The Guru NCAAW Report: Temple Wins Fifth Straight Clinches 4th in AAC Tourney; Penn Routs Dartmouth in Ivies Where Princeton and Columbia Win; Drexel Wins in CAA

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — Here at Temple’s  Liacouras Center Friday night, across town at Drexel’s  Daskalakis  Athletic Center, up in New  England and out on Long Island, the five locals who played all stepped out of February into the month of madness like Lions with the days ahead to determined which ones will be reduced to lambs.

For teams who are still on the original course they plotted back in November, it’s that time when the regular season schedules begin fading out and the brackets for 31 conference tournaments over the next two weeks begin fading in and the postseason begins in several stages and reaches the moment Sunday night at 8 on March 16 when ESPN broadcasts the field and pairings of the 68 teams who will be in the NCAA tournaments.

After that’s done,  two sets of consolation prizes are dealt in the fields and pairings for the Women’s  Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), going into its  second season, and the WNIT.

On senior night at Temple, where the upper class women put on a  super show, the Owls continued to make up for lost time and delivering a bit of a payback by beating Rice 83-63 as Tiarra  East, one  of the outgoing seniors, scored a career-high 33 points with eight rebounds, while classmate Tarriyonna Gary scored 18 and dealt four assists to  clinch the fourth seed and accompanying double bye in the American Athletic Conference tournament, which returns to Fort Worth, Texas, next weekend at Dickies Arena.

The entire bracket will  be  known early next week after the last night of regular season games,  which has Temple (18-10, 12-5) visiting Charlotte at 6:30 p.m. (ESPN+) on Tuesday.

The Owls are finishing on a high right now with a five-game winning streak breaking free of the struggles a  month ago and rekindling last year’s AAC arrival with a finish that made them conference tri-champions.

But Rice (14-15, 7-10)  ruined the fun ousting Temple 60-57  in the semifinals and the season was over, being bypassed by the WBIT and not applying for consideration from the WNIT.

“We’ll talk about it when we see where we are when the (AAC) is over,” said Temple coach Diane Richardson, who is completing her third  season.

Sophomore Kaylah Turner joined the two  seniors in double figures with 11 points, while on the Rice side, Alexis Aniah scored 15 points shooting 6-for-9 and Sussy Ngulefec was 4-for-4  from the field  and finished with 10 points.

East, who until recent games  struggled on the 2025 side of the season schedule after leading Temple to the first Big Five Classic crown in early December over Villanova in the Wildcats’ Finneran Pavillion, was 10-16 from the field, including 3-6  from deep, while Gary was 6-13  from the field  and 4-7 from  deep.

“We’re (the seniors)  going to remember this forever,”  said East, one of the few on the roster from the previous regime under Tonya Cardoza. “You only get one senior night in college and it felt good. It feels good to get back from that Rice game from  last year’s semifinals, being together and doing it once in your life.”

Gary echoed  East’s sentiments, saying, “Like T said we’re going to remember this forever. We knew we wanted this game, especially since Rice knocked us out of the semifinals last year.

“But we’re not done yet.  Just because we’re done here doesn’t mean we’re done.”

Rice was up 38-33 at the half before Temple began amping the pressure from the  Owls’ defense  leading  to a 21-5 advantage on  points from turnovers.

“Pressure, pressure,  pressure, and it bothered them,”  Richardson said of the second half reversal highlighted  by East scoring eight straight points to bring the Owls  back into the lead at 55-51 in the third and then continued with an opening 15-2 surge at the start of the fourth.

Temple was picked eighth in the AAC  preseason poll so the Owls like last year achieved a goal being in the top four with a  double bye straight to the quarterfinals.

“We wanted to be consistent this year,”  Richardson said.  “To win these five in a row, it shows we are on an uptick right now and hopefully carry that on next week and to the tournament.”

Tulane and Tulsa are tied for fifth, while South Florida, the preseason favorite, is tied with North Texas for  second, while UTSA clinched the top seed.

