The Guru Report: Villanova Made 4-Seed and NCAA Tourney Host; Penn, Drexel; St. Joes WNIT Bound

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 VILLANOVA, Pa. -- For the first time since the senior season of Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne in 2013, an area team will not have to pack their bags to head to opening weekend play in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

 

As has been anticipated and projected, 10^th-ranked Villanova (28-6) earned a fourth seed Sunday night in the Greenville (S.C.) 2 regional and will open play Saturday at home in Finneran Pavilion playing 13^th-seeded Cleveland State (30-4), which won the Horizon League as a two-seed beating top seed Green Bay.

 

The seed is the highest for any Philly Six squad since the Wildcats upset No. 1 UConn for the Big East title and drew a two-seed in 2003 and advanced to the Elite Eight losing to Tennessee in Knoxville.

 

The other side will have fifth-seeded Washington State (23-10), the surprise winner of the PAC-12 tournament playing 12^th-seed Florida Gulf Coast University (32-3), the ASun Conference Champion.

 

The winners will play Monday night for the right to advance to the Sweet 16, which has Big Ten regular season champion Indiana (27-3) as the Top seed.

 

Back in 2013, the Blue Hens were able to make a host bid as a predetermined site before the format changed, whereas Villanova landed the berth on the shoulders of their own national star in Maddy Siegrist, who leads all Division I women in scoring with a 28.9 scoring average.

 

“Extremely excited,” Villanova coach Denise Dillon said after the ESPN national broadcast of the 68-team field and draw. “We talked about it after our last game of the regular season.

 

“We were confident, or determined, to make sure that wasn’t our last game on our court.”

 

The tournament format is changing this season at the Sweet 16 level, instead of four regional sites, there will be only two – one at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville – and the other at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.

 

Besides the play of Siegrist, which drew a sellout crowd for the UConn game here on the Big East schedule, the Wildcats are the sole men’s or women’s team among the Philly Six in NCAA participation.

 

But shortly after the bracket was announced, it was learned, Penn, Drexel, and Saint Joseph’s were given invites to the WNIT, with details to begin being known later in the evening.

 

With a NET currently at 12 and bumped at times slightly higher over the last few months, the Wildcats seemed to be worthy of discussion as a Top 16 seed.

 

Sure enough, Villanova appeared as a four seed in both reveals from the NCAA committee last month, and since the turn of the year to 2023, the only losses suffered were to Connecticut, including Monday night’s Big East championship up at the Mohegan Sun.

 

Having already broken a slew of Villanova and local men’s and women’s national marks, Siegrist, who repeated as Big East player of the year, is 16 points away from becoming the fifth women’s player to score 1,000 points in a season.

 

Siegrist, who has scored 21 or more points in every game this season, contrasted the difference from a year ago when Villanova was considered a bubble team leaving the Wildcats in suspense until they were announced in a draw that sent them to Michigan in Ann Arbor for the first two rounds, where they ultimately lost to the Wolverines.

 

“Last year, just being nervous and not sure whether you’re going to get in or not,” Siegrist said. “I did get a little nervous today just because you wanna see where you ended up. But, definitely a lot calmer going into today.”

 

For the second year, since the expansion by four to 68, two First Four games will be played Wednesday and two more Thursday. 

 

In addition to Indiana, the other three No. 1 seeds are reigning national champion South Carolina (32-0), the overall top seed coached by Dawn Staley that will have gone No. 1 wire-to-wire in the Associated Press Poll when the final rankings are released Monday afternoon; Stanford (28-5), the regular season PAC-12 champion; and Virginia Tech (27-4), which has won 11 straight and claimed the Hokies’ first ever Atlantic Coast Conference title.

 

It's also the first-ever No. 1 for coach Kenny Brooks’ squad as is for Indiana.

 

In the discussion but dropped to No. 2 were Utah (25-4) in the Greenville 2 region; Iowa (26-6), which won the Big Ten tourney crown, in the Seattle 4; UConn (29-5) in the Seattle 3. 

 

“You know as a coach when a group has it, and this group has certainly shown that every day as we step on the floor,” Dillon said. “They’ve committed to the game and committed to making each other better.”

 

Princeton (23-5), the Ivy champion, is also in the Greenville 2 with Villanova as a 10^th-seed and will open against 7^th-seed NC State (20-11) in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

However, Columbia, which tied for the regular season title with the Tigers, was one of the first out along with Kansas, UMass, which was the A-10 regular season winner, and Oregon.

 

Lisa Petersen of the PAC-12, the chair of the committee, said Columbia’s loss to Harvard in overtime in the semifinals of the Ivy tournament on Friday at Princeton cost the Lions a spot after they had their best season.

 

In accepting the automatic bid to the WNIT, Columbia coach Megan Griffith said in a statement, “There is no doubt we are disappointed in the decision made by the NCAA selection committee.

 

“We put together an impressive resume that we felt gave us a strong chance to make the NCAA tournament field,” she continued.

