The Guru’s March Madness Report: Temple Recovers in OT From Huge Blown Lead in American Opener While Delaware Takes CUSA Opener; NCAA Tickets Punched in Horizon, Mountain West and West Coast Conferences

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsgurux

If you missed the Temple regular season, the seventh seeded Owls (15-16) opened play Tuesday in Game 2 of the American Conference tournament in Birmingham, Ala., spending what became 45 minutes showing all the beauty and warts of the past four months morphing between a looming Cinderella and ugly stepsister dominating and blowing leads until living up to the survive and advance mantra spoken in time with an 86-77 victory over 10 seed Tulane (11-20) in overtime.

Next up is a Wednesday afternoon date at 3 p.m. (ESPN+) with No. 6 UTSA (14-15).

Game 1 before the Owls took the floor saw ninth seed Florida Atlantic also ride overtime to beat No. 8 Charlotte 74-70 and earn a round two date with No. 5 North Texas at 1 p.m.

In an adventure of highlights and lowlights Temple spent the first ten minutes showing the recent rock bottom trip experience at South Florida shooting shooting 15 percent but managing to keep the Green Wave at low tide for a 10-8 lead.

Then coach Diane Richardson’s squad switched costumes looking like the team that handled the home finale against FAU Saturday to erupt to a 14-point lead at the half off a 25-13 second quarter shooting 50 percent from the field including 75 percent from deep.

The margin grew to 17 and as the loyalists began to allow themselves the Green Wave launched a tsunami while the Owls suffered the worst Big Five postseason meltdown since Penn died against Texas A&M in an NCAA opener going scoreless the last 3:38 and making the evaporation complete when Tulane’s Kanija Daniel nailed a 3-pointer with ten seconds left to send the game into overtime.

Paced by a pair of threes and ten points overall in the extended period from Kaylah Turner, who finished with 31, the Owls went back to Cinderella mode trailing by four with an 11-0 run to live one more day.

Saniyah Craig added to the double-digit performance from Turner with 14 points.

Tulane’s comeback was paced by their conference’s freshman of the year Mecailin Marshall with 21 of her 25 points in the second half leading three other teammates also in double figures.

“It was a hard-fought game, and we just had to do what we do (in overtime),” Richardson said though many times this season the doing has been committing large amounts of costly turnovers.

“We got this, don’t let the turnovers before dictate the rest of the game,” Turner said of the attitude heading into the extra five minutes.

“I just wanted to win, my coaches told me to keep shooting,” Turner said of her game.

Additionally, Jaleesa Molina had 10 points and nine boards and Tristen Taylor scored 14.

Richardson never lost faith despite the second half collapse in the game at Legacy Arena dat the BJCC.

In recent years after UConn went back to the Big East the tournament moved from the Mohegan Sun to Fort Worth, Texas.

“We worked so hard in the game, let them come back, so I knew we had the resilience to bounce back and come back and play hard, so they did,” Richardson said.”

The two games mentioned are the only two Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s quarterfinal round.

Delaware Takes CUSA Opener

Ande’a Cherisier matched a career high with 24 points to lead the 8th seed Fighting Blue Hens (13-18) to a 66-47 win over ninth seed Kennesaw State (13-17) in a first round game of the Conference USA tournament Tuesday in Huntsville, Ala.

The road gets much tougher Wednesday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. (ESPN+) when Delaware faces Louisiana Tech, the No. 1 seed.

Ella Wanzer was 5-for-10 beyond the arc to propel her 17-point performance while Lay Fantroy grabbed 10 boards and Trinity Vance dealt a career-high six assists, one better than her previous best in the regular season ender at Liberty.

Delaware held the Owls to four points in the third quarter while scoring 22.

“I’m really excited and proud of our girls,” said Delaware coach Sarah Jenkins. “They came out and competed. We've had a tough stretch of games, and I'm really glad how they came out and competed today.”

In another CUSA game Tuesday 7 seed Jacksonville State (16-15) in the first tourney double overtime game since 2021 won 82-77 over 10 seed UTEP (13-17) at Propst Arena at the cVon Braun Center to advance against No. 2 FIU at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

The Gamecocks trailed by 10 in the third period

Brooklyn McDaniel connected from the line to send the game into double overtime  and she finished with 17 points and ten boards. Mya Barnes had nine of her 17 points in the extra periods.

“It wasn’t one person who carried us today, it was truly a team effort,” said Jacksonville State cosch Rick Pietri.

The two quarterfinal games are the only two Wednesday with two more Thursday.

The National Scene: Three More Tickets Punched

A trio of championships Tuesday grew the list of NCAA automatic qualifiers to 16 just over half the overall total of 31.

In the West Coast Conference in Las Vegas combo freshman and player of the year Lauren Whittaker out of New Zealand scored 26 points and grabbed nine boards to earn Most Outstanding Player honors leading Gonzaga to a 76-66 victory over Oregon State (23-11) at Orleans Arena.

Both teams and Washington State are headed to the re-organized PAC-12 next season.

Gonzaga (24-9) ended a four-year drought from the NCAA tournament.

In the Mountain West, third-seeded Colorado State (27-7) took its first conference title with a 56-42 victory at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas to end the Cinderella run of Air Force (16-18), which advanced to its first championship game having made top seed San Diego State one of the Falcons’ upset victims along the way.

Brooke Carlson scored 17 points, Madelynn Bragg scored 15, and Kloe Froebe had nine points and 10 boards.

In the Horizon at Corteva Coliseum in Indianapolis Green Bay (25-8) won 57-49 over Youngstown State (24-9) as Jenna Guyer scored 21 points.

On Wednesday, at 5 p.m., on ESPNU, Montana State and Idaho play for the Big Sky crown at

Idaho Central Arena in Boise while the Southland winner gets determined Thursday at Townsley Law Arena in Lake Charles, La.