The Guru Report: Richmond and Rhode Island Advance to A-10 Title Game; South Carolina Buzzer-Beater on Tennessee Dodges a Bullet in the SEC Semifinals

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

HENRICO, Va. — The first of 32 automatic qualifiying NCAA tickets got punched Saturday afternoon with a bunch coming Sunday in conference championships that will have a major impact on seeding but the first was notable because that initial welcome aboard is not going to the Ohio Valley Champion.

Southern Indiana (24-6), which claimed the No. 1 seed ahead of the tourney, made good on the seed with an 81-53 victory over Tennessee at Martin in the championship game in Evansville, Indiana at Ford Center.

But like past champions such as North Dakota in 2011-12 in the former Great West Conference and Cal Baptist in 2020-21 in the Western Athletic Conference, the Screaming Eagles who claimed duos as the other two had been are in transition to Division I.

As such Southern Indiana has yet to earn eligibility for the NCAA tournament, whose 68-team field will be announced next Sunday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN, thus the OVC automatic qualifier goes to runnerup Tennessee at Martin.

Here at the Atlantic 10 tournament, Sunday afternoon’s championship at 4 p.m. on ESPN2, an upgrade by the way for linear broadcasting off previous championship games, it’s a first time, long time, for both Richmond, whose campus is not far from here at the newly opened Henrico Sports & Events Center, and Rhode Island.

The local Spiders, who claimed the regular season title and ensuing top seed, defeated fifth-seeded Duquesne 80-66, to earn their first appearance since 2009, the only other time Richmond has appeared at the last stage advancing through the bracket since joining the conference in 2001.

Rhode Island under Tammi Reiss is in the championship for the first time since 2003 after defeating last season’s champion Saint Louis 68-62 in the other semifinal.

It’s quite the karma that the famed Virginia backcourt duo of Reiss and Dawn Staley from the early 1990s are both coaching teams in conference title games Sunday afternoon, though Staley has been doing it for a long time at South Carolina.

Reiss, whose team was the sixth seed after being the preseason No. 1 pick, has embraced the underdog role that carried several others through upsets in the earlier rounds.

Dee Dee Davis had 16 points and 11 rebounds while Maye Toure had 14 points and 10 boards for the winning Rams.

Rhode Island had early control, but Saint Louis, which upset second-seeded VCU on Friday, rallied before the Rams finally applied the brakes to the opposition.

 “The difference today was we got stops at the end and we made free throws to seal it,” Reiss said. “I’m extremely proud of my team today on how they regained their composure out of halftime after that comeback. 

Instead of faltering, we punched back and held together. That’s what it takes to beat a good team in March.”

Richmond will have home court advantage even if the game is not in their Robins Center, where earlier in the week with a win over Saint Joseph’s the men’s team earned a share of the A-10 crown and No. 1 seed for this week’s tourney in Brooklyn.

In gaining the win Saturday on the women’s side, Spiders coach Aaron Roussell explained, “We tried to shrink everything like we’ve done all season, don’t look at the scoreboard, don’t look at the clock, win each possession.

“I think these guys were locked in defensively and the offense came.”

Addie Budnik scored 22 for the home folks, fueled by six makes from deep. Grace Townsend scored 17, grabbed seven rebounds and eight assists.

O’Hara grad Maggie Duggan, Rachel Ullstrom and Siobhan Ryan each scored 13.

“I’m not sad by any stretch,” said Duquesne coach Dan Burt, whose team upset fourth-seeded George Mason on a nail-biter Friday night. “We lost to a very well-coached, very good basketball team.

“We were playing our third game in three days and ran out of a little bit of gas and Richmond did some things that affected us.”

Burt is expecting to play in the 48-team WNIT.

 Villanova Edged by Marquette in Big East Quarterfinals

The old adage of it’s hard to beat a good team three teams caught up with the Wildcats in the quarterfinal round of the Big East Tournament at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.

As it was coach Denise Dillon’s squad, which beat Marquette twice during the season, was on a short leash in this season’s conference path, with No. 9 UConn the looming foe if advancing to Sunday’s semifinal.

Lucy Olsen, who rescued the Wildcats (18-12) in the closing last Sunday at home, scored 22 points but this time drew a blank attempting to tie the game at the finish against Marquette (23-7).

The recent NCAA runs are likely to end for now, self-inflicted off league losses to St. John’s, Providence and Butler, all games that got away.

However, they’ll likely land in the WBIT or, if not, the WNIT and possibly make an encore home appearance in the early round.

