The Guru NCAAW Report: Drexel Bests Lehigh; Tennessee Gets Key Win over Florida State While Oklahoma Rallies on Louisville; Richmond Nipped From Unbeaten

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — Drexel may not be playing for the Big 5 Classic championship on the inaugural women’s side Friday at Villanova, but the third-place game against  Saint Joseph’s is still a pretty big deal for the Dragons women who this season have joined their male counterparts to finally become an official part of the local brotherhood and sisterhood.

All of which is why the way the season schedule so worked out there was still a matter Wednesday night before getting all jacked up there was this Jekyll and Hyde Lehigh team a little over an hour to the north that had to first be dealt ahead of the excitement of Friday’s triple-header.

Not to worry, by the time the visiting Mountain Hawks attempted to become a threat in the fourth quarter the home team had affairs in order and enough of a cushion to move on to a 53-44 victory and put aside a three-game losing streak that included a tough setback in overtime last week at Penn State.

Amaris Baker in shooting 50 percent at 8-16 from the field was the only player in double figures for Drexel (3-3), scoring 18 points, but there was a lot of contributions, especially defensively, to take the win and start looking to the Classic.

Laine McGurk shot 4-6 from the field and scored nine while dealing four assists with four assists, Chloe Hodges had six points with seven boards and dealt eight assists, while Cara McCourt scored seven points. Deja Evans grabbed eight rebounds.

“Just excited that we were able to maintain a high-level defense and keep them under their average (70.0 pts.),” said Drexel coach Amy Mallon. “That’s important for this team to be successful.

“Obviously, we said, ‘two Hawks this week, tonight’s the first one and Friday night we’ll be in a Big 5 game that means a lot to our program, we’re in a place we deserve to be and we’ve circled it for our program, it’s really excited to share that, especially with this group because I think this is such a special group this year, so I’m excited about that game.

Obviously, we have a short turnaround, but we will be prepared and ready for Friday’s game.”

Noteworthy of Drexel’s defense was holding the Mountain Hawks’ Ella Stemmer scoreless after she came into the game with a 13.5 average. Lily Fandre had 11 points, while Maddie Albrecht and Lind Whitney each scored 10.

Lehigh (6-3) on Sunday will travel to Ivy League representative Cornell in Newman Arena at 1 p.m. (ESPN+) in Ithaca, N.Y.

The only other local who played was Lafayette, which fell at home to Fairleigh Dickinson 69-62 in the Kirby Sports Center in Easton, Pa.

Abby Antognoli had 20 points and 10 rebounds, her first career double double, while Sauda Ntacongyigize had 13 points and Emma Shields scored 10 for the Leopards (2-6).

FDU ( 6-2), the preseason favorites of the Northeast Conference, had four players in double figures — led by Ava Renninger with 19 points, while Lilly Parker and Teneisais Brown 15 points each and Brown a double double with 10 boards. Abaigeal Babore scored 11.

Halee Smith made a pair of foul shots late in the game to move within four at 63-59 but FDU was able to use the line to stay in front and seal the win.

Lafayette is back home Sunday hosting Wagner at 2 p.m. (ESPN+).

To avoid loose ends with the locals on looking ahead, Rider on Thursday all alone heads to Monmouth in West Long Branch, N.J., at 7 p.m. on NBC Sports Philadelphia Plus, while besides the Big 5 Classic Friday, Princeton is out west to start its swing visiting Portland at 9 p.m. (ESPN+).

On Saturday, Delaware State is at Delaware at the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark at 2 p.m. on FloSports, and Penn State kicks off its Big Ten schedule at home in the Bryce Jordan Center in State College at 1 p.m. (B1G+) hosting Indiana.

The National Scene: Tenn. and No. 11 Okla. Help SEC Jump to a 4-2 Start on the ACC

New coach Kim Caldwell isn’t totally satisfied but a 79-77 home win over Florida State on Zee Spearman’s shot in the paint with 24 seconds remaining in regulation and her rebound of Ta’Niya Latson’s missed layup enabled Tennessee (6-0) to stay unbeaten, win its part on opening night of the ACC/SEC Challenge and enable the home crowd of 9,529 in Food City Center in Knoxville recall the days over a decade ago when the Lady Vols under the late legendary Pat Summitt would pull numerous similar victories.

Of course, the fact that the home team had jumped to a 20-point lead in the first half and was up 18 at the break and then became involved in a fight for survival gave Caldwell pause.

“I learned we are resilient, and we still don’t understand pace,” Caldwell said. “For us, 18 points nothing, 20 points is nothing, 22 points is nothing, it could be blown in a quarter and it could be made up in a quarter.

