The Guru Report: Villanova Overtime Comeback Propel’s Wildcats to 2nd Place in Big East While Delaware and Drexel Take Part One of CAA Road Trip

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA — For the last 48 hours almost everyone in the local women’s basketball community and beyond have been buzzing about Villanova’s incredible win at No. 8 Connecticut Wednesday night in Hartford that snapped the Huskies’ 169-combo win streak in conference play beginning in 2013 with the start of the American Athletic Conference and on to the reconfigured Big East.

Not so the Wildcats.

“We didn’t talk about it,” said Villanova coach Denise Dillon knowing she had a short turnaround until Friday night’s conference game hosting Marquette, one of the more high profile Big East opponents. “I said we have April to look back over the magnitude of what we did.”

Now they have even more to talk about. 

Down eight at one stretch in the first half and seemingly about to get edged at the finish by Marquette in regulation, Dillon was able to run a play straight to sensation Maddy Siegrist, who got fouled and made both free throws with 0.1 seconds left to get a new life in overtime.

With the addition of five minutes, Villanova, especially Siegrist, made the most and added to the Wildcats’ games to remember, outscoring the Golden Eagles with an 8-0 run to a 13-point lead and ultimate 74-63 victory and season sweep in the series.

Siegrist broke the end of regulation deadlock and then after teammate Bella Runyon’s three from the corner was disallowed for stepping out of bounds, made a steal and scored for a four-point lead. 

The Nova lead got to six on two more, this time off a Siegrist block and rebound and score from Bridgette Herlihy.

Marquette’s Lauren Van Kleunen got it back to a four-point differential on two free throws but the Wildcats (17-6, 11-3 Big East) erased those points on an offensive rebound.

Herlihy with 1:35 left then made a steal and Runyon scored to keep the lead growing. A turnover from Marquette (17-6, 11-3) resulted in Siegrist back at the line for a double digit lead and then after Marquette went 1-of-2 Siegrist countered with two more from the line with 33 seconds left. 

Brooke Mullin made it a 13-point lead with 17 seconds left before Marquette’s Jordan King ended the game’s scoring with the Golden Eagles’ only field goal of the overtime in five attempts.

Meanwhile, at the same time up North, having earlier rescued temporarily Connecticut’s conference string at the buzzer against DePaul in Chicago, the Huskies recovered from Villanova’s win beating the Blue Demons in the second meeting 84-60 enabling the Wildcats to move into second in the Big East heading into Sunday’s meeting at Seton Hall at 1 p.m. in the Pirates’ Walsh Gym in South Orange, N.J.

Siegrist, who moved into sixth on the Nova career scoring list, reached a career-high with 42 points, just one short of the Big East record of 43 and two short of the Villanova record of 44 by all-American Shelly Pennefather against Cheyney on

Villanova has won nine straight and 14-of-15, the previous win the Wildcats first at Connecticut 50-44 on Jan. 27, 1993.

“Just take your time and put them up and in,” Siegrist spoke of how she went to the line and forced the extra period.

The native of Poughkeepsie’s (N.Y.) in getting her 42 points along with 13 rebounds was 14-for-25 from the field, 2-for-6 from deep, and a perfect 12-for-12 on the line. Herlihy scored 14.

King scored 14 for Marquette while Van Kluenen and Chloe Marotta each scored 13 with Marotta grabbing 13 for a double double and Antwainette Walker scoring 10.

Villanova has won seven straight games played in overtime dating to the 2019-20 season.

“When you are at 2.2 on the clock it has to be a direct line to the basket,” Dillon said of the play drawn up as regulation was about to expire. “Brooke placed it beautifully. They just made eye contact, sealed the back end and placed it like she was shooting the ball, straight to the rim. I couldn’t be happier with that execution.”

Sunday’s game will be the Wildcats’ fifth in 10 days.

“Who doesn’t love to play games,” Siegrist said of the compacted schedule phase of the season. “Especially when things are rolling why wouldn’t you play as many as you could as quickly as you can.”

“It was more of a will today,” Dillon said of the latest exploit. “Maddy brought that will to to win the game and they’re following suit. 

“Never out. We say we’re going down fighting no matter what. These guys just did that. They felt the momentum swing in our direction,” she continued. “We were ready and on the defensive end we were connected.”

Added Siegrist, “You just felt the game had swung. We made our shots and you just keep building off that momentum. We were able to get a lot of stops defensively.”

A loud and enthusiastic crowd of 1,405, watched the epic battle.

“It was really exciting, especially coming off Wednesday,” Siegrist said. “They came out and cheered for us.”

“That atmosphere was really amazing, you could feel it,” Dillon said.

Suffering the consequence of an injury during the celebration, Villanova went without sharpshooter Lior Garzon, who appeared to hurt her foot.

“We didn’t have Lior tonight, so we see what we are capable of doing,” Dillon noted. “This group learned that early. We know it, we’re going to get everybody’s best, and they are certainly going to get ours.”

In the Connecticut game Friday against DePaul, the Huskies were without freshman star Caroline Ducharme for the third straight game with a head injury, Olivia Nelson-Ododa out the second straight with a groin injury, and the ongoing since December absence of Paige Bueckers rehabbing from a knee injury and ensuing surgery.

The Huskies (16-5, 10-1 Big East), who have departed with several long streaks this season, kept alive avoiding back-to-back losses for the 1,044th straight game since 1993.

Aaliyah Edwards had 19 points, Ohio State transfer Dorka Juhasz had 22, her best since the move to Connecticut, and Christyn Williams scored 20, of which 16 came in the second half.

