The Guru’s NCAAW Conference Tourney Report: Top Seed Fairfield’s Air Attack Routs No. 2 Quinnipiac for a Second Straight MAAC Title; Harvard Wins First Ivy Madness

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Having declared “we’re not pretty,” Friday afternoon after a second straight inordinate performance in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) tournament here in Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall, a building known for annually crowning Miss Americas when it was simply Convention Hall before re-named for the late mayor and star swimmer from Temple, Fairfield coach Carly Thibauldt-Dudonis insisted no NIL deals  had been cut overnight with Revlon or any other beauty company for Saturday’s championship.

But there was no question that even though the expected Thrilla in Manilla toe-to-toe between her top-seeded defending champion Stags and second-seeded Quinnipiac Bob Cats became women’s basketball version of Eagles vs. Kansas City Chiefs, the blitzkrieg Villanova-style three-point bombing attack that produced 15 makes highlighted by six each from last year’s top freshman Meghan Andersen with just three misses and 4-6 from inside the arc while reserve Sydni Scott was perfect with her collection from long-range was a thing of beauty to all in the lopsided 76-53 victory except the stunned faithful from the runnersup leading to a second straight appearance in the NCAA tournament whose 68-team bracket will be revealed Sunday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

All season the two nearby schools in Connecticut had overall dominating 1-2 runs over the rest of the conference and most of their respective non-league opponents with Fairfield, who did not lose a game the rest of last season after a narrow opening loss at Vanderbilt until the Big Dance 33-point setback at Indiana continued the regular season conference string until Quinnipiac ended the run at home in Hamden last Saturday.

Add that to watching two straight-inordinate games the Stags played leading up to Saturday, the Quinnipiac crowd, whose team had the same 28-4 record as Fairfield while being treated to a new heroine in point guard Gal Raviv, the MAAC’s dual freshman and player of the year out of Israel and Arizona High School, were confident the championship drought in the MAAC could be ended.

Quarter No. 1 lived up to the competitive hype ending in a 15-15 tie but in the process Thibauldt-DuDonis’ staff attempt to speed up the opposition was having its effect and then the range of threes and effective 26-11 advantage in the next period had the Stags in control the rest of the way.

Andersen finished with 27 points, while Scott had 18, all from distance, and Kaety L’Amoreaux provided 4 more with seven boards.

Raviv had 17 but off of 6-for-22 from the field, while Anna Foley score 10.

Veteran Quinnipiac coach Trish Sacca-Fabbri from Delran, N.J., across the Delaware River in suburban Philadelphia whose brothers were star Penn State quarterbacks, said the first half track meet became a cause of the 14 turnovers leading to a 19-9 Fairfield advantage in transition besides the 228-6 advantage in scoring from the bench.

“It would have been rally easy when we hadn’t played our best basketball in the last couple of games to get frustrated or timid, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was going to be ready to go,” Thibault-DuDonis said.

“We’re here, we’re so excited to keep going and we know we’re not done yet.”

Raviv is a true point guard, passing as much part of her game as scoring points, but her play has been so spectacular at times this season that moments would come as has occurred on similar teams with great players that her teammates would become spectators awed by the rookie’s play.

On the other side, asked for the secret to Saturday’s long-range perfection, Scott said, “My teammates and coaching staff were very confident in me and without them I wouldn’t have made the six threes.

“Without them driving to the basket and finding the open person, I wouldn’t have made those threes.”

Andersen was named the most vaaluable player while L’Amoreaux and Raiana Brown, another sub, were named to the all-tournament team as was Raviv.

Last season’s loss at Indiana was a motivation heading across the summer heading into defense of the MAAC title.

“Everything we did had 33 or 3 in it,” Thibault-DuDonis said.

The team also beefed up the schedule, “playing teams from all the good league, credit my husband (and assistant coach) who put it together.”

After a 13-seed last year what would really excite her Sunday night when Fairfield’s name and first-round pairing goes up on the screen, the Fairfield coach said, “I truly believe we’re an 11 seed.

“The better the seed, the better chance you have to win that first game.”

Quinnipiac was no stranger to competition this season, having handled Harvard, which won the Ivy League later Saturday over regular season champion Columbia, and past ongoing champion Princeton on successive weekends.

The game here was part of championship Saturday in which all remaining but four leagues playing early Sunday afternoon gained their NCAA automatic bids.

Lehigh in the Patriot League, the top seed, will host second-seeded Army.

