The Guru’s NCAAW Postseason WBIT Tourney Report: Bascoe Leads Villanova Over Portland to Return to WBIT Final Four; Rutgers Advances to WNIT Great Eight

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA, Pa. – Just one month short of a year ago Thursday night a nuclear strike in the combo form of the collegiate transfer portal with the ongoing rise of the NCAA enacted Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals had devastated the Villanova women’s program.

Lucy Olsen, after finishing her junior season as the nation’s third leading scorer, had gone to Iowa succeeding Caitlin Clark and whose collegiate career ended last weekend short of the NCAA Sweet 16.

Post player Christina Dalce left for Maryland and made the Sweet 16, though late Friday afternoon the fourth-seeded Terrapins will be playing one seed and defending NCAA champion South Carolina as a strong underdog.

Zanai Jones moved to SMU, which failed to make the ACC tournament in its first year in the conference having moved from the AAC, while Megan Olbrys went to UMass, which improved in its final year in the Atlantic 10, trounced Stonehill, a new D-1 team that picked up Kylie Swider, in the first round of the WNIT, but was then clipped by two by Buffalo.

Faced with a need for a new supply of weapons at her alma to succeed on a challenging non-conference schedule,  Denise Dillon got three back from the portal including graduate Lara Edmanson from Santa Clara of the West Coast Conference, Jaliyah Green from Southeast Missouri, and Patriot Conference player of the year Bronagh Power-Cassidy at Holy Cross from Dublin, Ireland.

Freshman Jasmine Bascoe came with Canadian national team experience from Toronto, and still around was a core of senior Maddie Burke, who came home two seasons ago from Penn State, which missed the expanded Big Ten tournament cut, senior Kaitlyn Orihel, Denae Carter, who came home two seasons ago from Mississippi State but was sidelined last year with an injury, and three-point ace Maddie Webber.

In a season that started with a bunch of blown leads in the second half, fourth-seeded Villanova (21-14) is going back to the Final Four of the NCAA-created second-annual WBIT at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis after beating unseeded Portland 71-61 at home at Finneran Pavilion on the Main Line.

The Wildcats, one of the few non-Power 4 teams still playing, all in the WBIT or WNIT, at 2:30 p.m., will meet 3-seed Belmont (25-12) from the Missouri Valley Conference, which upset 1-seed and host James Madison 90-45, while three-seed Florida (19-17) of the SEC, which beat the Big 12’s Texas Tech 67-63, at 5:30 p.m., will meet 3-seed Minnesota (23-11) of the Big Ten, which beat Gonzaga 82-77 at home in overtime.

Both games Monday will air on ESPNU, with Wednesday’s championship at 6 p.m. on ESPN2.

Gonzaga (24-11) and Portland (31-5) were WCC regular-season co-champions, who both lost in the league tourney to eventual conference champ Oregon State, which joined with Washington State for two seasons are the collapse of the PAC-12.

Villanova fell in the championship last year to Illinois and earlier in that season opened with a lopsided 64-42 win at Portland. The Wildcats beat Belmont two seasons ago in a Thanksgiving tournament in the tropics.

This time around against the Pilots, Bascoe, who was named all-Big East, scored 20 points with eight assists while Webber, another all-Big East selection, scored 16, shooting 6-8, and reserves Ryanne Allen scored 12 and Edmanson scored 10 shooting 4-6. Carter grabbed seven boards.

Portland, which had a bit of its own rebuilding to do, though no players went to the portal, won at two-seed Stanford in Northern California, and at three-seed Seton Hall in North Jersey to advance to Villanova.

The Pilots got 17 points from Emme Shearer of New Zealand and Trista Hull scored 13 with 10 boards.

The Pilots also beat Princeton at home back in December.

Portland coach Michael Meek credited Villanova but also noted the travel factor played into his team’s outcome.

“They hit timely shots,” he said. “I felt like they're a really good team. I'm also really proud of our team for being on the road right now and being able to keep up with a team like that. We've had a lot of awesome experiences out of the WBIT that we wouldn't have otherwise.”

Villanova advanced at home rallying over Boston College and then rallied late Sunday down the road to beat Saint Joseph’s on Burke’s three-pointer in the final seconds making it a sweep of the Hawks after winning their Big 5 meeting at Hagan Arena in December.

Though senior night was a month ago this became the last home game.

“We have so many girls that this was their last home game, so just knowing that we want to keep going for them and to keep playing,” Bascoe said. “This is a big accomplishment, so we wanted to get this done.”

Bascoe and Maddy Siegriest, the third overall pick by the Dallas Wings in the WNBA in 2023, are the only two Wildcats to make all Big East as freshmen.

In the first half Bascoe was the feeder in her point guard role and then heated up on the scoring side.

“Honestly, it's just making the right reads,” she said “In the first half, my teammates were getting open and as a point guard, I gotta hit them.

“In the second half when (Portland) kind of changed their defense up, it allowed more opportunity for me to iso from the top of it, which is one of my strengths.”

“It’s amazing,” said Dillon, who not for the program being longtime family, might otherwise be the second Villanova basketball coaching search story, on the target side as opposed to the men’s hunt, expected to land Maryland’s Kevin Willard, now that the Terrapins were eliminated by Florida Thursday night in the Sweet 16.

