Womhoops Guru

Guru's College Report: Temple Maintains Rule of St. Joe's With Reign of 20s

2012-02-02T04:52:00.005-05:00

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – Temple unwittingly resorted to some ancient history to continue its modern day mastery of St. Joseph’s Wednesday night as the Owls topped the Hawks 80-70 at Hagan Arena in the first of two annual Atlantic 10 regular meetings between the local rivals.

They will meet again later this month at Temple’s McGonigle Hall on Feb. 22 in a game that will also count in the Big Five battle for second place behind Villanova, which clinched the title last month with a 4-0 sweep.

The Hawk’s recent frustration in the long-running series with Temple continues as a result of the loss, the 12^th-straight dating back to the 2005-06 season and 18^th of 19^th dating back to 2003-04.

The lone St. Joseph’s win came in 2006 on a shot before the final buzzer.

“It’s really disappointing,” St. Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin, a Hawks star in the late 1980s, said. “We all wanted to win. We have this monkey on our back and we wanted to get it off, it’s going to be off, but when is it going to happen? It’s just another little setback.”

Besides the next scheduled meeting the two could possibly meet in this building the first weekend in March as part of the A-10 tournament, whose title also carries an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Shey Peddy, the reigning Big Five and conference player of the week, scored 26 points, including 10-for-10 from the line for the Owls (13-8, 6-1 A-10), who moved into a tie with Dayton for second place in the conference behind St. Bonaventure (21-2, 8-0), which remained unbeaten and in first after a 58-53 win at Duquesne (15-7, 3-4) in Pittsburgh.

Kristen McCarthy had 20 points and 10 rebounds while Victoria Macaulay had a career-high 21 points as a surprise third offensive weapon in terms of her scoring output.

The last time three Temple players each scored 20 or more points in a game was in the back end of the 1988-89 season when Karen Healey scored 24, Pam Balogh had 23, and Kelly Lane scored 21 on what became Temple’s first NCAA participant.

The Temple trio Wednesday night overcame a balanced effort from the Hawks (14-7, 4-3) with Samira Van Grinsven and Ashley Prim each scoring 13 points, while Michelle Baker scored 12 and Katie Kuester scored 10.

For the moment, St. Joseph’s drops into sixth place in the conference, a half-game behind idle Richmond (17-5, 5-3) whom the Hawks will meet on the road Saturday afternoon.

They are also 1.5 games behind fourth-place Charlotte (14-8, 6-2), which grabbed an 80-58 win over visiting Massachusetts (6-16, 1-6) in North Carolina.

The top four teams of the 12 in the A-10 tournament get byes into the quarterfinals.

The Hawks will visit Charlotte Feb. 18^th.

Temple, which struggled in the front part of the season on one of the toughest nonconference schedules in the country, has now won six straight overall and seven of eight after playing what could be considered the entire elite competition in terms of records in the A-10.

The Owls, who still don’t have much room for error in terms of a safety valve to gain an at-large bid from the NCAA tournament committee, will be the favorite in most games the rest of the way – the exception being the second St. Joseph’s game and the visit to La Salle because of the emotions that play into local competition.

Though most of the games since Temple began dominating the Hawks have gone to the wire, this one threatened to be a runaway early with the Owls shooting 50 percent and jumping to a 21-10 lead in the first eight minutes.

The Hawks then rallied and got to within six points but Temple surged again to a 31-17 lead with 6:29 left in the half.

St. Joseph’s was able to get to the break just down 35-32 but the points allowed were more than what the Hawks had limited in an entire game when they beat visiting Penn 42-34 in a Big Five matchup here last month.

Van Grinsven’s shot with 17:32 left in the game got St. Joseph’s within a bucket but Temple would not break defensively and got the lead back to double digits halfway through the final period and was able to hold firm the rest of the way.

BJ Williams dealt nine assists for the Owls.

“This game is always tough,” Temple coach Tonya Cardoza said. “St. Joseph’s is a great team, well coached, they play so hard. Defensively, they’re smart, they don’t give up and they try to take things away.

“The fact that we were able to score that many points tonight was because we got some great performances from our players.

The fact we had three guys with 20 plus points – that was huge and we needed all those guys to step up.

“But it was a great team win on the road. We don’t want to lose the city game – it’s still the city game even if this one didn’t count in the Big Five,” Cardoza said.

“They score in different ways and that’s tough, so it was important to build that lead. We’ve been screaming the last couple of years to get a post player to score and even though (Macaulay shot) jump shots, when you get those guys it takes the pressure off Shey and Kris.