“I’ve played this way a long time, you’ve had to see it to believe it, I’ve been down multiple times 19 going in the fourth quarter and we’ve come back and won in regulation,” added Caldwell, who previous coached one year in Division I at Marshall.

“We’ve had those conversations with (Tennessee’s players) them, now they can understand it. We’ve got to do better. Our third quarters are terrible. So we’ve got to do a better job at halftime and not look at the scoreboard and start to take our foot off the gas, start to take bad shots, and not play as hard, and hopefully that’s one box we can check, and start to learn something.”

As for the winning shot, Caldwell said, “Definitely not the look we were trying to get but I was happy she took it. She didn’t settle for another three, which she could have done, I felt we took some bad shots down the stretch, she was poised, she was under control, she believed in it, she had some huge offensive rebounds for us down the stretch, too, I think our offensive rebounding in the fourth quarter won us the game.”

Spearman scored 13 while Talaysia Cooper had a team-high 22 points, the duo also combined for all of Tennessee’s points with 22 in the last period.

Samara Spencer added 11 points and the threesome of Cooper, Spencer, and Alyssa L’atham each grabbed 7 boards to aid a dominate 50-39 lead in rebounding, including 23-10 on the offensive bench.

Latson, a former national freshman of the year and current national scoring leader, had 38 points, while O’Mariah Gordon scored 16, Makayla Timpson scored 13, and Sydney Bowles scored 10, and Timpson made it a double double with 11 boards for the Seminoles (8-2), who are trying to crash back into the weekly AP Women’s Poll.

“Wow, tough game today, but I’m really proud of our team response in the second half,” said Florida State coach Brooke Wycopf. “They had two choices when they came out of the locker room, they could let it keep going that way or they could battle and believe and they chose the latter and I’m really proud.”  

The Lady Vols head into Brooklyn Saturday night as part of the Women’s Champions Classic on FOX at the Barclays Center, home of the WNBA champion New York Liberty meeting No. 17 Iowa at 7 p.m. before No. 2 Connecticut and No. 22 Louisville play at 9:30 p.m.

Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen, Iowa’s leading scorer and roster successor to Caitlyn Clark, is expected to play after missing the Hawkeyes’ two wins last week in the tropics with a cut knee suffered in a fall in practice after rolling her ankle.

Meanwhile, new SEC member No. 11 Oklahoma (7-1) rallied late and beat No. 22 Louisville, 78-72, as Payton Verhulst beat up on her former team with 21 points against the Cardinals (5-3) from whom she transferred midway in the 2022-23 season in December.

It was the Sooners’ largest comeback since closing a 19-point deficit on Utah, Dec. 21, 2021.

Oregon State transfer Raegan Beers had 11 points and 11 boards for a double double.

Olivia Cochran scored 17 for Louisville but fouled out with 2:21 left in regulation, while Merissah Russell scored 14.

While Louisville on Saturday is in New York renewing relationships with UConn when both competed in the old Big East and The American conferences, Oklahoma on Sunday will host Alabama State.

Elsewhere in the challenge Wednesday, Vanderbilt (9-1) with an 88-70 win at Miami (7-1) in Corral Cables as Khamil Pierre scored 28 for the visiting Commodores and Jasmyne Roberts had 19 for the host Hurricanes; and Texas A&M (5-4) with a 57-45 win at Syracuse (4-5)  got the SEC it’s two other wins.

The SEC just missed getting a fifth as Georgia Tech (8-0) stayed unbeaten, winning at home in Atlanta 78-75 over Mississippi State (8-5) as Kayla Blackshear put the Yellowjackets up 76-75 on a layup with 1:04 left in regulation.

Mississippi State missed three shots with offensive rebounds on its ensuing possession.

Georgia Tech finally got a rebound to gain possession and Dani Carnegie made two from the line for a 78-75 lead with 15 seconds left.

The visitors missed an attempt to tie got the offensive rebound but time then expired.

Jerkaila Jordan scored 25 for the winners, while Kara Dunn had 23 for the opposition.

The remaining game as counted here also went to the ACC, Virginia Tech (7-2) won 70-61 in Athens at Georgia (5-5) with Carys Baker scoring 14 for the triumphant Hokies.

Big Sky vs. Summit

A second set of conferences went at it, across the board, with part two to happen on Saturday.

Big Sky preseason favorite Northern Arizona won at home beating beating Oral Roberts 87-70 as Sophie Glancey scored 22 points for NAU (8-1) and Taleyah Jones scored 26 for the visitors (5-2).

