The Guru’s March Madness Local/National Report: Villanova Routed by No. UConn in Big East Title Game; Rutgers Makes Hire; Fairfield Edges Quinnipiac for MAAC Crown Three-Peat

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsgurux

On Monday afternoon, No. 1 UConn (34-0) became the second team in the 50-year history of the Associated Press women’s poll to reach 600 appearances in the top ten, joining Tennessee, which had nearly a decade and a half of excellence ahead of the Huskies becoming a national force.

A few hours later, having been in a league of its own all season, UConn and Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma, who now top almost every category in the poll, including 269 appearances at No. 1, demolished Villanova, the champion of the rest of the Big East, 91-50, at the Mohegan Sun to earn its 24th title playing in the conference.

The Huskies, going unbeaten for the 11th time into the NCAA tournament, also won all seven of their American Conference crowns the years they played following a Big East departure and later return.

Azzi Fudd scored 19 points and Sarah Strong scored 18 points in the rout of the Wildcats (25-7), whose consolation is they’ll likely be included as an at-large team when the 68-field NCAA is announced at 8 p.m. Sunday night on ESPN.

“I think it’s a great accomplishment what we’ve been able to achieve so far this year,” Fudd said. “We’ll have a couple of days off and our work isn’t done yet… Being Big East champion won’t really matter in a couple of weeks.”

UConn has won 50 straight since a loss late season to Tennessee, which in the last month has lost a program record seven straight losses, including a quick exit in the Southeastern Conference tournament and dropped from the AP rankings.

Six more wins and the Huskies, expected to be a No. 1 seed, perhaps the overall No. 1, will have to update their extended record of 12 NCAA titles, reached last season, to 13.

Villanova recently showed improvement playing UConn from the Wildcats’ earlier contest, taking a halftime lead at home, but the Huskies made sure of no repeat occurrence.

Strong, the tournament MVP, led the charge early to a 23-11 lead at the end of the first quarter and it only got worse for the Wildcats as play continued, trailing 49-23 at the half.

“We can’t let them get going, just try to play our defense,” Strong said. “Speed them up and get them out of their rhythm.”

Villanova’s Jasmine Bascoe scored 14 points for the second-seeded Wildcats.

Coach Denise Dillon, whose team has not been in the NCAAs since 2023, when program scoring leader Maddy Siegriest led them to a Sweet 16 appearance, said Villanova’s resume speaks for itself.

“We did what we needed to do to to build that resume,” she said. “Look at our record, 25-7,  three of those losses coming to the No. 1 team in the nation… Excited for next Sunday to see where we’re getting sent.”

Villanova also has wins off West Virginia and James Madison, which became upset winners of the Big 12 and Sun Belt conferences, respectively.

The Wildcats have played UConn several times in Big East title games, notably pulling a 2003 upset that ended what was then an NCAA record 70-win streak from which the Huskies recovered to add to the trophy case in what was then the Diana Taurasi era.

They avoided a dubious distinction in this one, scoring a 3-pointer from reserve Iowa State transfer Kelsey Joens to avoid becoming suffering the worst loss in Big East title game history, at 42 points held by Boston College.

The Other Locals

Of local teams still alive and taking part in tournaments this week, Temple will hope to carry momentum from Saturday’s regular season ending win over FAU when the seventh seeded Owls Tuesday open play in the American Conference tournament, which has moved from Fort Worth, Texas, to Birmingham, Ala.

They meet they meet Tulane at 3 p.m. (ESPN+), the second of two games after Florida Atlantic opens against Charlotte, and the Temple winner advances to meet sixth seeded UTSA.

Delaware, in the Blue Hens’ season debut in Conference USA, opens the entire tournament Tuesday in Huntsville, Ala., as the eighth seed playing Kennesaw State, the winner advancing to play top seed Louisiana Tech Wednesday.

Drexel as the third seed in the Coastal Athletic Association has a double bye into Friday’s quarterfinals, playing the fourth of four games Friday against Hampton or Elon at 8:30 p.m. in Washington at the WNBA Mystics’ CareFirst Arena.

No. 23 Princeton, the only other ranked team after UConn playing this week, the rest out of the Power 4 Conferences concluded prior to Monday, opens as the No. 1 seed in the four-team Ivy Madness at Cornell’s Newman Arena in Ithaca, N.Y., Friday meeting 4th seed Brown, which edged Penn for the last spot.