“Those guys trying to score all the points for 40 minutes, that’s tough. They can take a break and throw the ball inside and know something good is in going to happen,” Cardoza said.

“And we’re a lot bigger now,” she alluded to the addition of post player Joelle Connelly, a transfer last season from Hofstra, who has moved into the starting lineup alongside Macaulay.

“Joelle and Vic like playing together now and they give each other a boost. We had to concentrate on just getting stops against St. Joseph’s.”

Griffin dissected what went wrong this time, though there wasn’t one key error in the last minute by the Hawks while Temple maintained a lead of several possessions.

The Owls shot 49.1 percent from the field and outrebounded the Hawks 40-29 to gain a 14-4 advantage in second chance points.

“I thought it was a well-fought game,” Griffin said. “Temple got some shots early against our zone that made us make an adjustment. Them shooting 50 percent is something that really hurt us.

“We had given them too many open looks and weren’t able to recover. The disappointing thing is you work on these things (stopping offensive rebounds off missed foul shots) and then it’s game time and what’s going on?

“Temple’s a very good team, very talented, but I certainly don’t think we gave it our best today. (Macaulay) killed us,” Griffin said of the Temple post player’s big night.

“Here we are again, a third person steps up. The same thing happened in the (St. Bonaventure) game. (Doris) Ortega goes 10-for-10 from the foul line and has 20 points.

“Now exactly a week later on the same night, the same situation. We just have to learn from these experiences. We have Temple again and we have to learn to make those adjustments.”

Meanwhile, in the other game involving a Big Five squad playing in the conference on Wednesday, La Salle got a foul shot from Michea Bryant with 2.7 seconds left in regulation to give the Explorers a 56-55 win in a matinee game at Fordham (11-12, 2-6) in the Bronx, N.Y., and a season sweep of the Rams.

Nadia Duncan of the Explorers (10-12, 4-3), who are in seventh place and holding a three-game cushion ahead of the two-team cutoff for the A-10 tourney field, got 15 points as did Fordham’s Charlotte Stoddart, who hit a pair of back-to-back three-pointers to tie the game near the end of regulation with 33 seconds left on the clock.

Duncan also had a game-high seven rebounds while Brittany Wilson was also in double figures with 11 points.

Bryant was then fouled while driving to the basket and hit the first of two foul shots. Fordham grabbed the missed second attempt and tried to win at the finish but the shot was off the mark.

La Salle will be home Saturday night hosting Massachusetts at Tom Gola Arena while earlier in the day Temple will host Fordham.

Bonnies Keep Rolling

Being the top also-ran in this week’s Associated Press women’s poll, A-10 leader St. Bonaventure could finally make its debut next time around on Monday considering some teams in the lower part of the rankings are suffering losses.

The Bonnies kept their campaign going from their side in beating Duquesne and next host George Washington (10-11, 3-4) Saturday a day before the AP nationwide media panel casts the next set of ballots.

Coach Jim Crowley’s team used an 11-0 scoring run in the second half against the Dukes to gain control on the road at the A.J. Palumbo Center.

Jessica Jenkins, who was the national player of the week from the United States Basketball Writers Association prior to Connecticut’s Tiffany Hayes earning the nod this time around, scored 15 points while Chelsea Bowker scored 13 off the bench and Doris Ortega scored 10 to hand Duquesne its first home loss this season and first overall since almost a year ago when St. Joseph’s won in Pittsburgh.

The Bonnies two losses are to Villanova in Monmouth’s tourney and at home to No. 12 Delaware.

Duquesne, which got 14 points from Alex Gensler before fouling out, had won 13 straight at home. Wumi Agunbiade had 11 points and Jocelyn Floyd scored 10.

Vanessa Abel, the A-10 assist leader a year ago, missed her seventh straight game for coach Suzie McConnell-Serio with an ankle injury.

Jenkins, who recently became the A-10 career three-point scoring leader, now has 306.

In another A-10 game of note two-time defending champion Xavier (5-15, 2-5) won its second straight as Tyeasha Moss scored 23 points in a 67-57 win over visiting Saint Louis (7-15, 1-6) in Cincinnati.

Around The Nation

Baylor’s Brittney Griner had 18 points and Kimetria Hayden scored 15 in a Big 12 game that saw the top-ranked Bears win at Missouri 71-41 and remain one of two unbeaten Division I teams along with 10^th-ranked Wisconsin-Green Bay of the Horizon Conference, which was idle.

The Bears (22-0, 9-0 Big 12) have won all 22 games since the start of the season, including triumphs over Notre Dame, Tennessee, and Connecticut.

