The Guru NCAAW Report: Villanova Edges Columbia on Carter Foul Shot and Two Lions Misses; Quinnipiac Upsets Princeton; Lafayette Hosts No. 6 Notre Dame

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA – Nearly a year after Villanova suffered a costly 77-75 loss at Columbia on now-graduated Abbey Hsu’s three-point play with 8.3 remaining in regulation, the Wildcats flipped the script on the regular season Ivy co-champs here Saturday afternoon on what they got done and the Lions didn’t in a narrow 68-67 victory at Finneran Pavilion on the Main Line.

“Just a really good win against a well-coached Columbia team playing some good basketball,” Villanova coach DeniseDillon said after the game. “Proud of our girls for finishing it off.

‘We weren’t pleased with how we played at Princeton. You can’t get it back but you can make up for it the next time out. I think this group learned a lot in a short period of time, we only had a day and a half to prepare.

“Our new ones and young ones were aware of the intensity these Ivy teams bring. I think our defense in the second half was really good, just our offense went stale a little bit. This is a great learning experience for us.”

In the middle of a three-game slate against Ivy schools that began Wednesday losing down the stretch at conference tourney champion Princeton and continuing next Wednesday hosting Penn in a Big 5 pod match, coach Denise Dillon’s youthful troops built a 13-point lead with 3:36 left in the third period.

Columbia than began to rally cutting the margin to eight at the end of the period.

The sides exchanged baskets several times as the final quarter got under way and Villanova (2-1) was still up double digits 65-55 on Lara Edmanson’s layup with 7:08 to play.

Both sides then went cold nearly four minutes before the Lions cut it to seven on Perri Page’s three-point play with 3:24 on the clock.

Maddie Webber missed a shot from deep and Columbia’s Kitty Henderson went 1-2 on the line a minute later.

Susie Rafiu off an offensive board scored for the visitors and now the margin was four until Denae Carter, a 6-0 forward who missed last season with an injury after transferring from Mississippi State and coming home, scored inside for a safer lead 67-61 with 1:18 left.

But Henderson scored again and when freshman Jasmine Bascoe from Ontario, Canada, lost the ball on the next possession, the Australian made it a one possession game 67-65 with 50 seconds left.

Webber then gave it up through a travel and Rafiu tied it on an assist from Bucknell transfer Cecelia Collins with 12 seconds left.

Dillon called time, creating a play that resulted in a jump ball, the Wildcats still in possession, with four seconds to go.

Carter then drew a foul with one second left, went to the line, made the first, missed the second and Columbia coach Megan Griffith, a native of nearby King of Prussia, called time to advance the ball.

Riley Weiss, the heir apparent to Hsu, drew a foul on Holy Cross transfer Bronagh Power-Cassidy of Ireland, sending Columbia’s best free throw shooter to the line with a chance to win it or minimally tie it.

The first attempt missed, but still a chance to force overtime, and then that one also failed, giving Villanova the win and ending the 13-game win streak across regular seasons by Columbia (3-1).

“Denae (on the winning play), she understood you gotta score or get to the foul line,” Dillon said. “She got to the foul line. And sometimes you gotta get lucky, those two missed free throws, we’ll credit the fans for that one.”

Each team made eight free throws, but the telling statistic was ‘Nova only missing three attempts, while Columbia missed 11.

Last season, Columbia became only the second Ivy team besides Princeton to land an NCAA at-large bid but fell to Vanderbilt in a First Four game.

Burke, a 6-0 graduate guard from Penn State in her third season back here near her Doylestown home, sizzled off the bench, shooting 6-9 from the field and 5-7 from deep while completing the double double for game highs of 17 points and 10 rebounds.

Bascoe, who has been placed in charge of running the offense considering her Canadian national team experience, was 7-15 from the field collecting 15 points and dealing five  assists, while Carter scored 11.

“It’s obvious her impact,” Dillon said of Bascoe joining a team that lost high-scoring Lucy Olsen to Iowa and post player Christina Dalce to Maryland through the portal. “She wanted to come in and make an impact and we talked to her and told her you’re going to be coming into the fire right away.

“She’s a basketball player. She has the mind of the game. She has a high IQ, she has the determination and the will to lead her team whatever she can do. It doesn’t matter how old.”

Bascoe said of her recruiting process, “I had a couple schools but Villanova was so open with me, the coaches were so transparent. They never glamorized everything, always kept everything honest, I knew I could come in and trust them. They told me what it was early, so I knew what to expect.”

Columbia’s Rafiu, a native of England, had 16 points, Weiss scored 13, Collins had 12 points and five assists, while Henderson scored 11 with six assists.

“Do I think Riley makes those free throws 95 percent of the time? I do, but this was a new experience for her,” said Griffith, now in her ninth year at her alma mater after being an assistant at Princeton. “I said to her, ‘when was the last time you had 3,000 people screaming in your face when you're on the free throw line?’ It's never happened to her... I told her that she didn't lose that game for us. We lost it by putting ourselves in that position.

 “Again, was it hard to lose this game, 100 percent, especially when you don't play well and put yourself in this position, but the Denise did a great job, and I thought Villanova played very confident basketball.”

