The Guru Report: Local/National Edition: Saint Joseph’s A-10 Triumph Among Bunch of Conference Tourney Upsets While Princeton Takes Regular Season Ivy Crown

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

WILMINGTON, Del — Moving from mid-December until recently, the best of Saint Joseph’s collectively in producing wins and losses could be found  more on the sidelines out of uniform guided by the Hawks greats of yesteryear in Cindy Griffin and her staff.

Already hit like in many places elsewhere, the front of the the current decade had not been kind considering the disruptive nature of the covid pandemic wreaking havoc with the schedules on top of an overload of injuries.

When the math goes south on the scoreboard, the speculation begins on whether personnel moves might occur in the near future, more so at a place where a change in administration caused by retirement resulted in a short amount of time a beloved men’s coach now is found doing rescue work at Michigan due to a recent postgame melee and a popular athletic department sports information director can now be found landed on her feet at a Division III college in South Jersey known for success on the field at that level.

However, those who were able to observe behind the scenes if not shown consistency on the court, something was stirring where the phrase “youthful roster” was slowly becoming amended to say talented youthful roster. Furthermore, the season did have some success hits during the struggles, notably a Big Five upset at Temple.

And those who follow the local scene closer could see that the Atlantic 10 weekly awards division was making Ed LeFurge’s Mondays consistently extra busy in the Hawks’ media relations office pumping out news of rookie honors coming non-stop.

When postseason awards time arrived prior to the start of new digs for the tournament here at the 76ers’ CHASE Fieldhouse not far from the local Amtrak station and near where a fabled player from nearby named Delle Donne plied her undergrad collegiate trade, a flood of Saint Joseph’s frosh set an unprecedented mark filling four of the five slots on the all-rookie squad and one of them - Talya Brugler, whose older Bucknell transfer sister Tessa has just help lead Drexel to the No. 1 seed in next week’s CAA tournament — was just named the A-10s freshman of the year.

Following that up came Thursday’s second round win as a seventh seed over Duquesne, just after downing the Dukes on the road in Pittsburgh last weekend to start veteran observers recalling the 2007 conference tourney in Cincinnati when Saint Joseph’s fought three rounds mostly as an under seed to fight the talented host Xavier group into the championship, suffering a narrow 65-59 loss.

It also recalled Griffin spinning magic in 2018 as a sixth seed upsetting third-seeded Fordham into the final losing 65-49 to George Washington.

And of course there was 2013 as a fourth seed in the Brooklyn Barclays Center with a future WNBA great in Natasha Cloud when the local third-seed Fordham squad got edged by a point for the whole shebang.

All of which brings us to the latest exploit on Friday night as a seventh seed taking out second-seeded Rhode Island 51-48,  the same talented Rams squad that clipped Saint Joseph’s 58-48 on Hawk Hill last month in Philadelphia.

So whatever looked like a situation needing attention, took those thoughts away and watch this group take off, even if the tale gets temporarily ended by UMass Saturday afternoon when the second semifinal tips here at 1:30 p.m., the furthest the Hawks have gone since 2017.

“Their youth has really matured,” said Rhode Island coach Tammi Reiss, who after building the Rams from a doormat program may soon be called to her alma mater at Virginia in the Atlantic Coast Conference to do the same reconstruction in Charlottesville, harking back to the glory days when she and Dawn Staley had the most talented backcourt in America. “Especially offensively. I thought they’ve always done a good job defensively in rebounding, but, again, in going through a whole season as young as they are, you see the maturity level on some of their players.

“And that makes them very dangerous at the end of the year. You see great growth in them, especially offensively. Really good in the post, in the paint, they score yesterday two people double double had 20, today they attacked us in the paint as well,” Reiss explained. “Those kids, really matured, really, really well coached, and disciplined.”

Freshman Laila Fair had a game-high 17 points with seven rebounds for Saint Joseph’s while Brugler scored 10, connecting on five of ten from the field.  Julia Nystrom had three from deep for all nine of her points.

It got a little harrowing in the fourth quarter but where a month ago the rookies may not have been yet ready to fend off a rally in this environment, one can sense a team demeanor loaded with confidence.