The Big Sky narrowly took the nine games on night one 5-4 with Idaho of the Big Sky idle.

 The other Big Sky wins were Northern Colorado 62-54 over St. Thomas on the road; Montana State topping visiting South Dakota 81-58; Idaho State beating Denver 73-61 at home; and Sacramento State at home 74-57 over Kansas City.

The four Summit wins went to conference favorite South Dakota State 81-58 over visiting Eastern Washington; North Dakota State 83-74 over visiting Montana; North Dakota 73-69 over visiting Weber State; and and visiting Omaha 65-57 over Portland State.

Rivalry Wars

There were a number of games involving same city or short bus ride, same region teams.

Most notable saw Richmond, the defending Atlantic 10 champs, fall at the finish 55-53 at home in the Robbins Center in Virginia to Georgetown not far from the nation’s capital.

The host Spiders (8-1) appeared to win on Addie Budnik’s layup with three seconds left in regulation for a 55-53 lead.

That was enough time for the Hoyas’ Victoria Rivera after a timeout from each team to sink a three-ball just before regulation time expired, almost a twin of what happened in a loss by the Ivy League’s Columbia last year at a holiday tourney.

Kelsey Ransom had 21 points for Georgetown (5-3) while Rivera and Ariel Jenkins each scored 12 points while Maggie Doogan had 20 for Richmond and Ally Sweeney scored 11.

Oddly, the Spiders go to Columbia Sunday at 2 p.m. (ESPN+) while Georgetown hosts Colgate Saturday in the triple-header at 4 p.m. in the Coaches Against Racism MTE at the Entertainment & Sports Arena home of the WNBA Washington Mystics.

Columbia had a morning game against San Francisco, visiting several New York Metro teams, and the Lions (7-3) prevailed 81-79 over the Dons (2-5) as Riley Weiss exploded for 24 for the host team. The visitors (2-5) got 24 points and 10 rebounds from Freja Werth.

Elsewhere in the Steel City in Western Pennsylvania Duquesne edged Pitt 73-69 as Jerni Kiaku scored 20 and Megan McConnell scored 14 for the Dukes (5-2).

Down in Baltimore UMBC (5-4) got 20 points from Jaliena Sanchez to win 65-60 at Towson (1-8), which had Khady Leye deliver 17 points.

Buffalo (8-0) not far from Binghamton (5-4) won at home 74-51 as Chelia Watson scored 26 points.

Providence on the 5-5) on the road edged host Rhode Island (4-6), the winners led by Grace Efosa with 18 points.

Indiana ahead of its Big Ten weekend beat visiting Southern Indiana 67-63 as Shay Ciezki scored 17 for the Hoosiers (6-3).

Northwestern home along Lake Michigan beat DePaul 64-56 as the Wildcats (4-3), who will be in Saint Joseph’s Hawk Classic in a few weeks, got 14 points from Calleigh Walsh while the Blue Demons (3-6) got 20 from Taylor Johnson-Matthews.

And in a PAC-12 reunion from two former rivals who landed in separate places Oregon (7-2) home in the Knight Center and a member of the Big Ten beat Washington State 85-70 as Peyton Scott scored 23 points.

The visiting Cougars (4-5) now in the West Coast Conference got 18 from Eleonora Villa.

Finally, in this section, one other ranked team played outside the themed attractions as No. 9 TCU (9-0) stayed unbeaten and prepped for Saturday’s visit from No. 3 South Carolina in the Coast-to-Coast Challenge by beating Florida Atlantic 78-42 as Hailey Van Lifth scored 16, and Sedona Prince had 14 points.

The start matches the same as a year ago when Mark Campbell made his coaching debut off a team that was 8-23 the earlier season.

Looking Ahead — ACC vs. SEC Night Two Offers Marquee Attractions

It’s popcorn viewing night as the Power 4 showdown between one-half of them continues.

At 5 p.m. No. 14 Kentucky visits No. 16 North Carolina on ESPN2.Then at 7 p.m. No. 4 Texas is at now No. 10 Notre Dame on ESPN.

No. 18 Ole Miss at 7 p.m. is at North Carolina State out of the AP Poll on ESPN2.

At 9 p.m. No. 8 Duke visits No. 3 South Carolina on ESPN while at the same time on ESPN2 Stanford visits No. 5 LSU.

No. 19 Alabama at 9 p.m. on ESPNU visits California.

In a first-ever meeting out in the desert, Arizona in Tucson hosts Grand Canyon from Phoenix at 8 p.m. on ESPN+.

And that takes you far enough until the weekend arrives.