The Guru Report: Drexel, Delaware, Princeton Launch Local Postseason Quest While Some Surprises Elsewhere But Not Injurious Yet in NCAA Equation

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — It’s down to four locals left with postseason life aspirations as the weekend has arrived leading to the NCAA 68-team reveal and draw that will become public Sunday at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

The Colonial Athletic Association playoffs got under way at Drexel Thursday afternoon with an 8-9 out-bracket game and when it was over 8th-seeded Hofstra nipped 9th-seeded UNCW 46-45 setting up top-seeded Drexel’s opponent Friday at noon when the quarterfinal round gets under way.

The way the CAA draw shakes out here and you want to spend somewhere with time on your hands, the four games should provide interest and you have two local teams in the field with second-seeded Delaware moving for a collision course to repeat last season’s matchup, the Blue Hens hoping for a reversal for what occurred a year ago.

Twelve months ago, Delaware had stormed to a regular season title and the Blue Hens swept their long-running rival only to have the Dragons storm through the playoffs upsetting James Madison and then rallying over the Hens under first-year coach Amy Mallon, who had been promoted when Denise Dillon left for her alma mater at Villanova, to capture their second ever conference crown.

Coincidentally, both Dillon in the Big East and Mallon were named coach of the year in their respective conferences in the last week with postseason honors handed out.

Meanwhile, up north top-seeded Princeton with a 40-game streak in the Ivies gets under way in the four-team league tournament at Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge or Boston, take or your pick, playing the host Crimson at 4:30 p.m., the winner on Saturday facing the winner between second-seeded Columbia and third-seeded Yale in Friday’s 7:30 p.m. contest for the league championship and automatic bid.

Princeton, which returned to the Associated Poll Monday, under coach Carla Berube has proved strong enough that should the Tigers get upended they could still gain an at-large bid, repeating the occurrence from several years when they became the first of the Ancient Eight to gain the invite. 

They are also the only Ivy women’s basketball team ever to be ranked, having done so under previous coach Courtney Banghart, now at the University of North Carolina and Berube.

Villanova is waiting the Wildcats’ fate, finally allowed into Charlie Creme’s ongoing mock bracket arrangement, but in strong enough shape to return to the WNIT in the worst case. The same goes for Delaware and Drexel pending what shakes out here Sunday afternoon in the championship contest.

In Division II, the NCAA regionals are under way this weekend starting Friday  and Jefferson and Chestnut Hill are in the field as is USciences, heading for its last hurrah as a program on the way to a summer merger as a university with Division I Saint Joseph’s.

As for the game here Thursday, there was a lot of Delaware atmosphere in the building without the Blue Hens being on the court.

Drexel was upstairs in the press/scouting area checking out the Dragons’ potential opponents while Blue Hens broadcasters Matt Janus and Christine Koren Motta were doing league honors on the Flohoops streaming telecast.

On one of the sidelines, however, was UNCW interim coach Tina Martin, the former longtime Delaware coach, who late last month was tabbed to step up on the staff and become interim coach after Karen Barefoot was let go for unspecified reasons.

The Seahawks did not win a CAA game all season, but one could have been fooled by the record off the way they went at it, holding a five-point lead late in the game before Hofstra (8-19) slid past for the triumph earning the grand prize of playing the top seed at noon Friday, the third meeting of the year, and in Drexel’s own building.

Originally, this year’s tourney was set to occur at James Madison with Drexel’s turn coming down the road, but after the the Dukes, a longtime annual contender, announced a move to the Sun Belt this summer, they were banned from the tourney, the same treatment given long-time contender Old Dominion, which went to Conference USA several years ago.

The Dragons were then awarded the rights this year.

The Dukes last weekend got a chance to enjoy their way out the door.

Drexel had already claimed the top seed off a sweep of Delaware but on the final day of the league schedule, the Dragons lost at Towson, opening the Blue Hens’ claim to a co-championship.

However, Delaware couldn’t make shots and JMU played it loose and pulled an upset allowing Drexel to claim sole possession of the regular season title.

In the game here, Jaylen Hines had a double double for the Pride with 22 points and 11 rebounds, the only stats of double digits for the winners.

