The Guru Report: Villanova Stuns No. 8 UConn 72-69 And Ends Huskies’ 169-Game Combo Conference Win Streak and Snaps 18-Year Series Losing Streak

Guru Note: Report drawn on information from media and school reports and phone interview. In light of the hour, this will be standalone and a separate in a little while will recap everything else.

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Back in the day when longtime Villanova coach Harry Perretta would go through annual UConn destructions of some very good Wildcats contingents, he once remarked in humor, “the reasons why it takes other teams more time to recover and get back to their normal selves after playing them, is they all think they’re going to win the game.

“As for us, we just go up there, face them, take our medicine and move on.”

On Wednesday night at the XL Center in Hartford it was his successor and former player Denise Dillon who turned the tables prescribing a better pill that caught the nation’s attention as the Wildcats delivered several jolts in the form of leading all the way, building a 19-point advantage in the second half, and then withstanding a fierce rally to post a 72-69 victory.

The Huskies (15-5, 9-1 Big East) almost recently departed what concludes with 169 straight wins in the American Athletic Conference and restructured Big East when they fought back to win just before the buzzer against DePaul in Chicago.

After having one long streak go by the boards when a then-unranked squad, Georgia Tech, upset UConn, an early season thrashing by No. 1 South Carolina in the tropics, the loss of star player Paige Bueckers, the reigning national player of the year awarded as a freshman last season, to a knee injury with her return expected perhaps the end of the month or early March, numerous other injuries, all seemed to be getting right with the world Sunday in Hartford when the Huskies smashed then-No. 7 Tennessee for the third straight win over the Vols since their rivalry had been renewed.

Since missing Villanova star Maddie Siegrist for six games early with a hand injury and after her return the Wildcats (16-6, 10-3)  have won 13 of 14 and eight seeking to become part of the conversation on teams seeming worthy of an NCAA tournament bid.

Dillon’s squad had already clinched a tie for the Big Five pending whether Temple and La Salle makeup a postponed game within the Big Five.

In what has a total Philly ring to it, Dillon, who starred at Cardinal O’Hara, in the suburb joins North Philadelphia’s gem, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, as the only two players to beat Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown, as players and coaches.

Dillon has stopped historic streaks before, when as a longtime Drexel coach down in West Philadelphia her Dragons ended Old Dominion’s stranglehold of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament on the way to their first conference crown.

Ironically, we wonder what odds ESPN’s new betting diva Erin Dolan would place on the sports network naming Dillon the national coach of the week ahead of the showdown at UConn.

“The players joked about it,” she said Wednesday night from the team bus heading back to the Philadelphia.

Israeli Lior Garzon had 19 points, helped by a career-high five from deep, while Siegrist scored 17 and grabbed 12 rebounds, and Brianna Hirlihy had 15 points and 10 rebounds for Villanova. Lucy Olsen had 11 points and seven assists.

“This is a game we come in that we always have circled on our calendar,” Hirlihy said. “We come in every practice working to play UConn, to beat UConn.

“It’s huge for the program because that’s the goal — beat UConn, win the Big East.”

On the other side, Geno Auriemma, the Hall of Fame coach offered his reality of the result.

“I don’t think we did anything to deserve to win that game and they did everything to deserve that game,” he said. “They played harder than us; they played smarter than us; they beat us to every loose ball; they rebounded better than us; they made more shots than us.”

UConn was down to six of eight available players — Caroline Ducharme, the freshman who had been the bright light for UConn, missed her second straight game due to a head injury while the Auriemma and his assistants who had put together the starting lineup, was told by Olive Nelson-Ododa she felt too ill to play.

Dillon said plans didn’t change much with the last-minute lineup alteration by the Huskies who inserted Tennessee transfer Evina Westbrook.

“It wasn’t as matter of us adjusting what we were doing, it was more of UConn adjusting on the fly.”

Doing what Villanova always done best against most teams, the Wildcats went to the air late in the third period with three straight deep shots for threes from Brooke Mulin, Garzon, and Herlihy and it was a 19-point lead near the end of the third period.

Might this time the lead be enough to withstand any comeback?

Memories of great upsets that died in the fourth began to seep like the NCAA first-round game when Penn had a huge lead on Texas A&M and it all died in the last ten minutes.

Overall, this one was 24-10 in the fourth as the lead began falling apart in the closing minutes and Villanova wasn’t helping itself missing a couple of foul shots.

Azzi Fudd, who did more than her sensational 25-point game with Sunday in the win over Connecticut, had 29 in this one and cut it to 71-69 with nine seconds left in regulation.

Herlihy went to the line which a chance to wrap it up but missed one of two free throws though from half-full standpoint it could be said made one of two.