Destiny Williams added 10 points for Baylor and Odyssey Sims scored 12 while BreAnna Brock and Sydney Crafton each scored eight points for the host Tigers (10-10, 0-9).

In another Big 12 game of note involving AP ranked teams, No. 18 Texas A&M, the defending NCAA champion, topped No. 25 Texas Tech 67-55 on the road in Lubbock.

Sydney Carter had 17 points and Adaora Elonu scored 16 for the winning Aggies (15-6, 6-3), who are in a three-way tied for second behind Baylor with Kansas State (15-6, 6-3) and Oklahoma (14-6, 6-3).

The Red Raiders (15-6, 3-6), who have now lost six of seven games, got 14 points from Casey Morris.

Kansas State topped Texas 64-55 on the road in Austin to stay in the second place hunt at 15-6 and 6-3 while the Longhorns fell to 13-8 and 3-6.

Iowa State (12-8, 3-6) beat Oklahoma State 73-52 at home in Ames to drop the Cowgirls to 12-6 overall and 4-5 in the Big 12.

In the America East Hartford coach and former UConn star Jen Rizzotti picked up her 250^th victory as the host Hawks beat New Hampshire 64-46.

Alex Hall had a career-high 22 points for Hartford (14-10, 5-5 AEC) while rookie Amber Bepko became the third player in the program’s history to grab eight steals.

Morgan Frame had 13 points for New Hampshire (12-10, 5-5).

Boston U. (16-6, 9-0) stayed unbeaten in the AEC beating Vermont 72-64 for a home win over the Catamounts (9-14, 3-7).

In a Colonial Athletic Association game between rivals in the state of Virginia, two-time defending champion James Madison edged host Old Dominion in Norfolk 57-55 as Tarik Hislop scored with 3.7 seconds left for the Dukes.

Tia Lewis’s shot with 44 seconds left tied the score in the Ted Constant Center for the Lady Monarchs (7-15, 4-6), who now have suffered the second most losses in CAA play since becoming a member in the 1990s.

Lewis had 17 points and 10 rebounds for ODU while Kirby Burkholder had 20 points for the Dukes (16-5, 7-3), who were outrebounded 59-38.

ODU Sunday travels to second-place Hofstra, which will host William & Mary Thursday night. When the two met last month, Hofstra won a record shootout 100-97.

In other CAA games Thursday night the Guru will be at Drexel, which will be hosting George Mason. No. 12 Delaware, which has a two-game lead in the conference and whose only loss was at ACC-Maryland, will be going for a season sweep in North Carolina visiting UNCW.

In Atlantic Coast action Thursday, Maryland plays for the first time since the upset loss a week ago at home to Virginia Tech and will host Boston College while No. 5 Duke in its first game since Monday’s nonconference rout at home by No. 3 Connecticut will host Wake Forest.

No. 24 Georgia Tech, which entered the poll for the first time this season this week, will host North Carolina State.

In the Southeastern Conference No. 6 Kentucky, still potentially in the hunt for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, will host Mississippi while South Carolina, looking to get back in the rankings, visits No. 8 Tennessee.

In the Big Ten, No. 19 Penn State hosts Indiana while No. 16 Nebraska visits No. 15 Purdue as the Cornhuskers seek to move into a first-place tie with the Boilermakers.

Elena’s Efficiency

The Guru’s friends at Ladyswish.blogspot.com who chronicle all things Virginia basketball as well as paying attention to respective conferences such as the CAA, ACC, Big South, and MEAC, to name a few, posted an efficiency rating this week ranking players in the CAA.

But with Elena Delle Donne of Delaware, the nation’s leading scorer, also the top efficiency leader, here is some of what they said.

The Guru in the ranking only noted the top two in the CAA because of the wide distance between Delle Donne and the next person.

Go to the site, they could use the clicks, for the full details but here is an explanation of the chart along with other matters by the co-authors.

Who have been the most efficient players through the first half of the Colonial Athletic Association season?

Efficiency is a way of wrapping up a player's statistical contributions in one number.

The idea is to give a player credit for positive stats (points, assists, steals, etc.) and deduct for not-so-good numbers (missed shots, turnovers).

There are various methods of calculating it, but we'll use the NBA/WNBA formula, which is as follows:

((Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks) – ((Field Goals Att. – Field Goals Made) + (Free Throws Att. – Free Throws Made) + Turnovers))

In the same way the RPI shouldn't be used as the end-all guide for how teams rank, efficiency scores don't tell the whole story on how players rank.

