The Guru NCAAW Conference Tourney Report: Temple and Lehigh Advance; Three No. 1s Upset; Rider Announces Change

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

There may be a Big Five team yet in the NCAA tournament.

Things broke two ways in four-seed Temple’s path Monday, the Owls (20-10) winning their seventh straight game by a wide 65-34 over Charlotte (11-21) in an American Athletic Conference quarterfinal while ninth-seed Rice (16-16) upset top seed UTSA 62-58 leading to a battle of Owls in Tuesday night’s semifinal opener at 7 p.m. on ESPN+ at Dickies’ arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

Temple recently beat Rice 83-63 in the Owls’ last home game Feb. 28 on senior night at the Liacouras Center. That was considered a revenge game with the opponent having knocked out coach Diane Richardson’s team in last season’s tourney.

With multiple scoring threats under Richardson’s equal opportunity offense and a big lead early Temple was able to get balance and added rest heading to the semifinals, where at worse a win guarantees a spot in the WBIT or WNIT if the Owls fall short of the big goal.

In fact when it comes to the WBIT considering they didn’t meet in Big Five competition it wouldn’t be surprising to see the two hook up in round two if both advance.

In the win over Rice, Amaya Oliver had 13 points and 13 rebounds.

The grad transfer brought experience having played at Southern Cal and Loyola Marymount.

“I would say that you want to feed the hot hand,” she said after Temple’s win. “If somebody's knocking down shots, we're going to try to get you the ball. So I think that has carried on throughout my career, and it's worked, you know.”

Temple owned the paint 36-6 over Charlotte in this one with a 56-36 advantage on the boards. The Owls also mined 20 points off 18 turnovers.

“Charlotte had some really athletic guards, and we knew that in order for us to be able to play with them, our posts would have to be able to be agile and switch on some screens, too, and they did just that,” Richardson said.

 “The good thing about our defense is its team defense, and the trust that they have in their teammates, if somebody gets a blow-by, they know they trust their teammate to have their back. They trusted each other on these switches too.”

In the two other quarter final games second-seed North Texas beat East Carolina 69-58 while third-seeded South Florida, the preseason favorite, beat Tulane 69-59 and the two winners meet at 9 p.m. after the Temple game.

Lehigh Advances in the Patriot League

The Mountain Hawks (25-6) got back on the winning track opening quarterfinal play by topping eighth-seeded Boston U. 62-44 at home in Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa., which earned the right to stay right there for a Thursday semifinal against fifth-seeded Holy Cross (19-11), the defending champions, which won 66-52 in a mild upset at fourth-seeded Navy (19-11) in Alumni Hall at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

“Stabler was rocking,” said Lehigh coach Addie Micir. “This team deserves a crowd like that, and I'm going to give a shout out to the people who just keep coming and showing up. I loved how the student athletes show up for each other, even during spring break. We definitely felt that energy, and it's helping us move on.”

Lehigh led all the way from Lily Fandre’s first basket a minute into play and she went on with Maddie Albrecht to each score 16 points while Ella Stemmer scored 11.

Boston U. (12-19) got 10 points from Alison Schwertner.

In the win by Holy Cross, Lindsay Berger scored 19 points with eight boards, while off the bench Kendall Eddy scored 15 points, reserve Simone Foreman and starter Kate Flanagan from Plymouth Meeting each scored 11, and Meg Cahalan scored 10.

Hannah Griffin, the daughter of Saint Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin, grabbed four boards in 12 minutes of action.

In the other two Patriot League games, sixth-seed Bucknell (17-13) got 28 points from Ashley Sofilkanich and upset three-seed Colgate 63-58 outscoring the Bison 21-12 in the fourth quarter.

Second-seed Army (23-6) at home at West Point ended Lafayette’s season 55-40, Tasha Chudy scored 12 for the visiting Leopards (10-21).

The Black Knights will host Bucknell in Thursday’s other semifinal at 6 p.m. (ESPN+), the highest seeded wining team will host the Patriot League championship game Sunday on the CBS Sports Network.

The National Scene

No. 3 Connecticut added another Big East title beating No. 22 Creighton 70-50 at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., as Paige Bueckers scored 24 points with eight boards for the Huskies (31-3), the extended NCAA record 1,244th win for Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma.

Bueckers became the first player to win the Big East most outstanding player three times.

“It’s hard to do something that hasn’t been done at UConn before,” she said.

Azzi Fudd and freshman Sarah Strong each scored 13 points and Strong pulled down 11 boards while Bueckers and Fudd each had three makes from deep.

Creighton (26-6) got 13 points from Lauren Jensen while Morgan Maly scored 12.

The two schools were the last ranked teams playing prior to Selection Sunday and the one change in Monday’s poll saw Michigan State drop and Ole Miss return for the first time since early in the season.

“The change in personnel right how much that means,” Auriemma said, off the injuries that hit the team in 2023 and 2024.  “Last year, take that for instance, and the year before you're going into the NCAA tournament with your fingers crossed open and nothing else happens because you're just so used to one set-back after another after another that it almost like you're operating on borrowed time, you know that they're just waiting for that last … to fall and you knew that your margin for error was so slight, so narrow.

“And it's hard to get players to play at a real high level and know we can't turn the ball over we can't miss shots, you know, we have to do everything perfectly and this year I think the the sense is we can we can handle more things that are thrown at us, maybe have answers to some of the things that we didn't have last year.

 “Obviously, we don't have the same level of experience that we had last year, we don't have an Aliyah (Edwards) …  Azzi hasn't played hardly any basketball and Sarah is a freshman and Jen is a freshman and you know so we don't have quite the experience,” he continued.

 “But what we do have is the ability that if the game's not going in our direction then we can change it, that it's comforting to know, that doesn't mean we're going to change it, but we have the opportunity to change it so some years you know you're hoping and praying, this year you still have that, you still have that, but it's not as dire not as crucial as it was last year.’

Conference Upsets

Besides UTSA in the American, two other No. 1 seeds fell. In the Sun Belt title game James Madison (28-5) that went unbeaten in the league fell in overtime 86-79 to second-seeded Arkansas State (21-10), while in the West Coast, perennial champion Gonzaga (22-10) fell 63-61 to fourth-seeded Oregon State (18-15).

The Beavers, one of two former Pac-12 teams spending the next two seasons thru 2026 in the WCC, will meet second-seeded Portland (29-3), which beat three-seed Washington State, the other former Pac-12 team, at noon Tuesday (ESPN2) for the championship.

The Pilots and Zags, who last missed the NCAA tournament in 2016, tied for the WCC regular season title.

Rider Announces Change

After not making the MAAC tournament, which opens Tuesday in Atlantic City at Jim Whalen Boardwalk Hall, under a new format change, Rider announced the departure of longtime coach Lynn Milligan, a veteran of 18 seasons.

  She compiled a 214-332 overall record, including a 139-203 conference mark, in 18 seasons guiding the Broncs. The Broncs produced a 7-22 record during the 2024-25 season, and finished 11th in the MAAC standings.
 

"I respect and appreciate Lynn's accomplishments, professionalism, and passion in leading the women's basketball program for the last 18 years," said Harnum in a statement making the announcement. "I sincerely wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors."
 
The two-time MAAC and Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association Coach of the Year (2017 and 2020) and Rider's all-time record holder for career victories, Milligan and the Broncs won the 2020 MAAC regular season championship for the first time in program history, being named MAAC Champions and an NCAA Tournament Selection after the 2020 MAAC Tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.