticut squad Friday winning a Big East contest at Xavier.

Lexi Hull scored 21 points in Stanford’s win at Oregon State (12-10, 5-7), which clinched the regular season crown.

Haley Jones had 13 points and 10 rebounds while reserve Hannah Jump had 13 points, including consecutive treys that set off the 14-0 run in the final quarter.

“Those 3-pointers were the dagger,” said Oregon State coach Scott Rueck.

Talia von Oelhoffen had 16 points for the host Beavers while Taya Corosdale added 11.

Stanford moves on to Oregon on Sunday.

The Ducks beat California at home 52-47 in the Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene as Endyia Rogers scored 11 for Oregon (18-8, 9-4).

Dalayah Daniels had 10 points for the Bears (11-9, 1-7).

Colorado picked up its first sweep of UCLA since 2013-14 after the Buffs claimed a 67-54 win in Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles and first under coach JR Payne.

Maya Hollingshed scored 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds for Colorado (17-7, 6-7 PAC-12) which moved into sixth and now hold the tie-breaker over the Bruins (11-9, 6-7).

No. 8 Arizona dodged an upset bid by Washington in Seattle, winning 51-42 as the Wildcats held the Huskies (5-14, 0-11 PAC-12) to seven points in the first half. Coach Adia Barnes’ squad (19-4, 9-4) got 10 points from Shaina Pellington and Sam Thomas hit the game-winner, a three-pointer, with a minute left in regulation.

The Wildcats move on to Washington State Sunday.

In the Big East, No. 10 keeps getting healthier and got Olivia Nelson-Ododa back along with Caroline Ducharme and went on to wipe out host Xavier using a 37-0 run on the way to an 89-35 victory in Cincinnati.

“I thought we played really, really well the last 30 minutes and we got a great effort from everybody on the bench, they contributed,” said Auriemma.

Ducharme off the bench scored 11 points for the visiting Huskies (18-5, 12-1 Big East), Nelson-Ododa scored eight, Christyn Williams scored 13, Azzi Fudd had 11 points, Aaliyah Edwards had 10, and Piath Gabriel scored 11.

“We have a lot of players who can put the ball in the basket a lot of different ways, and I thought they showed tonight,” Auriemma observed.

Elsewhere in the Big East, Creighton routed St. John’s 107-59 while Marquette won at Georgetown 64-57.

Other scores of note, in the Colonial Athletic Association, Charleston edged host James Madison 71-69, while Towson at home beat UNC Wilmington 67-51.

Looking Ahead: On Saturday, besides the two Ivy games at 6 p.m. mentioned locally at Penn and Princeton, at McGonigle Hall Temple hosts the top American Athletic Conference squad when UCF visits the Owls at 2 p.m., the same time Rider hosts Canisius in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), and La Salle hosts Saint Louis in an Atlantic 10 game at Tom Gola Arena, and Lehigh hosts Loyola in a Patriot League game at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa.

In the West Coast Conference, BYU hosts Gonzaga at 4 p.m. in Ogden, Utah, while in another A-10 game Dayton is at Fordham at 2 p.m. In the Big 12 Oklahoma is at Iowa State at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, Villanova in the second meeting of the season hosts DePaul at 2 p.m., the only Big East team the Wildcats have yet to beat. George Washington visits Saint Joseph’s at 2 p.m. in an A-10 game at Hagan Arena, while Drexel visits Delaware at 1 p.m. in a CAA showdown for first place. Rutgers hosts Purdue at 1 p.m. in a Big Ten game at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, N.J.

Tennessee visits No. 1 South Carolina at 1 p.m. in an SEC battle on ABC-TV, while Maryland is at Michigan at 3 p.m. in the Big Ten, which also has Iowa at Indiana at 5 p.m. Virginia Tech is at Louisville in the ACC.

And that is the report.