UNCW (3-26) got 14 points from Allie Best and 11 from Sierra DaCosta.

“It wasn’t as pretty as we would like it to be but we kept fighting,” said third-year Hofstra coach Danielle Santos Atkinson. “And that’s what we’ve been talking about.

“No matter the highs, the lows, the momentum swings, we wanted to continue to play come tournament time, everyone’s trying to play their best basketball,” she continued.

“We got off to a great start, then had a lull there, but proud of the way we fought back and way we were able to finish it up.”

As for playing Drexel, which won both games in the season series, 72-53 here and 63-47 up at the David S. Mack Sports & Exhibition Center in Hempstead, N.Y. on Long Island, the Hofstra coach said, “Drexel does a great job of managing the clock and managing the possessions.

“They shoot the ball extremely well and they play that matchup zone, which gives people fits. For us, the last time we played them, we stayed aggressive on both ends, offensively we wanted to keep the ball moving. Defensively, we played with an aggressiveness that allowed us to get stops and convert in transition with some baskets.

“They’re a great team but it’s 0-0, we look at it as every given night we want to play our best basketball and tomorrow we will try to do that.”

On the other end, Martin, who had a long run of success at Delaware, coaching such greats as the fabled WNBA star Elena Delle Donne, saw progress with the performance in seeking to turn the program around.

“These games are always tough,” she said. “Because it’s 8-9 (seeds) but I think you saw with both teams, the kids had a lot of heart and a lot of character and played really hard.

“I take my hat off to the Hofstra team and with this UNCW team, it would have been easy to come in here and lay down. And we did not. The kids played extremely hard and I’m extremely proud of them.

“We will get better. I’ve enjoyed working with this group. I’ve seen us grow these last weeks of the season and see us play better. I saw tears in the locker room and that’s part of the growth and turnaround.”

In Friday’s games after the Drexel-Hofstra matchup, fourth-seeded Elon (17-11, 9-9) meets fifth-seeded Charleston (12-12, 9-9) at 2:30 p.m.

Elon is coached by former North Carolina star Charlotte Smith, who made the famous three-point shot at the buzzer to beat Louisiana Tech for the NCAA title. Several years ago, the  last time the tournament was held here, JMU got upset, Delaware was in rebuild mode, and then Elon came along and whipped the Dragons, so the moral for the weekend is take nothing for granted.

Second-seed Delaware (21-7, 15-3) meets seventh-seeded William & Mary (10-19, 5-13) at 5 p.m. before the final game features a shouldn’t be discounted third-seed Towson 23-6, 14-4) squad facing a vastly improved sixth seeded Northeastern (14-14, 8-10) squad at 7:30 p.m.

In Saturday’s semifinals, the Drexel side of the pairings meet at 1 p.m. followed by the Delaware side at 3:30 p.m.

The championship leading to an automatic NCAA bid is Sunday at 1 p.m. Then later Sunday night after the men’s NCAA field is announced, the women follow and once that’s out there the field for the WNIT will be released with the pairings and times released Tuesday.

Awards Alert: The United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) recipient of the Pat Summitt Most Courageous Award will be announced mid-morning Friday, the presentation at the moment likely to occur at the Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis as the live awards event expected to be restored after a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus.

Nationally Noted: One more NCAA automatic bid was locked up Thursday night in the American Athletic Conference of which Temple is a member as top seed UCF completed a three-game sweep on the season of its local rival USF, pulling away in the closing minutes to a 53-45 victory in Dickies’ Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Bulls beat the Knights for last year’s title, the first since UConn went off to the Big East after owning all seven previous crowns and every game in the AAC regular season during the life of the Huskies’ membership.

UCF (25-3) earlier this week received its first ever ranking, entering at No. 25, in the Associated Press women’s poll, which at times has been a jinx when a newbie played its first game following the debut.

But not Thursday in a tightly-played, low-scoring game most of the way that began separation from a 40-40 tie when UCF’s Tay Sanders made two foul shots with 5 minutes, two seconds remaining.

Destiny Thomas’ jumper a minute later expanded the lead to four and as the drought continued by USF (24-8), Diamond Battles’ two foul shots made it 46-40.

