The Guru Report: Olsen Leads Villanova Over Richmond; Reese Return Leads LSU over Virginia Tech; South Carolina Rallies Past North Carolina

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

VILLANOVA — A double homecoming for an improved opponent and a continued scoring eruption for Lucy Olsen kept the Wildcats moving and separated just enough for a 67-57 for Villanova Thursday at Finneran Pavilion in what was the only local action on the night’s otherwise busy slate.

 

That was highlighted by night two of the inaugural ACC/SEC challenge and after the ACC’s big start Wednesday and early Thursday the SEC came up with rallies and upsets featured by No.1 South Carolina fighting back to win 65-58 at No. 24 North Carolina while No. 7 and defending NCAA champion LSU repeated its semifinals win over No. 9 Virginia Tech, this time beating the Hokies 82-64 in the return to the lineup of the host Tigers’ Angel Reese and Hall of Fame coach Angel Reese getting her 700^th career victory.

 

Let’s begin with the Wildcats (5-1), whose next four games include the best of the Ivy League at Columbia Sunday, hosting Penn in a Big Five game Tuesday, and hosting defending Ivy champ Princeton a week from Monday, and a Big Five visit to Saint Joseph’s Saturday night.

 

In this one it was another lively crowd at Villanova in which Richmond (6-2) now has former Wildcats star Alex Louin on the coaching staff and former Cardinal O’Hara standout Maggie Dougan, whose mom Chrissy, a Big Five Hall of Famer at La Salle now coach and AD at O’Hara, purchasing a nice chunk of tickets among the 2,241-attendance total.

 

Richmond came to the ‘burbs rolling on a six-game win streak, including a 3-0 sweep of Drake’s holiday tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, off which Doogan became one of this week’s five Ann Myers-Drysdale national players of the week from the United States Basketball Writers Association as well as the Atlantic 10 top honoree.

 

‘Yeah, they have nice pieces, a great system, they were averaging 58 coming into the game,” said ‘Nova coach Denise Dillon. “Put a real challenge in front of our team with 58 (points) being the goal, and they rose to the challenge.”

 

Olsen may not exactly be the next Maddy Siegrist but she’s plenty in her own right in season three, in this one scoring 30 off shooting 12-of-25 from the field and her 24.8 average is plenty enough to be in the top five in the nation.

 

Villanova had a vintage-Harry Perretta ball control attack committing just nine turnovers.

 

“I thought overall We did a great job, single-digit turnovers,” Dillon said. “It's Lucy showing her ability and the ball in her hands a lot, scoring, but we need everyone to be a threat and option out there, finding out who the two, three, four spots or going to.”

 

The closing stretch to provide comfort included a shot from deep from Zanai Jones and one in the last 40 seconds from Bella Runyon.

 

“Lucy was obviously carrying us early, she was the only one really scoring, and then we started opening it up,” Dillon observed.

 

Christina Dalce had another double-double effort with 12 points and 15 rebounds, but strong support off the bench came from Kaitlyn Orihel with eight points and five rebounds following up Sunday’s 14-point production at Wake Forest.

 

“I Think it was big for us Kaitlyn had a nice night, because she played really good basketball down at Wake Forest as well,” Dillon said. “Stringing together two, that's what we're looking for, the reliability, the consistent scoring.”

 

The Wildcats are playing shorthanded on depth, Maddie Weber, who was showing promise, out with an ankle injury while Megan Olbrys’ return from last week’s foot surgery is still unknown.

 

Doogan had 18 points and seven rebounds for the Spiders, who also got 13 from Addie Budnik and 11 from Grace Townsend.

 

Sunday’s game at Columbia off Broadway on the upper West Side tips at 2 p.m. on ESPN+.

 

The National Scene: Down in Baton Rouge, Angel Reese’s return from a four-game absence resulted in 19 points and nine rebounds from the NCAA MVP, whose departure was over “locker room issues,” Mulkey said.

 

“Proud of her. Just proud of how she handled herself, proud she’s back to the Angel everybody knows. There’s nothing but positive things about what happened on that floor.”

 

Through it all the Tigers (8-1) haven’t lost since the opening upset from Colorado in Las Vegas but narrowly beat Virginia in the Cayman Islands Classic last weekend.”

 

DePaul transfer Aneesah Murrow had 19 points and 15 rebounds with two blocks and three steals.

 

Flau’Jae Johnson scored 13.

 

Georgia Amoore scored 25 while Elizabeth Kitley had 16 points and 11 rebounds for Virginia Tech (5-2), whose other loss was to NCAA runnerup Iowa.

 

“It’s November. We’ll get better,” said Hokies coach Kenny Brooks. “I got to figure out my team.”

 

Mulkey is now the fastest men’s or women’s coach to get to 700 wins, getting there in 813 games, eclipsing UConn’s Geno Auriemma on the women’s side at 822 and the late Kentucky men’s coach Adolph Rupp at 836.

 

Meanwhile in the other marquee game in the matchup North Carolina had an early double-digit lead on the Gamecocks (6-0), who inched back and went ahead in the third and stayed slightly in the lead, being held below what had been a high scoring 100.4 average.

