The Guru NCAAW Report: Villanova and Temple Prevail While Saint Joseph’s Shocked by Visiting Duquesne; No. 4 Southern Cal Tops No. 8 Maryland in Big Ten Battle

Guru note: Updated with details on the locals and nationals

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

The conference season hit full throttle Wednesday night with upsets locally and nationally – the unbeaten teams in the latter reduced to four with a threat to drop one more Thursday.

On the local front the stunner was Saint Joseph’s upset loss at home to Duquesne, 67-64, with a margin larger than the finish most of the night.

In the Patriot League, Colgate won at Lehigh 70-66 while Bucknell romped at Lafayette 64-48.

Rutgers, which again did not play freshman Kiymoni McMiller fell, at Minnesota 76-50.

But Temple rallied for a 75-69 win at Florida Atlantic in the American Athletic Conference while Villanova gave vintage performance in a thumping Big East 77-62 win at Georgetown.

On Thursday night in the MAAC, Rider hosts Canisius at 6 p.m. (ESPN+) and Penn State in the Big Ten, hosts Oregon at 5 p.m. on the B1G+.

In the MAAC Thursday involving the 1-2 punch, defending champion Fairfield (9-3, 3-0) is at Iona (6-8, 4-0) at 6 p.m. (ESPN+) while Quinnipiac (13-1, 5-0) in an already completed game beat host Sienna 69-51 in suburban Albany (N.Y.) as Karson Martin scored 14 points, Jackie Grisdale and Gal Raviv scored 13 and Anna Foley scored 10 on the Saints (6-8, 3-2).

Nationally, in the top 10 in a Big Ten battle, No. 4 Southern Cal (15-1) eluded an upset by No. 8 Maryland in College Park, winning 79-74 as JuJu Watkins scored 21 to drop the Terrapins (14-1) from the teams with perfect records.

Elsewhere in the Big Ten, No. 9 Ohio State (15-0) rallied at No. 25 Michigan (10-5) to win 84-77 while Nebraska, which had been ranked earlier, at home took down No. 20 Michigan State 85-80.

No. 7 Connecticut (14-2) had little problem playing visiting Xavier without Paige Bueckers winning 81-27 in the Big East.

In the Big 12, No. 12 Kansas State crushed newly ranked No. 22 Utah 71-47 on the road, while No. 11 TCU prevailed 80-73 at Kansas 80-73, No. 17 West Virginia won 89-53 at Texas Tech, but Baylor (13-3) went into overtime on the road to win at Arizona 81-76.

In the SEC Thursday night No. 6 LSU (17-0) is at No. 16 Tennessee (13-1) at 6:30 p.m.; No. 2 South Carolina hosts Texas A&M at 5 p.m. on ESPN2, at the same time No. 15 Kentucky is at Florida on the SEC Network, No. 10 Oklahoma is at Mississippi State at 7:30 p.m., and No. 5 Texas (15-1) hosts No. 18 Alabama at 8 p.m.

In the ACC Thursday No. 3 Notre Dame hosts Wake Forest at 5 p.m.; No. 13 Georgia Tech (15-0) hosts Virginia Tech at 7 p.m.; No. 14 Duke has a neighborhood battle at No. 19 North Carolina at 7 p.m. on the ACC Network, and No. 21 NC State is at No. 24 California at 10 p.m.

The Local Scene

In the Villanova game at McDonough Arena in the nation’s capital, the Wildcats (8-8, 2-2 Big East) shot 55.4 percent from the field and 50 percent (7-14) from beyond the arc.

Maddie Webber scored 19 points, Danae Carter scored 15 with seven boards, Jaliyah Green scored 13 with five rebounds, and Maddie Burke scored 11.

Lara Edmanson returned from the injured list shooting 4-7 and collecting nine points and five assists but freshman standout Jasmine Boscoe did not play.

Georgetown (8-7, 1-3) got 35 points from Kelsey Ransom.

Villanova is at Marquette Saturday in Milwaukee at 3 p.m. (FloSports).

In the Temple game in a battle of Owls in Boca Raton at the Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena, after Florida Atlantic (9-7, 1-2 AAC) tied it to force overtime, the visitors (9-6, 3-1), who had a 13-point lead in the third period, took over on the shoulders of substitute Kaylah Turner, who had five from deep and a career-high 25 points overall.

Temple on Saturday hosts Tulsa at the Liacouras Center at 2 p.m. (ESPN+).

Meanwhile, at Saint Joseph’s where the Hawks had risen on the ability to force the opposition to limit all three of their weapons, Duquesne (10-5, 1-3) did so in Hagan Arena on a night the shooting was as cold indoors as the weather outside.

Elsewhere in the A-10, preseason favorite Richmond, who was upset last week by Fordham, rallied at home in the Robins Center to nip George Mason, 88-86.

Maggie Doogan, a native of Broomall, Pa., had a career-high 37 points for the winning Spiders (12-5, 3-1) over the Patriots (12-3, 2-2).

Richmond (12-5, 3-1) on Sunday is at Davidson (9-7, 4-0), another upper tier team in the A-10, at 3 p.m. (ESPN+).

Saint Joseph’s (12-3, 3-1) saw Talya Bruglar (seven points), Laura Ziegler (nine points, 13 boards), and Mackenzie Smith (nine points) reduced to a combined total of 25 points, though some compensation came off the bench with Aleah Snead scoring 10 points and Rhian Stokes scoring eight.

The big freeze came in the third period when the Hawks were 2-for-12, both late in the period.