The Tigers are the only Ivy team this season considered capable of an at-large bid, but they can dispense of that route by winning Friday and then beating Columbia or defending tournament champion Harvard in Saturday’s championship.

In the Patriot League, in quarterfinal play Monday night, Lehigh, the fourth seed joining the other top seeds above, beat Loyola of Maryland 68-54 at home in Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pa., winning all three games over the Greyhounds.

Sixth seeded Lafayette chased third seed and host Army until late in the game at West Point, N.Y., when the third-seeded Black Knights moved on for a 65-57 victory led by Kya Smith with 20 points and 20 rebounds.

In the other two games, Meg Cahalan had 21 points, 10 in the first quarter, to lead No. 2 seed Holy Cross at home in Worcester, Mass., to a lopsided 72-36 win over 10th-seed Colgate, while top seeded Navy at home at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., was challenged most of the night by eighth seeded Boston U. until gaining a 76-66 victory as conference rookie of the year Zoe Mesuch scored 31 points and set a league mark with eight makes from deep.

In Thursday’s semifinals, Navy hosts Lehigh at 7 p.m. while Holy Cross hosts Army at 6 p.m., both on ESPN+

The latter game has interesting local ties because in addition to Plymouth Whitemarsh grad Kate Flanagan on Holy Cross, the Crusaders roster holds one of Saint Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin’s daughters, while Army is under first-year coach Katie Kuester, a Hawks grad who was an associate head coach on the staff prior to landing the hire after last season.

Rutgers Hire

A week after Rutgers, which finished last in the Big Ten and missed the conference tournament, fired Coquese Washington, the Scarlet Knights announced the hire of Gary Redus II, an assistant the last four seasons under Kim Mulkey at LSU.

Both athletic director Keli Zinn, a recent hire, and as well as relatively new president William F. Tate have ties to LSU, Tate having been president at the school in Baton Rouge.

Penn State is also opened after also not making a high enough appearance in the standings to qualify in the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis won by No. 2 UCLA, which has a chance to be overall No. 1 seed Sunday, pending which philosophy the committee leans on in assigning the slots from the S curve rankings.

The National Scene

Several other conferences Monday joined the crowd from Sunday locking up automatic qualifiers from their tournaments, notably down in Atlantic City, N.J., at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall where in a thriller Fairfield held off Quinnipiac for the second straight season, winning 51-44 to become the fourth MAAC team to three-peat.

The teams during the season won at each other’s arena and were tied for first heading into the tournament.

The winning Stags were led by Jillian Huerter with 16 points while Cyanne Coe scored 15 points with 10 rebounds.

Anna Foley scored 17 for the Bobcats and Ella Ryan added 14 points.

Earlier in the day, fourth seed James Madison won 69-52 over second seed Troy in the Sun Belt tourney in Pensacola, Fla.

Peyton McDaniel had 28 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Dukes, while Ashanti Barnes scored 19 points with 12 rebounds.

JMU, a former member of the CAA, was ousted in overtime games the last two seasons after entering the conference.

In the Atlantic Sun, Jacksonville in overtime edged Austin Peay 66-63 as Priscilla Williams had 16 points and 13 rebounds, Carmaya Bowman and Comari Mitchell each scored 10 points.

On Tuesday, the Mountain West final in Las Vegas will be contested by Cinderella Air Force, which ousted top seed San Diego State and Boise State, and Colorado State.

The Horizon final will be decided between Green Bay and Youngstown State, while Gonzaga and Oregon State will contest the West Conference title game in Las Vegas.

That will bring the total to 16 with the winners previously claimed through Monday from the ACC (Duke), Big Ten (UCLA), Big 12 (West Virginia), SEC (Texas), Ohio Valley (Western Illinois), Big East (UConn), A-10 (Rhode Island), MAAC (Fairfield), ASun (Jacksonville), Big South (High Point), Southern (Samford), Summit (South Dakota State), and Sun Belt (James Madison).

The 15 left through the weekend are American (Sat), America East (Fri), Big Sky (Wed), Big West (Sat), CAA (Sun), Conference USA (Sat), Ivy (Sat), Mid-American (Sat), MEAC (Sat), Missouri Valley (Sun), Northeast (Sun), Patriot (Sun), Southland (Thurs), SWAC (Sat), and Western Athletic (Sat).