For example, as is the case with any other stat we've seen in women's basketball, the ability to lock someone down defensively isn't measured (sorry, Nikki Newman).

Still, it is a good way to sum up a player's boxscore contributions, and let's face it, points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks are all anyone writes about in game stories anyway.

And if it's good enough for the NBA and WNBA, we figure it won't hurt for us to give it a whirl.

With that in mind, here are the Top 50 average player efficiency scores through nine CAA games:

1. Elena Delle Donne, Delaware - 30.4

NOTE: Delle Donne's average efficiency score for the whole season is 31.5. By comparison, Baylor's Brittney Griner is at 28.4, Stanford's Nneka Ogwumike checks in at 24.3 and Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins is at 19.2. So if anyone wants to make a case for Delle Donne as the national player of the year, this would be a great place to start.

2. Tia Lewis, Old Dominion - 19.1

And with that said, the Guru has heard some prominent CAA stars are running a campaign to have a coaches’ game after the annual banquet next month that launches the conference tournament.

The Guru suggested it be a North-South game with the North represented by Northeastern, Drexel, Delaware, Towson, George Mason and Hofstra.

The North would be loaded, especially off the Drexel staff, with the likes of former Villanova star Denise Dillon and assistants Amy Mallon (St. Joes) and Melissa Dunne (Temple).

Hofstra’s Krista Kilburn-Stevesky starred at North Carolina State.

Whether Delaware’s Tina Martin could be coaxed remains to be seen – EDD could threaten to jump immediately to the WNBA after the season – but assistants Tiara Malcom and Janine Radice are worthy participants.

In other news, Connecticut reportedly has about 500 seats remaining for Saturday night’s Big East visit from Rutgers, whose senior leader Khadijah Rushdan may still be sidelined with a concussion suffered in Sunday’s loss at Georgetown.

It is not known if the score from Tuesday’s rout at home by Notre Dame over the Scarlet Knights has been censored to prevent the fan base from losing interest.

And that’s the end for the next 24 hours.

- Mel

Guru's College Report: Notre Dame Routs Rutgers For 19th Straight

2012-02-01T06:52:00.003-05:00

Guru's note: Updating to include precision and rarity of Devereaux Peter's rebounding achievement that was communicated from Notre Dame.

By Mel Greenberg

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – These have not been the happiest of visits on the Big East tour for Notre Dame in the past.

There have been times that the No. 2 Irish have come visiting No. 13 Rutgers high on a built up series of successes and left here cut down to size by Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer and her defensive pressure schemes.

But things were much different Tuesday night to the point that Muffet McGraw, a Hall of Famer in her own right, made observations by WNBA scouts a moot point in terms of anticipating performances by seniors on both sides of a pair of nationally-ranked teams performing in a competitive environment.

Cheryl Reeve, coach of the WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx fresh off Monday night’s award from the Philadelphia Sportswriters Association – she’s a La Salle grad, was in the house.

Notre Dame (22-1, 9-0 Big East) arrived holding a series of buzz saw victories inside and out of the conference while Rutgers (17-5, 6-3) was reeling after a narrow escape from then-No. 23 DePaul at the last second a week ago and a lopsided loss Sunday at No. 20 Georgetown in Washington on Sunday.

Furthermore, Scarlet Knights senior Khadijah Rushdan, the savior of the win over DePaul and glue whose game talks more than her statistics, was sidelined for an indefinite period with a mild concussion suffered in the loss to the Hoyas less than 48 hours before.

So what surprises could Stringer spring under these circumstances?

Well, how about starting four very talented true freshmen for the first time since Feb. 6, 2005 along with junior forward-center Monique Oliver?

The move seemed a stroke of genius in the opening minutes though Stringer later said the young quartet needed to be thrown to the fire and considering the opposition it was as good a moment as any to learn who were the warriors for the stretch drive into the postseason.

Oliver scored nine of the Scarlet Knights’ first 11 points and Rutgers was dead even at 11-11 with the Irish as the clock showed 12 minutes, 38 seconds remaining in the first half.

But 15 seconds later Oliver picked up her second foul and went to the bench while Notre Dame launched a 15-2 run spurred by three 3-pointers from junior all-American Skylar Diggins and the Irish continued to unleash the full fury of their versatility on the way to a 71-41 rout.

“They don’t do anything spectacular but everything they do is efficient,” said one WNBA scout of Notre Dame while spouting a list of all that was excellent.