“I told the team I thought this was as good a game as we’ve played at both end, a complete game, up to this point in the season,” said Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma, whose career total got to 1,135 wins, still ten behind Hall of Fame Stanford coach Tara VaDerveer (1,145), whose defending NCAA champion Cardinal squad beat Utah Friday in a Pac-12 game.

“The last time we played them, they hurt us a lot inside, their big kid (Aneesah) Morrow really had a field day against us. I thought that the best way to counter that was to go at her and make her play defense, both their post players,” Auriemma said. “So we wanted to start the game and do that as much as we could. And those two (Edwards and Juhasz) worked great together.”

Villanova was also helped in its move to second by the tight race behind UConn with DePaul (19-7, 11-4) taking the loss.

Connecticut is at Marquette Sunday, so should the Huskies prevail and The Wildcats prevail at Seton Hall, they would solidify in the 2-3 part of the Big East standings.

As for Bueckers’ status, Auriemma said, “Do I think she’s going to play this year? I do. I really do. I’m not just hoping either. I think she’s going to play.”

Morrow had 20 points and 16 rebounds for the Blue Demons, her 18th straight double double. Deja Church had 17 points and five assists.

DePaul will be at Georgetown on Super Bowl Sunday in the nation’s capital.

Drexel and Delaware Keep Pace: The Dragons of Drexel and Blue Hens of Delaware stayed atop the  Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Standings with wins Friday night, Drexel winning 63-47 at Hofstra in Hempstead, N.Y., while Delaware won at Northeastern 66-63 in Boston.

The Dragons (18-3, 20-1 CAA) used an 11-0 run to fuel a 21-10 fourth quarter to pull away at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex to gain a season sweep of Hofstra (5-13, 2-8).

Kieshana Washington had 21 points for the visitors, while Hannah Nihill had 16 points and seven assists, while Tessa Brugler had 11 points and eight rebounds.

The Pride got 14 points from Jahsyni Knight, while Jaylen Hines scored 12 with 11 rebounds, and Rosi Nicholson scored 11. Maura Hendrixson had a career-high eight rebounds.

Drexel will tip at Northeastern at noon Sunday.

Delaware, meanwhile, was challenged all night from the revitalized Northeastern contingent in the Cabot Center with Tara Cousins enabling the Blue Hens (17-5, 11-1 CAA) to extend their win streak to seven with a game-winning jump shot.

Drexel and Delaware meet for the second time this season next Sunday in Newark.

“It looked very similar to the other night (at Towson), so maybe we learned something,” said Delaware coach Natasha Adair.; “I don’t know. But our team fights).

“On the road, you find a way and it’s not always pretty. I thought down the stretch we had to get a stop, get that rebound and we did. We will take this and we will be ready to do it again on Sunday.”

Cousins had a career-high 19 points, helped by five from deep, for Delaware, Ty Skinner had 17 points, and Jasmine Dickey scored 14 and grabbed 10 rebounds, while Ty Battle had 10 rebounds against Northeastern (12-9, 6-5), which got 24 points from Kendall Currence, while Claudia Soriano had 18 points.

Delaware is at Hofstra Sunday at 2 p.m.

Nationally Noted: The bulk of Friday games on the tracker come out of the Pac-12, leading with Stanford’s 91-64 win at home in Maples Pavilion near Palo Alto, against Utah.

The second-ranked Cardinal (20-3, 11-0 Pac-12) have gone 56 straight games holding the opposition under 78 points.

“It’s definitely a byproduct of what we do, but I didn’t even know that,” said Anna Wilson.

Stanford forced Utah into 20 turnovers, leading to 22 points.

Lexie Hull and Haley Jones each scored 15 points for the Cardinal and Cameron Brink scored 10 and grabbed seven rebounds.

Stanford has won 26 straight conference games.

Gianna Kneepkens and Peyton McFarland each scored 12 for Utah (14-8, 5-5) to snap the Utes’ four-game winning streak.

“Stanford’s defense is phenomenal,” Utah coach Lynne Roberts said. “They came to play. They were ready for us. We shot a good percentage from 3, but it didn’t feel easy.”

The Cardinal is 29-1 in the series with Utah. Next up Colorado visits Sunday.

Elsewhere in the border war in the Pac-12, No. 24 Oregon win at Oregon State in Corvallis, 74-66 at Gill Colliseum.

Te-Hina Paopao had 22 points for the Ducks (16-7, 9-3 Pac-12), while Nyara Sabally had 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“We got the right players shooting at the right time,” said Oregon coach Kelly Graves.

Ellie Mack off the bench had 19 pooints, while Taya Corosdale had 15 points for Oregon State (11-9, 4-6), and Kennedy Brown and Talia von Oelhoffen each scored 12.

Oregon, which hosts Oregon State, Sunday, moved into second place after No. 8 Arizona’s upset loss at Arizona State.

Looking Ahead: On Saturday, Temple will try to rebounds from Wednesday’s loss to South Florida, when the Owls visit Tulsa at 2 p.m. on ESPN+ in an American Athletic Conference game.

Rider visits Saint Perter’s at 2 p.m. on ESPN+ in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game. In the Ivy League, Princeton visits Dartmouth at 2 p.m. while Penn visits Harvard at 5 p.m., both on ESPN+

In the Patriot League, in a rivalry game, Lehigh visits Lafayette at 2 p.m. on ESPN+ at Kirby Arena in Easton, Pa. 

Nationally, Bowling Green is at league-leading Toledo at 2 p.m. in the Mid-American Conference. No. 12 Oklahoma visits No. 16 Texas in a Big 12 game at the Frank Erwin Center in ustin at 8 p.m. on the Longhorn Network.

And that’s the report.