 Three more free throws, two from Battles made it 49-40 with 1:09 left, expanded the 9-0 run lasting  four minutes until Shae Leverett’s layup.

Alisha Lewis on the line brought it back to a nine-point edge, reduced by Elisa Pinzan’s shot from deep to reduce the differential to six at 51-45 with 27 seconds left.

But Thomas nailed two more from the line to complete the scoring from either side for the night.

Despite the loss, USF, the second seed this week, which was ranked through the middle of the season, is still considered a strong chance to receive one of the 36 at-large bids, an expansion of four, when the field is announced Sunday night.

Battles on the top-seeded Knights was the only player in double figures for UCF, scoring 17 points, while Elena Tsineke scored 14 for the Bulls and Leverett scored 10, with Bethy Mununga grabbing 11 rebounds.

UCF has the top defense in the nation, showing itself in the championship holding USF for nine minutes without a field goal.

“I think we got in a hurry in some moments,” USF coach Jose Fernandez said, quoted in the Tampa Bay Times. “But you have to give UCF a lot of credit. They are a good team. They play great defense.”

UCF is coached by Katie Abrahamson -Henderson, who played for C. Vivian Stringer at Iowa and let the  Knights to new thresholds since arriving in 2016 from Albany where she led the Great Danes to nine combined America East and regular season and tournament titles.

Elsewhere as the many of the final conferences to decide automatic bids were at quarterfinal or later tournament stages, seven will conclude the pre-NCAA season on Sunday, Old Dominion fell to North Texas 65-58 in a Conference USA quarterfinal game while Charlotte will meet North Texas and Middle Tennessee will meet Louisiana Tech in Friday’s semifinal round.

In a shocker in the Northeast Conference, top-seeded Fairleigh Dickson (19-11, 15-3), which won the regular season by two games, fell 44-38 to ninth-seeded Bryant (10-21, 6-12)  at home, sending the winners to Sunday’s title game at Mt. St. Mary’s at noon on ESPNU. The hosts advanced in the other semifinal, beating Wagner, 62-50.

Bryant is just the second No. 7 seed to get to the title round in Northeast Conference history.

After ninth-seeded Oklahoma State beat eighth-seeded Texas Tech 73-58 and seventh-seeded West Virginia routed 10th seeded TCU 68-48, Friday’s quarterfinal lineup in the Big 12, the last of the Power 5 conferences to determine a champion, has 21st ranked Oklahoma meeting Kansas at noon; fourth-ranked Baylor meeting Oklahoma State at 2:30 p.m.; 10th-ranked Iowa State meeting West Virginia at 6 p.m., and seventh-ranked Texas meeting Kansas State at 6 p.m.

The first two games will air on ESPNU, and the latter two on the Big 12 on ESPN+.

Completing quarterfinal play in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) at Jim Whalen Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, Manhattan beat Canisius 61-49 while fourth-seeded Niagara edged Siena 60-59.

Friday’s semifinals  has top-seeded Fairfield meeting Niagara at 11 a.m. before third-seeded Manhattan and second-seeded Quinnipiac play at 1:30 p.m., both games on ESPN+.

Saturday’s championship airs at  11 a.m.

In the Patriot League semifinals fourth-seeded Bucknell topped eighth-seeded Navy 64-4 after the Midshipwomen had taken out top-seeded Holy Cross, while second-seeded American eliminated third-seeded Boston U. 70-48 leading to Sunday’s final with American hosting Bucknell at noon on CBSSN.

In the Big Sky on Friday at Idaho Central Arena in Boise, Northern Arizona will meet Montana State at 3 p.m. on ESPN+

Friday’s Mid-American semifinals at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland has top-seeded Toledo meeting fifth-seeded Ball State at 10 a.m. on ESPN+ before second-seeded Buffalo faces third-seeded Akron at 12:30 p.m. both on ESPN+, winners advancing to Saturday at 11 a.m. on CBSSN.

The America East has its championship Friday with second-seeded Albany visiting top-seeded Maine at 5 p.m. on ESPNU.

Defending champion Stony Brook, heading to the CAA next season, got the same treatment from the AEC that James Madison got from the CAA. Both are likely to land bids in the WNIT.

And that’s the report.