Diggins finished with 18 points, eligible graduate Deveraux Peters continued her double-double assault, especially on the backboards with 10 points and 17 rebounds, while Kayla McBride double doubled her way into 13 points and 10 rebounds and Natalie Achonwa had 15 points and seven rebounds off the bench.

The 52-24 assault on the boards, including 23-10 on the offensive end, was terrifying to the Rutgers’ portion of the crowd of 3,530 at the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center but equally delightful to the Notre Dame contingent that included McGraw’s teammates from her days as a Big Five all-star at St. Joseph’s University down the road in Philadelphia.

Former Rutgers coach Theresa Grentz, another Hall of Famer, who coached McGraw at St. Joseph’s was also in the house.

Oliver became the lone scoring star for Rutgers with 17 points and nine rebounds. April Sykes off the bench was held to two points on a 1-for-9 effort from the floor.

“You can’t really key on one person,” McGraw noted. “We’re a team that has a lot of different weapons. It could be anyone’s game. Natalie coming off the bench provided a spark for us.”

The Scarlet Knights’ shooting was as dismal as in Sunday’s loss but this time at a season-low 30.2 percent from the floor

And things don’t look much promising directly ahead considering next up is a trip to No. 3 Connecticut Saturday night in the Huskies’ Gampel Pavilion on campus in Storrs.

It’s the first time Notre Dame, the NCAA national runnerup from last season, had beaten Rutgers three straight including a first-ever back-to-back set of wins in the Scarlet Knights’ home.

“I was pleased with our defense,” said McGraw, whose previous trip to North Jersey earlier last month produced a suffocation of Seton Hall up the road.

Notre Dame was in the metro area on Saturday in nearby Jamaica, N.Y., where the Irish posted a lop-sided win at St. John’s.

“Coming into a hostile environment, it took a while to get ourselves together,” McGraw said. “We shot the three pretty well in the first half but we didn’t want to settle for that so in the second half we did a better job attacking the basket.”

Peters’ three-straight games of 15 or more rebounds dates back to the 1970s in terms of finding the last Irish player to achieve that feat while her consecutive streak of three straight double doubles is the first by a Notre Dame player since Jacqueline Batteast in the 2004 NCAA tournament.

“I’m realizing my time’s almost up,” said Peters. “I want to make the most of it. I’m a fifth-year senior and I want to get our team winning and go as far as we can.”

No Notre Dame player has accomplished the feat of three straight games of 15 or more rebounds since Feb. 16-24, 1979, when Jane Politiski did so during the program's AIAW Division III era at Marion (21 rebounds on Feb. 16), and then in all three games of the AIAW Division III North District Tournament in Rensselaer, Ind. on consecutive days against Valparaiso (15 rebounds on Feb. 22), Saint Mary's (Ind.) College (18 rebounds on Feb. 23) and the host St. Joseph's College (16 rebounds on Feb. 24).

Peters is the fifth Notre Dame player to record three 15-rebound games in one season, with Katryna Gaither the last to do so (four in 1996-97), along with two seasons from Letitia Bowen (three in 1992-93, four in 1993-94), one from Shari Matvey (five in 1979-80) and two from Politiski (school-record seven in 1977-78, four in 1978-79).

Notre Dame has won 19 straight since suffering the lone loss of the season at top-ranked Baylor and the victims list prior to Rutgers includes Duke, Kentucky, Tennessee and Connecticut heading into Sunday’s contest with DePaul.

On the other side, with Stringer, who took a traditional while to appear at her portion of the postgame press conference and knowing how dismayed she gets in defeat, it was expected that she was going to reel off a bunch of misdeeds on the floor committed by her players.

But carrying a bit of a realism, including the nature of the opposition, Stringer was surprisingly positive and even looked back to history a bit referencing some struggles in the closing days of the 2007 season before upsetting Connecticut in the Big East tournament title game and going on to advance through the NCAAs all the way to the championship contest against Tennessee.

“Anytime you have four freshman and a junior to take on the No. 2 team in the nation, and they did,” Stringer said. “They kept their heads up. The thing is we wanted them to hold on for the first 10 minutes. And they did and it’s a good feeling.

“We played hard, we missed a lot of shots. We can’t give up as many rebounds. Aside that Notre Dame is a great team. We were trying to adjust,” Stringer alluded to Rushdan’s absence.

“Overall as a group, I thought they held their heads up,” she added. “You might say, `How does 30 points (differential) look?’ Well, it looks real bad. But I don’t measure that. I measure winning and losing not necessarily by the score but by the attitude.