“Our motto for this week is that we bend, but we don’t break,” Brugler said. “We were bending a little bit in the fourth quarter, but we knew we had to come out strong, and finish what we started. Finish the game and win.”

Griffith, who became the dean of local Division I coaches last season after the retirement of Villanova’s Harry Perretta following his 40th season, sounded like there was little doubt her Hawks could pull off the win on a day across the nation where there were quite a few stunners and in this tournament in the quarterfinal round, although the high seeds won the three other games, all were pushed with top seed Dayton sent into overtime before ousting Davidson, 60-55, while VCU, the third seed, edged George Washington 55-47, and in a tantalizing thriller, three-seed UMass rallied to turn back Fordham 66-63 in a game in which the shots stopped going down for the Rams in the fourth period.

“We were able to take away their primary and secondary options,” Griffith said of defending URI. “We rebounded the ball and got stops when we needed to get stops. We’re gritty, we fight, and we scrap, and believe we can win in those games.”

Dolly Cairns and Dez Elmore each scored 10 for Rhode Island, while Marie-Paule Fouppossi scored 11 points and Emmanuelle Tahane scored 13 and the latter duo each collected six boards.

Helpful for the Hawks was a shot at the end of the third period when time expired that put the lead up to eight points before it began to subside but not enough to vanish.

“As a team we were all psyched,” Fair said.

Said Griffin of the growth of her squad, “First and foremost, the kids are having a lot of fun. They enjoy playing with each other snd for each other. It’s important for this young group to taste winning.

Winning is hard but this group does not shy away from all of the hard work that comes with it. I’m excited about what we can do for the rest of the week.”

Interestingly, a year ago when South Carolina just missed beating eventual champion Stanford in the semifinals, coach Dawn Staley talked about the pain of losing when it happens, its effect on  young people.”

When Virginia lost the last chance to win the championship, dropping the semifinal game in 1991, the squad out in Los Angeles went off in the city to be with each other but away from the basketball trappings of tinseltown, which hosted that year.

On Friday, Reiss sounded like she had the same game in mind talking about the grief of losing, though minimally as the second seed, Rhode Island is guaranteed a WNIT bid and likely has done enough to be discussed as an NCAA at-large squad.

“You gotta regroup, but I gotta give them some time to deal with this,” Reiss said. “They want to be champions but when you lose something you, really, really want, especiall, and I was a player, it hurts, so nothing I can say, I try to console them, and have to regroup them. But I have to give them a day or two to deal with grief.”

In the Fordham-UMass game, the New Yorkers had a strong first half, but then the shots stopped dropping, especially in the forth quarter.

Fordham coach Stephanie V. Gaitley, a former Villanova star and Saint Joseph’s coach, who coached Drexel coach Amy Mallon, said the shots were there but when they don’t drop it’s all beyond control.

She also acknowledged the Minutewomen’s Sam Breen, the A-10 player of the year and her performance in the second half — “that’s what good players do.”

Princeton Claims Outright Crown Ending Penn’s Season: Two other local teams met each other, Princeton by beating Penn at home in Jadwin Gym to earn another outright Ivy regular season title, after already having clinched the outright bid to next weekend’s four-team Ivy tourney title, behind hosted by Harvard at Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Mass.

At the same time, coupled with Harvard’s win over Dartmouth Friday night sent Penn’s season to bed, the first time in quite awhile the Quakers won’t be part of playing in deeper March.

On the Princeton (21-4, 13-0 Ivy) side, Abby Meyers had 20 points, while Grace Stone scored 16, Julie Cunningham scored 13, and Kaitlyn Chen scored 11.

The season ended for Penn (12-14, 7-7 Ivy) without having a postseason to head to in some time excluding the last two with cancellation of the 2020 Ivy tournament, orginally set for Harvard, now being held next weekend, which the Crimson likely having the tie break on splitting with Yale and giving retiring coach Kathy Delaney-Smith a chance to go out in her own venue.

Princeton will make up last weekend’s game, heading to Harvard Sunday.

Jordan Obi had 15 points and 11 rebounds, Kayla Padilla scored 12, and Mia Lakstigala scored 10.