The Lions and Wildcats could quickly meet again a week from Monday in a consolation or championship final of the Battle 4 Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas, which begins Saturday with an eight-team field.

The two teams are on opposite sides of the bracket, Villanova meeting Texas A&M, then North Carolina or Ball State.

Columbia meets Indiana and then either Southern Miss or Baylor.

Princeton Upset at Quinnipiac

In the only other local game, Princeton joined Harvard as the second Ivy power to fall on the road to Quinnipiac of the MAAC at M&T Arena in Hamden, Conn., the Tigers (2-2) losing 74-66 to the Bobcats (3-0), who last won their first three games eight seasons ago (2016-17).

Israeli freshman Gal Ravi scored 21 points, shooting 6-7 from the field, for Quinnipiac, while Caranda Perea tallied 17 with 11 rebounds. Karson Martin added 15 points, Jackie Grisdale scored 10, while Anna Foley just missd double digits with nine points.

The Tigers got 15 points from Skye Belker, Ashley Chea scored 14, including 4-11 from deep, and Fadima Tall scored a career-high 13 points.

Like Villanova, the Bobcats will play a third straight Ivy team when Cornell visits Thursday and on the same night Princeton travels an hour north to play at Seton Hall in a New Jersey rivalry game in South Orange.

The National Scene

Fairfield, the MAAC defending champion, feel just short of claiming another Power Four victim, losing at the Big 12’s Oklahoma State 64-62 at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater.

The Stags (1-2) got 13 points from Kaety L’Amoreaux while Meghan Anderson and Janelle Brown each scored 10, and reserve Isabela Nicolette-Leite scored 13 points.

The Cowgirls (4-0) stayed unbeaten as Anna Gret Asi and Stailee Heard each scored 14 points and Tenin Magassa scored 10 points. Heard also grabbed 12 rebounds.

Oklahoma State had control early running up a 19-10 lead through the first quarter.

The Cowgirl lead grew to 13 but Fairfield fought back within six before the home team went to the break ahead 35-26.

Magassa ‘s personal 6-0 run out of the third quarter grew it to 15 and it extended one more to 16 before the Stags ran off a quick 9-0 run to slice the differential to seven but OSU got it back to 10 and settled at nine heading into the final 10 minutes.

Fairfield kept answering and moved within five at the three-minute mark on a foul shot.

A layup with 36 seconds got the Stags within a basket but after getting an ensuing stop they were unable to get a shot off in the final five seconds.

Only two ranked games occurred – one an easy 113-70 win at South Dakota (0-4) in Sioux Falls by No. 21 Nebraska (4-0) as Britt Prince scored 23 and Natalie Potts scored 22 points.

The other, a thriller however, as new coach Kenny Brooks made some early headway, leading No. 20 Kentucky (4-0) at home in Lexington to a 71-61 upset in overtime of No. 18 Louisville (2-2), ending a 7-0 series losing streak dating to 2015 since the last Wildcats triumph.

Georgia Amoore, who came over with Brooks from Virginia Tech, had 19 points while Teonni Key had a career-high 17 points.

The Cardinals got 14 points from Imari Berry.

Tennessee (4-0) got a 109-93 win over visiting Liberty (2-2) at home in Food City Center in Knoxville though new coach Kim Caldwell might not be happy that all the work by the Lady Vols lived off a 34-15 first quarter before being outscored in the second half and being just one basket better (30-28) in the second period.

Talaysia Cooper had 33 points and nine boards for Tennessee, while Ruby Whitehorn scored 1, and Sara Puckett scored 12.

Liberty’s Bella Smuda collected 27 points with five rebounds.

“I’ll leave it between us and them, but it was long, and it wasn’t nice, “ Caldwell answered a reporter’s question that her team looked grim and what was the message.

Here’s a link to photos in that game shot by William Ewart https://williamewartphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Liberty-vs-Tennessee/G0000xa9sSR1irCA/C0000MaY6lefGuNI.

Elsewhere, some other results from the radar section of the Guru’s schedule showed in the Arizona State Briann January Classic, the host Sun Devils beat SMU 80-73, while Minnesota slammed Oregon State 73-38.

Looking Ahead

Four local games are on tap Sunday highlighted by Lafayette hosting No. 6 Notre Dame, the first time the leopards will host a rank team in their era in the Patriot League.

The 2 p.m. tip airing on NBC Sports Philadelphia plus from the Kirby Sports Center in Easton, P.A., serves as a true homecoming for the Irish’s, Olivia Miles from nearby, Phillipsburg, N.J., while also fueling a potential sell out from  regional homecomings for Hana Hidalgo from Haddonfield, N.U.; Sonia Citron from outside New York City, and Kylee Watson from Lynnwood, N.J., outside Atlantic City

La Salle at Virginia in Charlottesville at 2 p.m. on ACCNX; Penn State is hosting Monmouth at 1 p.m. on B1G+ in the Bryce Jordan Center in State College and Lehigh is at Brown in Providence, R.I., at 1 p.m. (ESPN+).

Nationally, No. 24 Stanford is at Indiana at 2 p.m. (FS1); No. 4 Texas iis at DePaul in Chicago at 7:30 p.m. (FS1); Towson is at nearby No. 11 Maryland; and Harvard is at Maine at noon in Orono on ESPN+.