The Guru Report: CAA Championship Redux As Drexel and Delaware Meet Again While Princeton Punches Its Ticket Once More

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA —  At the beginning of the year Delaware and defending Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament champion Drexel  set their sights from different perspectives to  get to the conference title game last step and proceed to claim an automatic bid to the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

From the standpoint of the Blue Hens from just to the south, it was about what occurred 12 months ago after Delaware owned the conference all season, only to see their long geographical rival rally to take Drexel’s second title.

“This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting on and the good thing is when you work to do something, you can see your plan come together, then there’s more trust in that plan,” said Delaware coach Natasha Adair.

As for the Dragons, early in the season when the conference ripped away the tournament host rights from James Madison, who had announced their forthcoming departure for the Sun Belt Conference, and awarded it to Drexel here at the Daskalakis Athletic Center, second year coach Amy Mallon and her squad saw the move as an opportunity to take a senior oriented crew and combine it with the chance to perform on their home court.

With some transformations in the roster, Mallon noted, that “this is a chance to make our own history with this particular group.”

In the preseason the two teams tied for first in the predictions by the team coaches, then along the way the Dragons (26-4, 16-2) had their second-best win streak in program history.

When they had the annual home-and-home meetings, first here, the two squads were the only teams unbeaten in league play, and Drexel snapped the deadlock with a 70-62 victory.

 But soon thereafter the 14-game overall run came to an end and the teams were tied again until a down-to-the wire affair at the Bob Carpenter in Newark ended with a missed shot from the Blue Hens (23-7, 15-3) and Drexel returned home with a 65-64 triumph for the tie break needed for the top seed, though they prevailed with the best CAA league record  coming into this weekend.

In the quarterfinals Friday, Drexel easily handled eighth-seeded Hofstra 60-39, while Delaware beat William & Mary 61-35.

One more game and the rematch would be set and both teams on Saturday succeeded in two very different ways.

For Drexel, which beat fifth-seeded Charlotte 61-60 down South and then fell 74-73 to end the 14-game streak in a game here, razor-thin combat went out the window quickly from the opening tip and stayed there with a built lead of 24 points going wire-to-wire before settling into a 71-65 final.

Keishana Washington, the MVP of last year’s tournament who scored 21 in the quarterfinals against Hofstra, collected 25 Saturday against Charleston (18-13, 9-9), while transfer Tessa Brugler had 22 points and 16 rebounds, Hannah Nihill scored 10 and dished six assists, Maura Hendrixson dealt nine, and Mariah Leonard grabbed10 rebounds.

On Charleston, Jenna Annecchiarico scored 24, while Arynn Eady scored 11.

“For us to get to the finals and perform the way we did today, I was just happy with our performance,” Mallon said. “We set the tone we wanted, go right at Charleston, we had two tough games with them this year, so we were expecting a battle, obviously Tessa did a tremendous job today, showing why she’s one of the most versatile players in our league.

“We always say we learn something from every single game, we always say we learn something from our opponent, we always say that keep our foot on our pedal and we did that tonight. We know what we they were going to do and we knew what we had to do, and it led to easy buckets on the offensive end and stops on the defensive end.”

From the two in-season games, Charleston coach Robin Harmony could hold some confidence after advancing out of the quarterfinals with a 70-59 victory over Elon.

But that went out the window quickly as Drexel went on to finish the first quarter with a 24-11 lead, though credit to the opposition for not caving in and finishing the final quarter 25-15 but the earlier Dragons’ control was too much to overcome.

“It is safe to say we got beat by a really good team,” Harmony said. “We didn’t do too well in the beginning with our 2-2-1 press and we made an adjustment to try to slow them down but they had so many transition points and if you make a mistake on Drexel, they’re so good and coached so well that they’re going to find a way.

“The positive thing is we didn’t quit, we good have wrapped it up.”

Delaware, however, made it to the CAA champion reunion replay totally different with a game against third-seeded Towson that went in one flash point to a joyous ending for the Blue Hens and excruciating outcome for Towson in a 56-55 final.

In a game in which neither side had much of a lead, Delaware opened the fourth quarter with a 42-40 lead, then both sides went scoreless for almost two minutes until the Blue Hens’ Jasmine Dickey, the CAA player of the year made a foul shot and then both sides were scoreless for another  minute before Kylie Kornegay-Lucas made a layup to bring the Tigers within one.

But Towson kept missing opportunities that would later prove disastrous and Delaware was hanging on to a 46-42 lead.

Kornegay-Lucas finally scored to bring Towson within a basket 46-44 with 4:21 left. So basically the Tigers from the start of the fourth quarter had produced four points over a period of six minutes until Kornegay-Lucas tied it 46-46 with 3:50 remained and finally got a lead on the and-one for a 47-46 score/.

Another drought went by until Paris McBride got a one-point lead for Delaware, but but back it went the other way off a layup from Kornegay-Lucas and then Dickey tied it 49-49 making 1-2 from the line  with 2:39 in regulation time.

And so it poked until Dickey’s two foul shots put Delaware up with 11 seconds on the clock.

Towson coach Diane Richardson next drew up a play that sprung Tarriyonna Gary, who let loose with a three-ball off the assist from Anissa Rivera for a 55-54 lead and the Blue Hens called time with eight seconds left.

But just like that Gary went from heroine to goat depending how one wants to criticize the call.

Battle missed a layup at :02 and as Delaware’s McBride grabbed an offensive as the buzzer went off, the Tigers went shouting off the court thinking they had one, However, Towson’s Gary was called for a foul, verified by a look at the monitor.