Temple on a Texas road trip lost at UTSA 70-61 after losing 70-67 at North Texas, both games where the Owls  yielded sizable leads.

Part of the rejuvenation comes from a desire to  not feel the emotions that stem from losses.

 Penn Opens Path to Fourth and Final Seed in Next Month’s Ivy Madness

The Quakers are near the top of the deep hole they dug for themselves early on the Ivy schedule and seem likely to be back in the four-team tournament when it is  held at Brown later this month in Providence, R.I.

Credit a 66-37 revenge beat-down at Dartmouth in Leede Arena in Hanover, New Hampshire, that served as payback for  an upset loss dealt by the Big Green on Martin Luther King Day in January at The Palestra.

Columbia (20-5, 11-1) helped the Quaker cause earlier in the day as the Lions rolled over Brown 70-44 at home in Levien Gym off Broadway on New York’s  Upper West Side as the Lions moved within a game of clinching the No. 1 seed outright where they currently are.

The loss  dropped the Bears (10-15, 4-8) two games behind Penn with two left.

Technically, either Brown loss at Cornell or  Penn win at Harvard would  do the trick, but the Bears are favored and the Quakers  are underdogs in the two games Saturday.

That would leave it to next Saturday when Penn will host second-place Princeton at The Palestra and Brown is at Yale.

Having split with Brown throws the first tie-break out the window and the results of the two on the schedule against the rest of the Ivies is an exact mirror likeness.

That would leave tie-break No. 3, the .Net on the final standings day as the differential and Penn clearly has an advantage, 166-180 and Penn will finish playing No. 34 Harvard and  No. 49 Princeton while Brown will see No. 236 Cornell and No.  331 Yale, giving Penn a stronger add-on.

Penn (15-10, 6-6) got 24 points and 10 boards from Stina Almqvist while freshman Katie Collins scored 14 with 10 rebounds and Mataya Gayle dealt nine assists.

Victoria Page scored 12 points for the Big Green (8-17, 2-10) and Clare Meyer scored 10.

Princeton (19-6, 10-2) in danger of  having its long-running rule  over the regular season removed picked up a 70-58 win at Harvard (20-4, 9-3) in Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Mass., five Tigers  starters scored in double figures.

Parker  Hill scored 17  points, Skye Belker and Fadima Tall each scored 14 points, Ashley Chea scored 12 with seven assists, and Olivia Hutcherson scored 10.

Harmoni Turner scored 15 points and  Saniyah Glenn-Bello scored 11 for  Harvard, which lost the first meeting in Jadwin Gym as Chea scored  on a buzzer-beater.

The two teams seem headed to meet in the 2-3 seed semifinal game.

On Saturday, Princeton’s visit to Dartmouth is at 7 p.m., the same time Penn drops  in on Harvard, while Columbia hosts Yale at 2 p.m., and Brown is at Cornell at 3 p.m.

In Columbia’s win, Australian Kitty Henderson got a triple double of 19 points, 12 rebounds,  10 assists, and four steals, all game-highs, and it’s the first triple double with those figures since Kaitlyn Davis produced the same numbers along with a turnover in January, 2023, the only Division I players with those totals in this century.

On the postgame TV  interview, Henderson said,  “I looked up at one point and saw I  was close. As we all  know Diana Taurasi retired this week. She means a lot to one of  my coaches and so she challenged me this week, saying, ‘I want you  to get that for me.’ It was crazy that it happened today. Shoutout to my teammates, I wouldn’t be able  to do it without them.”

Drexel Maintains Second in CAA While Delaware Wins at Stony Brook

The Dragons in the Coastal Athletic Association continued to hold second place with a 75-65 win over Monmouth (13-13, 8-7) to win streak moving to five straight.

At the same time they nearly moved into a first-place tie until North Carolina A&T rallied to clip UNCW.

Nevertheless Drexel (16-9, 12-3), the defending CAA tournament champs claimed from the seventh seed last year, clinched a top four seed with a double bye into the quarterfinals when the league’s event returns to Washington,  D.C. at the home of the WNBA  Mystics in two weeks.