“And if you go by our attitude, we won. I’m not upset. I’ve been plenty upset when we lost games and I felt we gave up and we dropped our heads. I don’t think we dropped our heads. I think what this game has done or hope it will is to signal to the freshmen, who need to get better, and the upper classmen need to tighten up their game a whole heck of a lot.

“If this game is a measuring stick – all the small things that seem boring, we’re going to have to focus on that. We were able to get away with some things we need to work on a lot more.

“We should not drop our heads. We should not be discouraged. We need to establish that the freshmen play with no fear. The upper classmen will get it together. Maybe we can pull this thing together.”

Villanova Tops Seton Hall

Securing a win that was a necessity on the Big East circuit, the Wildcats topped the Pirates 62-53 at home in the Pavilion to improve to 14-8 overall and 4-5 in the conference.

Villanova has a strong RPI that has the Wildcats projected into the NCAA tournament right now but the reality is they need to finish much better than the 12th place the Big East coaches forecasted for them in the preseason poll.

Another opportunity for a win is available Saturday when Providence visits. The Wildcats previously beat the Friars earlier in the season in Rhode Island.

In Tuesday night’s game, Lauren Buford had 17 points, Laura Sweeney scored 16 and Rachel Roberts had 10.
Villanova also was on target beyond the perimeter knocking down 12 of 27 three-point attempts.

Jasmine Crew had 24 points, the lone player in double figures for Seton Hall (7-16, 0-9), whose nonconference wins include a home triumph of Drexel.

But Sweeney and Crew tied for game honors with nine rebounds each.

Devon Kane, the Big East’s top foul shooter with a .916 average, has made 33 of her last 34 for Villanova, which is 5-0 when Roberts and Buford each score in double figures.

DePaul Upsets Louisville

The Blue Demons, who were bounced from the Associated Press Poll this week and are making do with just seven players after a series of injuries, including a season-ending knee operation to senior Keisha Hampton out of Philadelphia, could be on the way back to the rankings after upsetting No. 14 Louisville 86-61 at home in Chicago though Notre Dame is next up on the schedule Sunday.

Anna Martin had 19 points and Katherine Harry had a career-high 20 rebounds and six assists for DePaul (17-6, 5-4 Big East).

The win was the Blue Demons’ second straight after a crucial loss at the finish at Rutgers that resulted after holding a 16-point lead in the second half.

Brittany Hrynko scored 18 points, Jasmine Penny and Harry scored 14 each, and Megan Rogowski had 11 for DePaul, which went wire-to-wire against the Cardinals (17-5, 6-3) after taking the lead from the outset.

Louisville, which rallied to beat Villanova at home Saturday for the Cardinals’ third straight, got 14 points from Shoni Schimmel while Asia Taylor had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Philadelphia U. Triumphs

The Division II Rams got a career-high 33 points from senior Christine Wooding in a 74-43 road win at Wilmington (Del.) to stay in the hunt with a 16-2 record in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference to go with an overall mark of 16-5.

Wooding also grabbed 17 rebounds while Kristen Blye scored 11 points and Najah Roberts got 10 points off the bench.

Erin Moore and Lauren Brown each scored 12 points for Wilmington (1-15, 0-11 CACC).

Philadelphia U. next hosts Concordia (N.Y.) in a conference game 2 p.m. Saturday in the Gallagher Center.

Looking Ahead

On Wednesday night Temple visits St. Joseph’s at Hagan Arena at 7 p.m. in the first of two meetings between the two local rivals though this one only counts in the Atlantic 10 Conference standings and not the Big Five where the Owls, Hawks, and La Salle are both fighting to finish second behind Villanova, which claimed the title on a 4-0 sweep.

Temple and St. Joseph’s are both on the NCAA bubble, at best, for the moment, in terms of getting an at-large bid if neither were to not emerge as the Atlantic 10 champs at the conference tournament on Hawk Hill next month.

The host Hawks are looking to snap an 11-game losing streak to the Owls, who besides the lone buzzer-beating setback are 17-1 in the last 18 games against St. Joseph’s.

La Salle looking to break a losing streak, visits Fordham, whom the Explorers already beat at the Tom Gola Arena in an early A-10 tilt.

On Thursday night in Colonial Athletic Association action Drexel hosts George Mason while No. 12 Delaware visits UNCW, whom the first-place Blue Hens already defeated once at home in the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark.

Penn State, looking to bounce back from an upset loss at Michigan State, will host Indiana.

On Friday, Princeton ends a three-week break for finals and hosts Yale in pursuit of the Tigers’ third straight Ivy title while Penn will host Brown at the Palestra.