 

“We just had to fight and claw our way back,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “I love seeing that from our team, no matter how ugly it was. They have fight. They compete.” 

 

Bree Hall scored 15, while Te-Hina Paopao scored 14 for the winners.

 

Deja Kelly scored 20 for the Tar Heels (5-3) while Alyssa Ustby had 18 points and 12 rebounds.

 

“We are not good enough yet individually or collectively,” said Tar Heels coach Courtney Banghart, who previously built Princeton into a national force. “But we're made of the right stuff.”

 

The SEC made it to 7-7 in the challenge following an opening day blown lead by Tennessee at home to Notre Dame as Arkansas upset host No. 15 Florida State 71-58; host Kentucky rallied past Boston College 83-81; host Auburn beat Clemson 83-53; and Texas A&M beat host Wake Forest 81-57.

 

The ACC got two overtime wins; Duke 72-65 at Georgia; Virginia 87-71 over visiting Missouri while Syracuse beat visiting Alabama 79-73.

 

On Wednesday, the ACC also had unranked Miami 74-68 at No. 21 Mississippi State while No. 22 Louisville won 64-58 at No. 19 Ole Miss.

 

In a separate game host Maine moved to Cross Insurance Arena in nearby Portland for the homecoming visit of No. 17 Indiana’s Mackenzie Holmes and led the Hoosiers most of the night before falling 67-59.

 

Holmes, a native of Gorham, had 22 points off 9-of-11 from the field, 4-for-4 from the line with seven rebounds while Sydney Parrish had 17 points, 10 rebounds and four assists for Indiana. 

 

Maine (4-4) which won at La Salle last month got 34 points from Anne Simon while Adrianna Smith had 14 points and 13 rebounds.

Quinnipiac upset host Rhode Island 61-59, Bri Bowen scoring before end game clock expired, her only two points which came off the bench. Jackie Grisdale had 16 points for the visiting Bobcats (2-4). Maye Toure had 17 for the Rams (5-3). 

 

Down in Washington, George Washington easily handle Division II Cheyney 91-30.

 

WBHOF Class Announced: The visiting Wolves’ early history under C. Vivian Stringer was honored during the night from elsewhere, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn., announcing the 1982 team to go to the NCAA finals – the only HBCU team to do so — are the Trailblazers Award winner for this season’s induction program, April 27 at the Tennessee Theater.

 

Cheyney then called Cheyney State was the first to have an all African-American coaching staff.

 

The 25^th anniversary class is highlighted by UConn and WNBA great Maya Moore; LSU and WNBA standout Seimone Augustus; and ABL and WNBA star Taj McWilliams Franklin; who are joined by referee Violet Palmer; Rita Gail Easterling of Mississippi College; longtime USA coach Sue Phillips who headed many of the U- squads; and Gulf Coast State College coach Mary Scovel.

 

The “For the Love of the Game” award honoree is the Afghan Resettlement Program, a group of thirteen coaches and players from Afghanistan. These young, brave, and courageous women players embody the “For the Love of the Game” mantra, as they have risked their lives, leaving their families behind in Afghanistan in pursuit of the freedom to play basketball without fear of imprisonment, torture, or death.

 

Each recipient will receive the Berenson Trophy, named after Senda Berenson, who is considered the mother of women’s basketball. Smith College sponsors the Berenson Trophy. The inductees will also receive a WBHOF Hall of Famer ring from sponsor Baron Rings. 

 

Looking Ahead: On Friday night Rutgers hosts Lafayette on a four-game win streak at 7 p.m. at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, N.J., while Temple opens at 6 p.m. the same time in Arizona State’s Briann Classic playing Xavier on PAC-12 plus (in-house free streaming).

 

No. 3 Stanford nationally visits San Diego State.

 

On Saturday, unbeaten Saint Joseph’s host North Florida of the ASun Conference at 2 p.m. (ESPN+) while at the same time Rider hosts former MAAC rival Monmouth in Alumni Gym in Lawrenceville, N.J. (ESPN+).

 

Temple wraps up in the Arizona State event playing Pacific at 3 p.m.

 

On Sunday, besides the ‘Nova visit to Columbia, locally La Salle hosts Virginia at 1 p.m. at Tom Gola Arena (ESPN+); Penn at 2 p.m. is at No. 23 Marquette (FloHoops); Delaware at 2 p.m. is at Duquesne (ESPN+); Princeton at 1 p.m. is at Rhode Island (ESPN+); and Lehigh at 2 p.m. is at Hofstra (ESPN+).

 

Nationally, the Jimmy V Classic tripleheader feature South Carolina at Duke at 1 p.m. before No. 11 UConn visits No. 10 Texas at 3 p.m., both on ABC, followed by No. 16 Ohio State at No. 20 at Tennessee at 5 p.m. on ESPN.

 

Elsewhere Stanford at 4 p.m. is at Gonzaga (ESPN+) while No. 2 UCLA is at Arkansas at 3 p.m.

Noteworthy: The Iowa Big Ten visit to Rutgers with Caitlin Clark on Jan. 5 is now sold out - the seventh advance in program history - the previous six UConn back in the Big East original glory era most previously Fe. 27, 2006 

 

And that’s the report.