Outside parties on the broadcast and elsewhere all said it was definitively a foul. Whether that should be called is another discussion.

But McBride coolly stepped to the line and nailed the tying score and winning shot for a 56-55 final, though Kornegay off an advanced ball had one last chance but the attempt was short becoming a turnover off a Battle steal and the Delaware-Drexel showdown was set for Sunday afternoon here at 1 p.m. on the flohoops’ streaming service.

Dickey had 22 points and 16 for Delaware, while Battle also had a double double double with 11 points and 13 rebounds, and Skinner scored 10.

During the game Dickey also grabbed her 1,000th rebounds, becoming the sixth in the program with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

Kornegay-Lucas and Gary each scored 15 for Towson (24-7), which had enjoyed its best season, while Allie Kubek scored 12 and gained a double double with 10 rebounds.

“We told our team a couple of days ago, that March doesn’t care. Anything crazy can happen in March and you have to embrace the moments.

“I thought today, start to finish, our players made the extra plays, they played together, they made the hustle play, they made the plays that  great teams make this time of year to win,” said Delaware’s Adair.  “Back here was going to be the hardest journey, the hardest road they would have to take. But then they’re battle tested.”

Richardson was obviously distraught over how the game concluded, though held it together in the media room until her session ended.

“Tough game. Very tough game,” she said. “Disappointed. They’re a tough team and I see we won the fourth quarter (17-14) and that’s what I wanted them to do. And we did that.”

As for the play and call in the final seconds: “Very disappointed. I thought we had won the game. I don’t know what had happened but the ticks had gone off. Then we were celebrating. Then all of a sudden they came back and said they had a whistle.

“I was very surprised. I don’t want to bash anybody because that’s not my nature. I’m disappointed.”

Princeton Tops Columbia and Continues Ivy Domination into another NCAA Tournament

Coming out of Friday’s tough semifinals win at host Harvard in the last minute in the Ivy League playoffs in Lavietes Pavilion in Boston, No. 24 Princeton completed another perfect run, Saturday night, beating Columbia 77-59 after an early challenge to claim the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

It’s the 42nd straight win against the Ancient Eight for coach Carla Berube’s squad, 17th overall win in a row and third straight tournament crown following wins in 2018, 2019, and Saturday with the tournament in 2020 cancelled following a regular season tie with Penn and the 2021 season not held, both seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kaitlyn Chen, named on Monday the United States Basketball Writers Association national rookie of the week in the finally weekly selections of the season, had a career-high 30 points and was named the tourney’s most valuable player. She was 9-for-13 from the field and 11-for -14 from the line.

Technically, the USBWA honor is called a freshman award, but Chen is a sophomore but did not play last season when the league presidents shut down the season.

Julia Cunningham scored 16 points, Abby Meyers scored 16, Grace Stone scored  12, and Ellie Mitchell grabbed 10 rebounds.

Columbia, which routed Yale 67-38 in its semifinal game and had a perfect Ivy record against the rest of the league for the season to gain the No. 2 seed, tied Princeton 16-16 after the first period before the Tigers (24-4, 14-0) began to separate to a 12-point halftime advantage.

The Lions (22-6, 12-2) moved within seven early in the second half but a 10-0 run ended the Columbia quest, though they own the league’s WNIT tourney automatic bid.

Unless Harvard (13-14, 7-7) receives an at-large bid in the WNIT field, the loss on Friday ended the longtime career of coach Kathy Delaney-Smith, who announced her intentions to retire early in the season.

Abbey Hsu had 16 points for Columbia and Jaida Patrick scored 13, Kitty Henderson scored 11, and Kaitlyn Davis had 10 points and nine rebounds.

“Unfortunately, we just didn’t play very well today. I’m not happy with that effort. They shouldn’t be either,” said Columbia coach and alum Megan Griffith, a native of King of Prussia, Pa., who sat on past Princeton Ivy champions when she was on the staff of former coach Courtney Banghart prior to being hired to return to her alma mater. “We played for a good 15 minutes tonight, and that’s not good enough against this program. We just have to want it more and show up, and we just didn’t do that tonight.”

Added Hsu, “We had our eyes on this all season. We just got to get better.”

More Bids Locked Up

Buffalo defeated Ball State 79-55 to earn the bid from the Mid-American Conference in Cleveland while Fairfield, which led the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference most of the way and was the top seed, edged Manhattan 73-68 at Jim Whalen Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

The Southwestern Athletic Conference bid was claimed by Jackson State over Alabama State 101-80 in Birmingham while top-seeded Howard beat Norfolk State 61-44 in Norfolk to win the MEAC bid.

Top-seeded Stephen F. Austin won the Western Athletic Conference, beating Grand Canyon 74-57. Charlotte beat top-seeded Louisiana Tech 68-63, claiming Conference USA, and top-seeded Florida Gulf Coast, ranked 23rd beat Jacksonsville State 69-54 for the Atlantic Sun. Another top seed, Hawaii, beat UC Irvine 59-48.

Looking Ahead: Besides the Delaware-Drexel game here to decided the bid out of the CAA, five other remaining conferences in the afternoon to be decided before Sunday night’s NCAA women’s field is announced has Bryant at Mt. St. Mary’s to determine the Northeast Conference crown, Bucknell at American will decide the bid from the Patriot League, seventh-ranked Texas, an 82-73 winner in overtime over 10th-ranked Iowa State in a Big 12 semifinal, meets fourth-ranked and top-seed Baylor to see who gets the Big 12 bid, while the bid for the Missouri Valley will be determined between Illinois State, and the Southland will go to either SE Louisana or Incarnate Word.

And that’s the report.