“We talked at halftime about getting more movement, then reverted back to what we were doing in the first quarter, which was really disappointing,” said Saint Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin. “We got open shots, we missed them. When you go 6 of 14 from the foul line you can't win close games.

“Snead did an unbelievable job defensively and did a great job offensively as well,” Griffin said. “Rhian put us in position down the stretch to get us to within reach.”

Megan McConnell had six steals and 19 points with eight boards and five assists. Mackenzie Blackford had 13 points while Kiandra Browne and Jerri Kiaku each scored 10 with Browne also grabbing nine rebounds.

Saint Joseph’s heads to Richmond, Va., Sunday at 2 p.m. (ESPN+) going for a sweep of VCU.

“You want these (tough losses) games early rather than late, so that you have time to recover and learn from them,” Griffin said. “We’ll better starting tomorrow.”

In the Lehigh (11-4, 2-1) loss, ending a five-game win streak, Maddie Albrecht scored 21 for the host Mountain Hawks while Gracyn Lovette scored 14 at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa., against Colgate (11-5, 1-2). Next up is a visit to Army Sunday at 1 p.m. (ESPN+) at West Point, N.Y.

Lafayette (4-10, 1-2) couldn’t get anyone scoring double digits against visiting Bucknell (7-7, 2-1) in the home game at Kirby Sports Arena in Easton, Pa.

Next up is a Saturday visit to defending champion Holy Cross Saturday at 2 p.m. (ESPN+) in Worcester, Mass.

The Crusaders (9-5, 2-1) lost 67-56 Wednesday at Navy (11-3, 3-0) in Annapolis, Md.  

Kyah Smith had 15 points, five boards, two assists, and two steals for the Mids while Simone Foreman had 22 points and 13 boards for the visitors.

Rutgers (8-8, 0-5), still looking for its first conference win, got 28 points and 12 rebounds, including her 1,000th career point against Minnesota (16-1, 4-1) in Williams Arena in Minneapolis.

Next up is a Sunday visit at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, N.J. at 2 p.m. from Nebraska.

The National Scene

In the USC-Maryland game it was close all the way but for the losing Terrapins, (14-1, 4-1) for now they proved still belong in a second seed, third seed, NCAA conversation pending other key league games to come.

Watkins had 21 points before fouling out for the Trojans (15-1, 5-0) in the last minute, while Kiki Iriafen added 21 also.

Maryland was up seven in the final period before USC rallied in the first meeting between the two since 1995.

Shyanne Sellers scored 26 for the Terrapins, Villanova transfer Christina Dalce had 15 points and 12 boards, and Rutgers transfer Kaylene Smikle scored 16 off 6-of-21 from the field.

Southern Cal hosts Penn State Sunday while Maryland visits Wisconsin on Saturday.

In the Ohio State game, Jaloni Cambridge scored 22 of her 29 points in the second half to help the No. 9 Buckeyes (15-0, 4-0) rally on the road against No. 25 Michigan (10-5, 1-3), which led by 16 in the first half in Ann Arbor.

Chance Gray had 16 points and Cotie McMahon added 13 for the visitors.

Olivia Olson had 20 for the Wolverines, who are at Purdue Saturday before Ohio State hosts Oregon Sunday.

Nebraska (12-4, 3-2) got a career-high 28 from Alexis Markowski in the home win over No. 20 Michigan State (12-3, 3-3) at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln.

Julia Ayrault scored 21 for Michigan State, which hosts Washington Sunday, the same day the Cornhuskers visit Rutgers.

No. 23 Iowa (12-3, 2-2) on Thursday is at Illinois (11-4, 1-3), which recently lost both Makira Cook and Gretchan Dolan to season-ending injuries.

In the Big East, though Paige Bueckers sat out No. 7 Connecticut’s romp in Hartford over Xavier after a knee injury in the recent win at Villanova, Azzi Fudd had the Huskies (14-2, 5-0) rolling with 18 of her 23 points in the first half against the Musketeers (5-10, 0-4) as Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma extended his NCAA combined men’s/women’s record win total to 1227.

Freshman Sarah Strong had all 15 of her points in the first half with seven boards and five steals while Allie Ziebell had 15 of her 17 points in the second half.

Xavier, a former A-10 power, has lost 45 straight Big East games.

UConn is at Georgetown Saturday.

In the Big 12 in the game with two ranked teams No. 12 Kansas State (16-1, 4-0) ruined No. 22 Utah’s return to the rankings with a 71-47 road win in Salt Lake City or the Utes (12-3, 3-1), one of four teams with Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State moving over from the former PAC-12 this season.

Colorado and Utah are previous PAC-12 members.

Serena Sundell scored 15 for the winning Wildcats while Ayoka Lee had 14 and now has 2,450 career points, good enough for inclusion in the top 100 NCAA scorers.

Gianna Kneepens had 12 points to lead Utah, which hosts Houston Saturday, while Kansas State plays at BYU, which joined the conference last season.

No. 11 TCU (16-1, 4-0) got 30 points and 14 rebounds from Sedona Prince in the Horned Frogs’ win at Kansas (11-4, 1-3) in Lawrence, while Hailey Van Lith scored 19 with six assists. The visitors are at Texas Tech Saturday.

JJ Quinerly had 17 of her 21 points in the first half for No. 17 West Virginia (13-2, 3-1) in a 89-53 road win in Lubbock over Texas Tech (12-5, 1-3). The Mountaineers are at Oklahoma State on Saturday.

Baylor (13-3, 3-0) won 81-76 at Arizona (11-6, 2-2) in overtime in Tucson as Jada Walker scored 16 for the Bears and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs had 15 points and 11 boards.