The Guru’s Local/National NCAAW Roundup: After a Five-Day Dead Stop For Christmas Week Teams Begin Returning to Action Sunday

 By Mel Greenberg

After coming to a complete dead stop the last five days for Christmas, other than Saturday’s 90-81 Omaha victory over visiting Briar Cliff, the last piece of the 2025 part of the 2025-26 women’s basketball season begins ramping back up Sunday with conference play phasing in over the next week.

Unlike not too far back in time, the early part of New Year’s Eve on Wednesday and across New Year’s Day on Thursday will be quite active.

Locally, on Sunday, Saint Joseph’s kicks the rust off hosting area D-3 Arcadia at 2 p.m. (ESPN+) at Hagan Arena before entering Atlantic 10 competition later in the week while Rutgers and Penn State dive into Big Ten action with Rutgers at No. 24 Michigan State at 2 p.m. (B1G+) and Penn State at No. 14 Iowa at 4 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.

On Monday Rider returns to Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) play visiting Iona in New Rochelle, N.Y., at 4 p.m. (ESPN+), and Villanova will be at DePaul in Chicago at 7 p.m. (ESPN+).

Delaware wraps up non-conference play visiting Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., at 1 p.m. (ESPN+) and then heads the rest of the way in the Blue Hens debut in Conference USA.

Penn’s Ivy season begins Saturday hosting No. 25 Princeton at 2 p.m. (ESPN+) at The Palestra but first the Quakers will be after a few more wins Monday and Tuesday opening at 4 p.m. playing Md.-Eastern Shore at 4 p.m. in Fairleigh Dickinson’s tourney in Hackensack, N.J., while FDU will play Binghamton at 2 p.m.

Winners and losers meet on Tuesday.

The National Scene

No. 1 UConn at 4 p.m. on Sunday will be in Indianapolis on TNT playing Butler in a Big East matchup, the top attraction of the day with two ranked teams going head-to-head will have No. 19 Ohio State hosting No. 4 UCLA at 2 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.

In non-conference play, No. 3 South Carolina hosts Providence at non on the SEC Network, which will then air No. 2 Texas hosting SE Louisiana at 2 p.m.

The remaining ranked teams playing Sunday are all SEC members: No. 11 Kentucky hosts Hofstra at 2 p.m.; No. 12 Vanderbilt hosts Stonehill at 3 p.m., the same time No. 15 Ole Miss hosts Alcorn State, those games on SECN+, and then at 4 p.m. on the SEC Network, No. 5 LSU hosts Alabama State.

In the Atlantic Coast Conference, Georgia Tech hosts Wofford at noon; Miami hosts Stetson at 2 p.m.; and Syracuse hosts Duke at 4 p.m., all on the ACC Network, while Stanford hosts Cornell at 4 p.m., and California hosts Cal Poly at 5 p.m. on ACCNX.

Illinois is at Purdue at noon on the Big Ten Network and the West Coast Conference has San Francisco hosting Oregon State at 5 p.m. on ESPN+, which also has WCC matchups of Gonzaga at 5 p.m. hosting LMU, and Washington State hosting Pepperdine at 3 p.m., besides the rest of the conference opening slate.

Because of it being a one-day week with many teams not returning until Monday or later The Associated Press will not have a new women’s poll until next Monday while the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) will not be presenting its ongoing awards, likewise, until next Tuesday.