The two visitors then exchange arena stops on Saturday night with Yale at Penn and Brown at Princeton.

Also on Saturday in the Atlantic 10, Fordham visits Temple, and St. Joseph’s travels to Richmond.

As mentioned, Villanova hosts Providence and Rutgers travels to Connecticut.

On Sunday, Virginia Commonwealth visits Delaware and Drexel travels to Northeastern in the CAA, while Penn State travels to Minnesota in the Big Ten.

The Guru will be at the St. Joseph’s-Temple game tweeting at @womhoopsguru and also will be back on the blog in the next 24 hours.

-- Mel

Guru's USBWA Talk: Delle Donne and Hayes Among Key Candidates

2012-01-31T05:30:00.002-05:00

(Guru's note: There is a post under this in blogspot looking at the Maggie Dixon rookie coach contenders. Also AP Poll notes, some NCAA outlook, and other items. If you are in melgreenberg.com, just click the mel's blog button on the left to get to the archives.)

By Mel Greenberg

At one point back in time Connecticut’s Tiffany Hayes and Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne would be sharing the UConn roster as senior classmates on the No. 3 Huskies.

Instead they’re in a competition of sorts for the United States Basketball Writers’ Association (USBWA) new national player of the week.

Down the road they might even cross paths in the NCAA tournament if one mock bracket scenario plays out, though much needs to occur first before that would become a reality.

Meanwhile, the USBWA pool of candidates – the winner is announced early Tuesday afternoon – is derived from the list of 31 conference players of the week awards.

Delle Donne, who ultimately decided to attend Delaware and forego her UConn scholarship back in 2008, has already gained one USBWA award this season. This week she picked up another honor from the Colonial Athletic Association after averaging 32.0 points, including a 41-point effort against Hofstra, and 12.0 rebounds.

While Connecticut is way up the Associated Press poll list, Delle Donne has moved the Blue Hens into the rankings for the first time this season and Delaware is making strides up the ladder having jumped from 15th to 12th this week.

Hayes, who won the Big East award, became the first UConn player to score an overall total of 68 points in consecutive games and averaged 34.0 points and 8.5 rebounds in Huskies wins over Syracuse and South Florida.

Meanwhile Stanford’s Chiney Oguwmike whose older sister Nneka on the Cardinal has already won a USBWA award is knocking on the door again this week after picking up her third straight honor from the PAC-12, this time for her one-game 27-point, 18-rebound performance in a 74-71 overtime win against California.

Brittney Griner of top-ranked Baylor, also a USBWA honoree this season, picked up her fourth weekly Big 12 award from a media panel after averaging 23.0 points, 6.5 rebounds and six blocks in two conference wins by the Bears.

Temple’s Shey Peddy picked up two honors as Big Five player of the week in Philadelphia and as Atlantic 10 conference player of the week with an average of 20.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists in two wins by the Owls, who have an important showdown at St. Joseph’s Wednesday night.

Speaking of Philadelphia, Vanderbilt’s Christina Foggie, who is from the Philly burbs in Mount Laurel, N.J., was honored by the Southeastern Conference for her 34 points in the Commodores upset of nationally-ranked Georgia.

In the America East, New Hampshire’s Morgan Frame averaged 17.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists in two wins to move closer in the standings to front-running Boston University.

Fairfield’s Taryn Johnson averaged 15.0 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists in two wins to pick up the weekly award in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

The Ivy League honored Janna Graf for averaging 17.5 points and 7.0 rebounds in leading Yale to two wins.
Virginia Tech’s Monet Tellier scored 31 points in the Hokies’ upset at Maryland to gained the nod from the Blue Ribbon committee that selects the honorees each week in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Ki-Ki Moore of Fresno State averaged 23.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.7 steals in two wins to gain the Western Athletic Conference’s weekly kudo.

Conference-USA honored Memphis’ Jasmine Lee for averaging 20.5 points and 13.0 rebounds in a pair of wins.

Megan Herbert of Central Arkansas is the Southland player of the week after averaging 29.0 points in a pair of wins.

In the Mountain West, San Diego State’s Courtney Clements averaged 20.0 points and 5.5 rebounds in a pair of wins by the Aztecs.

The Missouri Valley Conference cited Rachel Hackbarth of Drake after averaging 22.5 points and 11 rebounds. She leads the MVC in both categories.

Though the following is not in the USBWA mix, this is as good a place as any to announce that University of Sciences freshman Brianne Traub averaged 20.3 points and 6.7 rebounds to pick up another rookie honor from the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference in Division II.