Second-place Columbia rallied to win at Cornell 70-57 in Newman Arena in Ithaca, N.Y., to tie a win record for the regular season as Abbey Hsu collected 25 points, paced by six connected shots from deep for the Lions (21-5, 12-2), the only league losses both to Princeton. 

Harvard ended all hope for Penn, beating Dartmouth, 85-52, in Hanover, N.H., to go 13-12 and 7-6 in the league but likely to lose Sunday but holding a 7-7 tiebreak.

Yale finishes at Brown Saturday afternoon currently 15-10 overall and and 8-5 in the league.

If the Bulldogs lose to the Bears and Harvard upsets Princeton for a tie, then Harvard will be third otherwise fourth,

In Friday’s semifinals, Princeton will play the fourth seed while the two seed Columbia plays the three seed.

We’ll update off Saturday’s game.

Today and tonight, finishing out regular season play, Rider is at Quinnipiac in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, while Drexel will go for an outright standings win in the Colonial Athletic Association playing at Towson, before being next week’s tournament host.

Delaware will seek to catch Drexel in the standings with help from Towson when the Blue Hens visit James Madison, though the Drexel sweep gave the Dragons the No. 1 seed trying to repeat last season’s tournament title.

Villanova as the No. 2 seed plays No. 10 St. John’s at 7 Saturday night in a Big East quarterfinal game at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.

Rutgers and Penn State have been eliminated in the Big Ten tourney and each has losing records, not good enough to play anymore.

La Salle was knocked out in the Atlantic 10 second round but is hanging out for hopes from the WNIT.

Temple opens Tuesday in the American Athletic Conference, playing SMU a third-straight time in Texas after playing two straight last week with a split to end the regular season.

The Owls have a bye to the fourth quarter.

Nationally noted: In a wild day, the following games of note occurred, starting with second-ranked and top-seeded Stanford, the defending national champions, routed Colorado in the Pac-12 semifinals 71-45 to head to Sunday’s championship in Las Vegas, meeting sixth seeded Utah, an 80-73 upset winner over second-seeded Oregon.

Stanford Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer now has an all-time Division I record winning total of 1,151, ahead of UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who stands at 1,140 heading to Saturday’s Big East quarterfinal against Georgetown.

In the Big Ten, Nebraska upset 10th ranked and third seeded Michigan 76-73 in Indianapolis to head to the semifinals, facing second-seed, 12th-ranked Iowa, a 72-59 winner over Northwestern.

Fourth-seeded Maryland, ranked 11th, fell to fifth seed and 14th-ranked Indiana, who will meet top-seed and 13th ranked Ohio State in the other semifinal.

In the Southeastern Conference, top-ranked and top-seeded South Carolina cruised over Arkansas 76-54 in Nashville, but Ole Miss upset Florida, 70-60, in a quarterfinal, to face Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks, while 18th-ranked and third-seeded Tennessee revenged a season loss to Alabama, beating the Tide 74-59 to advance to the other semifinal, meeting seventh-seeded Kentucky, an upset winner over second-seeded and sixth-seeded LSU 78-63.

The wildest outcome occurred in the ACC tournament in Greensboro, N.C., in the quarterfinals where second-seeded and fourth-ranked Louisville let qa big lead get away and lost at the buzzer to Miami 61-59, while 21st ranked Virginia Tech upset 16th-ranked North Carolina 87-80. Top-seeded and third-ranked NC State cruised over Florida State 84-54, while 20th-ranked and fourth-seeded Notre Dame advanced to the finals with a 71-53 win over 25th-ranked Georgia Tech.

The NCAA field begins getting filled Saturday off several conferences at the mid-major level holding title games leading to automatic bids and the auto part of the field will keep filling until the four-team expanded 68 berths are completed and paired and then announced next Sunday night at 8 p.m. after the men’s bracket.

In the Ohio Valley Conference, top-seeded Belmont and second-seeded Tennessee Tech meet for a title, 

And locally in Division II, top-seeded Chestnut Hill College makes its first semifinals appearance in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference at Caldwell College trying for another win over Jefferson, while in the other semifinal, second-seeded USciences, whose time as a program is soon to end, faces Post with the winners meeting Sunday.

And that’s the report.