Laine McGurk scored 14 points for the Dragons, while Chloe Hodges scored 13 points with eight assists.

Amaris Baker scored 14 also, with Cara McCormack and Deja Evans also in double digits for the first time five Dragons were in double digits since a win over CAA rival Hofstra on January 12, 2020.

Sunday is senior day when Drexel hosts Campbell going for a sweep in the game at 2 p.m.  on FloSports. They’ll still be  in the area Thursday traveling to Delaware and the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark at 6:30 p.m., the last time unless they meet in the CAA tourney they’ll face the Blue Hens as a conference opponent with Delaware bound for Conference USA next season.

On  Friday night out on Long Island, Delaware (11-15, 8-8) won at Stony Brook 71-62 as Ande’a Cherisier  had 17 points and a career-high 12 rebounds, while Rebecca  Demeke scored 16 propelled by 5-of-8 makes from deep against the Seawolves (11-15, 6-9).

The Blue  Hens, having struggled on the front end of the season and CAA  schedule, have now bolted to seventh place and are off until Thursday’s visit from Drexel.

Looking Ahead: Showdown Cities for Saint  Joseph’s, Lehigh,  and in the Big  Ten

It’s  the final  day of the regular season in the Atlantic 10 and on Hawk Hill in  Hagan Arena besides senior day, Saint Joseph’s  plays what the Hawks hope will be a preview of  the conference next  title  game  next  weekend when defending and regular season champion Richmond visits at 2 p.m. (ESPN+)  on Saturday.

But having been upset twice in the last two weeks by Rhode Island and  Dayton on the road, the home team is in a logjam in third behind George Mason, who they swept and ahead of Davidson on a head-to-head tie break and Rhode Island by a game but who hold  a tie break with the Hawks.

So it comes down to this: If St. Joseph’s wins and the Patriots lose, it’s the two seed.

If GMU and  the Hawks both win,  its  the  three seed.

If Saint Joseph’s loses as well as Davidson and  URI, it’s  the third seed.

If the Hawks and Davidson lose but URI  wins, it’s the fourth seed and last one for a double bye.

Once a potential NCAA look if the Hawks don’t  win or at least  get to the  A-10 title game, they could  end up being one of  the first four  out, in which case, like Villanova a year ago,  would  become one of the top  four seeds in the WBIT and guaranteed three home games if advancing until the final four in Indianapolis at  Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse.

The Ivies were spoken to above for Saturday but in the Patriot League on senior day  Lehigh after cruising along at the top got short circuited during the  week at Boston U. and dropped to a one-game  lead on Army who the Mountain Hawks will host at 2 p.m. in Stabler Arena  in Bethlehem,  Pa., while Lafayette at the same time will host Boston U. at the Kirby Sports Center in Easton, Pa.,  both games airing on ESPN+.

La  Salle, in the A-10,  will host its senior day and VCU at 2 p.m. (ESPN+)  at the John E. Glaser Arena at 20th & Olney.

Nationally,  at 9 p.m. on FOX the Big  Ten title will  be  up for grabs when the deadlocked pair of No. 4 Southern Cal and No. 2 UCLA meet at the Bruins’ Pauley Pavilion with the visiting Trojans looking to pull a sweep.

The Big Ten tourney is next week in Indianapolis at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the home of the WNBA Indiana Fever and  Caitlin  Clark.

But another matter besides the rest of the seeds need to be  settled Sunday at the bottom where the last three teams as a result of the realignment and expansion won’t make the cut.

Penn State, with one conference win, was ousted by Purdue  on Thursday but now the Lady Lions go to Rutgers Sunday having lost on a rally in their earlier meeting in State  College.

If Purdue wins over Indiana the Boilermakers are above the cut with most wins among the bottom contenders.

If Northwestern beats Nebraska, the Wildcats have the edge over theScarlet Knights on a head-to-head win.

And that’s your report.