The fields are set for three locals appearing on conference tournaments this week, though all are long shots to succeed.

Drexel, which finished with two wins, including a 56-43 triumph at Elon on Saturday, will be the seventh seed playing longtime Coastal Athletic Association rival Delaware in the second round on Thursday at the Entertainment & Sports Arena, the home of the WNBA Washington Mystics.

A win, however, would cause a matchup in the next round against Monmouth, a team the Dragons have yet to beat since the Hawks joined the league last season. Drexel had been 5-0 in the series before then.

Rider will be the eighth seed opening against ninth-seeded Iona in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament in Atlantic City playing on Tuesday.

The tourney does have a team worth watching in Fairfield, the top seed, which went unbeaten in league play, made its first-ever Associated Press women’s poll appearance last week and lost just one game all season, which was by three points last November at Vanderbilt.

The coach in her second season with the Stags is Carly Thibault DuDonis, the daughter of Mystics general manager Mike Thibault, who was followed as coach her brother Eric.

In the Ivy League, unfortunately, it’s going to be a play them twice situation, Penn likely will have to face Princeton again in this Friday’s Ivy semfinal at Columbia, losing to the Tigers Saturday in the regular season final up at Jadwin Gym.

Princeton and Columbia tied for the league title for the second straight year, though this time with one loss each which was at home to each other.

With the net the likely tiebreaker, the Tigers will be the top seed and could land in the NCAA as an at-large team if they do not once again win the league automatic qualifier.

Columbia, which might also be an at-large pick by advancing to the title game Sunday, but the Lions must get past third-seeded Harvard, which they were unable to do last season.

However, they did transform the disappointment into a run all the way to the WNIT title round.

This season with the new WBIT created by the NCAA, the league has nixed its members from playing in the WNIT, which could cost Penn.

 Championship Sunday for the Power Fives After South Carolina Dodged a Bullet

South Carolina in the Southeastern Conference semifinals in Greeneville, S.C., almost saw its perfect record come to an end Saturday, blowing a large lead to Tennessee.

But at the finish, Brazilian Kamilla Cardoso nailed her first-ever three-pointer and the Gamecocks survived 74-73, though Sunday’s title game will be another tough one, facing second-seeded and eighth-ranked LCU, the defending NCAA champs, who advanced by beating Ole Miss, 75-67.

 Cardoso only tried one other three in her entire career as a freshman at Syracuse.

Meanwhile in the Big Ten, fifth-seeded Nebraska made eighth-seeded Maryland’s joy over upsetting No. 4 and top-seeded Ohio State short-lived in the Target Center in Minneapolis.

Second-seeded and third-ranked Iowa had little difficulty beating sixth-seeded Michigan, 95-68, as Caitlin Clark had 28 points and 15 assists for the Hawkeyes.

The Cornhuskers pulled an upset near the end of the regular season at home, beating Iowa and shutting Clark down in the fourth quarter, forcing her to go one more game before breaking former Washington star Kelsey Plum’s NCAA career scoring record.

Expect the last-ever PAC-12 game to be a thriller with top-seed and No. 2 ranked Stanford under all-time winning college coach Tara VanDerveer facing the renaissance second-seed and fifth-ranked Southern Cal squad featuring the one of the nation’s top two freshmen.

The other is Haddonfield’s Hannah Hidalgo, who will be playing for fourth-seeded and No. 14 Notre Dame in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game in Greensoboro, N.C., second-seeded and No. 10 NC State.

UConn and Marquette in the Big East meet in a semifinal at 2:30 p.m. before second-seed and No. 21 Creighton plays surprising sixth seed Georgetown, 21-10, at 5 p.m.

Tomorrow, Monday, in the American Athletic Conference quarterfinals, third-seeded Temple will meet the winner of today’s game between 14^th-seeded Tulane and 6^th-seed Charlotte.

The Big South title round features Presbyterian, which upset top-seed High Point, Saturday, and third-seed Radford.

On Monday in a quarterfinal game No. 5 Lehigh will be at No. 4 Loyola, Md.

The Big 12 semifinals on Monday in Kansas City will see second seed and sixth-ranked Texas meeting third seed and No. 16 Kansas State while top seed and No. 19 Oklahoma meeting Iowa State.

The complete conference results and schedules, now that everything ahead for this week, follow on a separate post. 

Four conferences will complete play early Sunday afternoon seven days from now before the NCAA tournament field is introudced as bubble teams hope the luck of the Irish is with them.

And that’s the report.