“There's some things you can never project looking ahead, and I just couldn't be more proud of this group for coming together and continuing to get better as the season progressed. I felt the energy and was feeding off of that,” Dillon said.

Villanova exploded early with an 8-0 run and the Wildcats also benefitted off 12 turnovers in the first half and 20 for the game from, the Pilots while only committing 13 miscues.

“It was all about the defensive end,” Dillon said. “Portland was going to go on a run. Their games in this tournament, they have been down and came back and won, so that mentality of players talking to each other through helped secure a win.”

Bascoe also claimed the freshman season record for steals with 65, a previous number goes back to 1980-81, the year before Villanova was in the last AIAW tourney in the Final Four at The Palestra.

“(Bascoe’s) Court vision is tremendous,” Dillon said. “And then just that scoring ability. When you're impacting every possession, it's really hard to stop.”

Just over five minutes left in the game Villanova’s lead grew to 19 at 67-48.

The three inbound transfers with Burke and Orihel played their final game at Finneran.

“Kaitlyn and Jaliyah, we couldn’t even take out of the game,” said Dillon.

“To know that it's the absolute last time you can be playing at home, it was for them to take advantage of and these young ones to play for them. So, I couldn't be happier.”

Looking ahead to Belmont, Bascoe said, “We came out really, really hard in the first quarter and we've shown we can do that for a full 40-minute game but there have been times where we haven't,” she said. “I think the next game, it's really important we push that kind of play the whole game because that last possession could be make or break.”

In Belmont’s win, the Bruins fired 18 from deep against the Sun Belt regular season champs in the game played at James Madison (30-6) in Blacksburg, Va.

Tuti Jones was 8-11 from deep, scoring 26 points, while Kendall Holmes was 5-9 on the way to 22 points.

In the other two games, the teams all from Power Four contests, three-seed Florida held a slim lead most of the second half on unseeded Texas Tech (19-18), fell behind briefly by a point and then got it back staying ahead for a narrow finish.

Freshman Liv McGill had 22 points for the winning Gators, and Ra Shaye Kyle had 21 points and 12 boards.

The Red Raiders benefitted from nine shots from deep, Jasmine Shavers making four of them and collecting 21 points overall while Bailey Maupin scored 13 points.

Four-seed Gonzaga (24-11) tied the Golden Gophers on Allie Turner’s three-ball with 41 seconds left in regulation but neither team could go ahead the rest of tge way.

In the overtime the Zags scored first but three seed Minnesota’s Tori McKinney tied it with 3:40 left.

Grace Grocholski made it a 75-72 lead for the home team before the two-minute mark and Minnesota stayed gingerly ahead the rest of the way.

Yvonne Ejim, the WCC player of the year out of Calgary, scored 27 with 15 boards for Gonzaga while Allie Turner scored 12 and reserve Ines Bettencourt scored 13.

Amaya Battle with an appropriate last name scored 35 for Minnesota and dealt 10 assists.

Grocholski added 20 and McKinney scored 19.

Rutgers Advances in WNIT on Adams’ Triple-Double

Barely able to make the cut for a short-lived game in the Big Ten tourney Rutgers (13-19, 3-15) made it two-straight at home with an 89-67 victory at Jersey Mike’s Arena in the Super 16 round of the WNIT in Piscataway, N.J., beating Charleston (25-7) of the Coastal Athletic Association as Destiny Adams achieved her first triple -double with 18 points, 15 rebounds, and a personal best ten assists.

Told assistant coach Tasha Pointer, a former Rutgers star, had four of them, all in the same season,” Adams said, “Wow. I didn’t know that. That’s really wild.”

It’s also the program’s first triple double in five seasons.

Playing without freshman Kiyomi McMiller, who reports say has entered the transfer portal, besides Adams, five others scored in double figures highlighted by 18 points off a career-high six three-balls from reserve Mya Petticord, JoJo Lacey scored 19 with 10 boards, Awa Sidibe and Chyna Cornwell each scored 12 points and Zachara Perkins scored 10. Cotnwell also had 12 boards.

The WNIT says Super 16 because the NCAA has the rights to saying Sweet 16. The same goes for Great 8 as opposed to Elite Eight, in which Charleston’s Taryn Barbot scored 33 with 12 boards while Jazmyn Stone scored 12 and Taylor Barbot 11.

On Sunday Rutgers plays the next round at Buffalo (27-7) at 2 p.m. The Bulls advanced beating Southern Indiana 76-64 on the road.

Duquesne is at Cleveland State Friday night at 7 p.m. playing for a spot in the next round against either Butler or host Purdue-Fort Wayne also playing Friday night at 7.

McMiller’s move came several days after Saint Joseph’s Laura Ziegler, poised to be the key go-to next season, also declared.

On Thursday, Florida State’s Ta’Niya Watson, the nation’s leading scorer, averaging 25.2 points, also declared.

In the postgame press conference, Rutgers coach Coquese Washington said, the two had talked recently “about her goals and our goals for this program and it was clear a change had to be made so I wasn’t surprised.

“But hey, Kioymi’s a fantastic player and I wish her and her family nothing but the best. But our focus is on this team, this locker room and continuing to fight for this WNIT championship.”