The Huskies had to hurry, no timeouts were left to take, but the clock beat the comeback and the celebration was on, maybe a little too much because Garzon appeared to hurt her ankle, the Nova said thought she just rolled it and was helpful that’s what would show by the time daylight came back.

An incredible stat, UConn was outrebounded by the Wildcats 37-21, including 12-4 on the offensive glass.

“We’ve talked about all season long and just seeing our group progress with that effort and getting themselves in position to rebound,” Dillon said.

“I think where we were most pleased was on the offensive rebounding end and that just comes down to effort.”

Talking of the magnitude, Dillon, who is only in her second season with her alma mater after leaving Drexel, of the magnitude, said, “You forget that with the American (Conference) what they’ve done and where they stand. I think it’s just us trying to embrace opportunity when it presents itself, and we feel that we’re on course with our group.

“We’ve got a four-hour bus ride back to kind of reflect and digest what just happened, the big picture of it, but in the immediate, it’s about these guys and the group we have in front of us.”

Said Christyn Williams, who scored 24 for the Huskies, “We have guys that can play. As long as we have five, we should be ready to go.”

The last Villanova win was the end of the back-to-back — the seasons — the famous 70-game streak snapper that was then an NCAA record in the Big East title game followed by a surprising win at Villanova 59-56 on Feb. 28, 2004.

As for entering the NCAA conversation, the Wildcats’ Net should improve after this one — the second win over a ranked team, besides the one that sent Oregon State, then No. 23, out of the poll in mid-December and the early season 88-67 loss at Maryland, then No. 4.

Villanova has little time to celebrate too long to finish off a big weekend.

Marquette, whom the Wildcats recently upset out in Milwaukee, visits Finneran Pavilion Friday night at 7 p.m. on the Big East Digital Network.

“It’s a short turnaround, no doubt,” Dillon said.

Then Super Bowl Sunday, ‘Nova goes up to North Jersey, looking for another sweep when the Wildcats visit Seton Hall at Walsh Gym in South Orange, N.J.

“It’s just another reminder that games have to be won,” Auriemma said of the end of the conference run. “You have to go out and win games. The more conference games you win over the years, you gotta lose at some point. You gotta lose at some point otherwise you’re not in a good conference. Losing to as really good team like Villanova, they deserved to win. Plain and simple.”

Continuing, “You want to hope that the next day is better and the next day is better. And then you get hit with, no it’s not. No, it’s not. No, it’s not. And then you can’t act like the sky is falling. The rollercoaster goes down and then it goes back up, you feel like you’re on top of the world. The only problem is staying there has become very challenging.”

Villanova’s 51.8 percent from the field was the best UConn has allowed all season.

“Playing a team like UConn, it’s tough, especially here,” Siegrist said, noting the game was in the larger of two home arenas besides the Gampel Pavilion campus venue 40 minutes north in Storrs.

“… You walk in and you’re playing in front of more people than we’ve ever had. So just once you get over that, and I think we did that tonight, and just worried about ourselves and what we were gonna do and that’s why we were able to win.”

Siegrist is one of only three players in Big East history to lead the conference the same year in points and rebounds. The other two went on to WNBA All-Star stature in Rebekkah Brunson (Georgetown) and Angel McCoughtry (Louisville).

“It’s an honor,” she said. “Those are two tremendous players. You try not to worry about that stuff during the season or red into it too much. You do whatever your team needs from you, and tonight, my team needed me to rebound. So that was the emphasis.”

Auriemma noted that he didn’t view Tennessee the tougher of the two back-to-backs this week.

“I told our coaches that winning tonight was going tonight was going to be way harder than winning this past Sunday,” he said. “Villanova is playing great and we’re a little bit challenged defensively. We’re just not the kind of defensive team that we have been in past years.”

UConn has DePaul visiting Friday night, which should be interesting in light of the recent affair in Chicago. And Marquette, also among the top five in the Big East, visits Sunday.

Villanova was suppose to first meet the Huskies last month at their place but the game was postponed due to COVID protocols and has yet to be rescheduled.

“This game is on me,” Williams said. “I apologized to my teammates and it won’t happen again moving forward.”

Auriemma commented on the remark that “no one person is responsible.”

Back when Dillon made the move after a long successful day, an Drexel executive source noted in the postmortems after she had moved and her longtime aide Amy Mallon took over the Dragons, “I honestly believe that if it wasn’t nova, she’d still be here and stay her a long, long time.

“She said, ‘I got to go there and see if I can be successful,’” the source said.

“On Wednesday night, if it wasn’t already obvious to what Dillon has done to date, she got the answer.”