 

“That being said, we are ready to move forward and compete for a championship in the WNIT. Our team is fully committed to doing everything possible to make that happen.”

 

Nearby in the New York metro area, St. John’s, helped by an upset of UConn during the Big East schedule, helped the Red Storm (22-8) sneak in and give the conference a fifth team with Villanova, Creighton, Marquette, and UConn.

 

St. John’s will open as a First Four participant playing Purdue (19-10) at 7 p.m. Thursday at Ohio State. 

 

That same night, at 9 p.m., at Indiana, Tennessee Tech (22-9), an upset winner in the Ohio Valley Conference, will meet Monmouth (18-15), the seventh seed in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), that upset Drexel, third-seed Northeastern, and then top-seeded and host Towson, Sunday afternoon to win the tourney.

 

On Wednesday, Illinois (22-9) and Mississippi State (20-10), play at 7 p.m. at Notre Dame, before Southern U. (18-14), the SWAC winner, plays Sacred Heart (18-13) at 9 p.m. at Stanford.

 

Sacred Heart on Sunday upset top-seed Fairleigh Dickinson, the host, for the Northeast Conference crown.

 

In all, among the 32 conference playoffs, top seeds went 14-18. Many in the Power Five groups were locks whether they won or lost.

 

Two that were rescued as stealers, in part contributing to Columbia’s demise, were West Coast regular season champion Gonzaga (28-4), a ninth seed that will play 8^th-seeded Ole Miss (23-8) at Stanford, and South Florida (26-6), which lost early in the American Athletic Conference (AAC). 

 

The Bulls as an 8^th seed will meet 9^th-seed Marquette (21-10) Friday at South Carolina.

 

Portland (23-8), the West Coast champion, will play as a 12^th seed against fifth seed and 14^th-ranked Oklahoma (25-6) at 4^th seed and 17^th-ranked UCLA (25-9) on Saturday.

 

East Carolina (23-9), which became the AAC champion, will open at 4^th-seed and 15^th-ranked Texas (25-9) on Saturday. The Longhorns Sunday were upset by Iowa State for the Big 12 title.

 

Two teams that barged into the Top 16 as hosts, but did not bump Villanova, were UCLA, which upset Stanford in the PAC-12 tourney, and Tennessee (23-11), the only team that played in all 41 NCAA tourneys, which upset then No. 2 ranked LSU in the SEC tourney.

 

That loss knocked the Tigers down from contending for a top seed to landing on the three line.

 

Washington State got to the five line with its PAC-12 win, while Iowa State did likewise at Tennessee with its Big 12 win.

 

Saint Louis (17-17), the surprise winner in the Atlantic 10, will open Saturday as the 13^th seed at Tennessee.

 

Meanwhile, locally, though still awaiting further details, the coaches at Saint Joseph’s, Penn, and Drexel were ecstatic that they all got called to participate in the WNIT considering the chaos caused in the conference tournaments.

 

Drexel, for example, whose grad star Keishana Washington is just ahead of Iowa sensation Caitlin Clark 27.2 to 27.0 in second behind Villanova’s Siegrist (28.9) in the national scoring race, after losing to Monmouth was holding the AQ for the WNIT until top seed Towson was upset, though the two with Northeastern were in a three-way tie at the top in the regular season.

 

Washington became the all-time Canadian woman in scoring at NCAA Division I schools, while Maura Hendrixson is second to Clark 8.3 to 8.0 in assists.

 

“This is a great opportunity for our young players to experience postseason, continue to grow and also for our seniors to lead this group and put their final stamp on the program,” Drexel coach Amy Mallon said. 

 

Immediately after Drexel’s last home game, work began redoing the floor in the Daskalakis Athletic Center due to an imperfection found a few weeks earlier, so the best Dragons fans can hope for is a site nearby if the seed integrity is maintained when the draw is announced Monday.

 

Penn had drawn respect in the Ivy tournament for competing against Princeton following the awful start in the first quarter of the semifinals.

 

So, the fact that the Quakers were an at-large pick besides the Columbia entry and Harvard, delighted coach Mike McLaughlin, especially with Kayla Padilla nearing the end of her Ivy eligibility.

 

“It’s an awesome accomplishment for a team that has worked incredibly hard,” he said. “Post season basketball is every team’s goal. Excited to continue playing with this great group.”

 

Saint Joseph’s (20-10), which was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 by eventual champion Saint Louis, like Penn, put up a bid for a home site, and later learned the Hawks were in the field with a group returning mostly everybody on the roster.

 

“We are very excited to get back on the court together and compete for a championship,” coach Cindy Griffin said. “We have had a great season so far, but I am looking forward to seeing how far we can go with such a young talented group.”

 

Counting the AQ component, in terms of the conferences that contain local teams, the Atlantic 10 also sent UMass, Fordham, Rhode Island, Richmond; the Big East sent Seton Hall; the CAA sent Towson; the MAAC sent Niagara; the AAC sent Memphis, SMU, Wichita State, and Tulane; The Patriot sent Boston U; the Big Ten sent Nebraska.

 

And that’s the report.