One team hoped to be playing but fell 76-54 to ninth-seeded William & Mary (14-18), is defending champion and fourth seed Drexel (17-13), who made it the Big Dance last year as a seventh seed on a spectacular four-day run of narrow victories.

Should the Tribe win Sunday over three-seed Campbell, which beat two-seed Charleston 80-59, at the WNBA Washington Mystics’ Arena in the Nation’s Capital in the Coastal Athletic Association tourney they will enter this week’s NCAAs with one of the worst records in the history of the NCAA tournament, which began in 1982 after the adoption of women’s sports championships the previous year.

“We just did not put the ball in the basket the way we wanted to, and for us, the result was not what we wanted,” said Drexel coach Amy Mallon. “But I’m so proud of my team to be in this position in this year, with six newcomers on the team.”

Deja Evans had 16 points and 11 rebounds for Drexel while Amaris Baker scored 20 on the otherwise blank shooting from the rest of the team, who had a potential hurdle removed Friday when William & Mary upset No. 1 seed North Carolina A&T on Friday.

In the Northeast Conference, Fairleigh Dickinson, coached by former Villanova star Stephanie Gaitley, is hosting Stonehill and already holding an NCAA berth, clinched in the semifinals over Chicago State, the next two teams of Le Moyne and Stonehill ineligible while still in transition to Division I, though Stonehill announced accepting a bid to the WNIT, which will be held alongside the NCAA’s WBIT begun last season.

The place expected to receive a lot of attention Sunday is the Ivy League, the one-time doormat annually placing champions in the lowly 15th and 16th seeds.

The Ancient Eight are in a better world now, anticipated to place three teams in the field.

Only twice has the league ever received an at-large bid, once in 2017 to Princeton after Penn beat the Tigers in the first Ivy Madness four-team tourney, and last season to Columbia, which had tied Princeton a second straight time for the Ivy title.

This season the Lions swept Princeton, the Tigers a two-seed playing three-seed Harvard, which they beat twice, once at the buzzer in Jadwin Gym at home in central New Jerey,

But the Crimson got their revenge in Friday’s semifinal at Brown’s Pizzicola Sports Center in Providence, R.I., and then on Saturday night in a second-straight narrow victory upsetting Columbia 74-71 winning the first title under third-year coach Carrie Moore, former Princeton assistant, and first trip to the NCAAs since 2007.

Ivy Madness most outstanding player Harmoni Turner scored 24 points, with four assists, and three steals, while Elena Rodriguez scored 13 points and Karlee White 12.

The Crimson (24-4) have all three upsets in the history of the Ivy tournament begun in 2017, beating Columbia in the semifinals two years ago and the wins this weekend over Princeton and Columbia.

Riley Weiss had 21 points for the Lions (23-6) and Cecelia Collins scored 18 and afterwards Columbia coach Megan Griffith, a native of King of Prussia, spoke more of confidence as opposed to pleading a cause in court for an at-large bid, which finally came last season.

“This is what you want in March,” she said. “I mean … two great teams battling fora championship. We’ve never seen Ivy League look like this before.

Griffith returned to her alma mater to build the program after serving at Princeton as an aide when Courtney Banghart, now at North Carolina, built the Tigers into national prominence.

“We have two teams who should be in the tournament right now. For us, we were outright Ivy League regular season champions. We won the best mid-major conference in America.

“I’m confident we’re going to be selected. It’s not even a conversation in my mind.”

Unlike a year ago, when South Carolina was the prohibitive favorite and finished unbeaten, while Iowa’s Caitlin Clark was causing millions to watch on TV with record ratings besides filling arenas, this season a multitude of teams and stars in the national conversation.

When the draw is announced Sunday, the four No. 1 teams could again be South Carolina, which has lost three games, as a repeat, followed by UCLA returned to No. 1 in the rankings after winning the Big Ten, Southern Cal, which won the regular season but fell to its crosstown rival from Los Angeles in the conference tourney title game, and Texas, with perennial challenger Connecticut and Notre Dame, also in the national championship hunt.

Locally, it’s the first time that neither men’s or women’s teams from the Big Five combined are out of the NCAAs, though Saint Joseph’s is right on the bubble, but likely to be a first out and become a No.1 seed in the WBIT like Villanova did a year ago in the inaugural tournament.

Temple, Villanova, and Drexel could also land in the WBIT or WNIT, pending their bids, while Penn if all three Ivies are in the NCAA, would normally get an invite from the WNIT, but the Ivy League barred participation once the WBIT was launched last year as a second tourney by the NCAA.