Again, much quality to choose from in making the pick. Look for a Guru tweet at @womhoopsguru early Tuesday afternoon once the USBWA sends the winner around.

- Mel

Guru's College Report: A Look At The Maggie Dixon Award Chase

2012-01-31T05:17:00.003-05:00

(Guru’s note. Highlights candidates for the weekly USBWA national player award are in the blog above this one. Also, the Guru has a print notebook in Philly.com setting up Temple-St. Joseph’s and talking to Jess Knapp, who is now back in action at Penn playing with an ACL.)

By Mel Greenberg

Back in mid-December it was noted the nonconference records were so mediocre for the most part among the newcomers to Division I head coaching jobs that conference competition might be where the winner of this year’s Maggie Dixon Award may be decided before the presentation by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association at the Women’s Final Four in Denver.

Here then is the update with the frontrunners sorted to the top.

Records are through Monday night’s games of Jan. 30.

Jen Hoover (High Point) 14-6, 9-0 1st Big South: School last year: 16-15.

Cara Consuega (Charlotte) Rec: 13-8, 5-2 fourth in Atlantic 10; School last year: 27-10 WNIT semifinals.

Jennifer Gross (Cal-Davis) Rec: 13-7, 5-3 (3-way tie for second in Big West. School last year: 24-9 Big West Champs. She moved up off a retirement.

Zenarae Antonie (Texas State) 12-7, 4-2 tied for second in Southland: School last year: 9-20. She had been on Tom Collen’s Arkansas staff.

Jenny Palmateer (Monmouth, N.J.) 12-9, 7-3 3rd NE Conference: School last year: 23-10.

Marlene Stollings (Winthrop) 11-10, 5-4 tied third Big South: School last year: 13-18.

Cori Close (UCLA) Rec: 10-10, 5-4 tied for fourth in Pac-12; School last year: 28-5. The Bruins have been hard hit by injuries, especially one to Jasmine Dixon, who previously played at Rutgers.

Charlotte Smith (Elon) 10-11, 6-6, 6th Southern : School last year: 20-13.

Carlene Mitchell (UCSB) 8-11, 3-5 7th Big West: School last year: 19-12.

Amy Waugh (Xavier) 4-15, 1-5 13th A-10: School last year: 29-3. But Musketeers graduated two WNBA first round picks and a three-point shooting ace transferred to Maryland.

Oties Epps (Evansville) 4-16, 1-8, Last place Missouri Valley. School last year: 8-22. He was a Wisconsin assistant.

Dennis Wolf (Va. Tech) 7-15, 3-6, 9th ACC: School last year: 11-19

JD Gravina (W. Illinois) 8-13, 4-6 tied 7th Summit: School last year: 8-21.

Bobbie Kelsey (Wisconsin) 8-13, 4-5 tied 7th Big Ten : School last year: 16-15.

Yvonne Sanchez (New Mexico) 6-14, 0-6 tied for seventh Mountain West: School last year: 13-18.

Wendy Palmer (UNC Greensboro) 3-17, 2-10 tied last Southern: School last year: 13-16.

Ty Margenthaler (SE Missouri) 5-17, 2-7 tied ninth Ohio Valley: School last year: 8-21. He was also a Wisconsin assistant.

Bethann Shapiro Ord (Weber State) 2-19, 0-8 last Big Sky: School last year: 3-21.

Greg McCall (Cal St. Bakerfield) 4-19 (Indp). School last year: 22-12. He moved up.

Beth O’Boyle (Stony Brook) 4-18, 1-8 last America East: School last year: 7-23. She was an aide at Canisius.

Nicci Hays-Fort (Colgate 5-17, 2-5 tied 7th Patriot; School last year: 7-22. They just snapped 10-game opening losing streak by beating Wagner.

The one element needed to be determined is that after the tragic loss of Oklahoma State coach Kurt Budke in a plane crash in November, Jim Littell after being promoted to interim coach was made head coach and the Cowgirls currently are 12-5 overall and 4-4 in the Big 12. That would make him a frontrunner if he is eligible for consideration, though much basketball is still to be played.

AP Poll Notes

Wisconsin-Green Bay made its first-ever appearance in the Top 10 and is 10th with the only Division I unbeaten record besides Baylor.

Delaware’s ranking of 12th is the highest for a team out of the Colonial Athletic Association since Old Dominion was 11th in the final poll of the 2007-08 season.

If the Blue Hens get to ninth, that will be the highest for a CAA team since Old Dominion’s sixth place finish in the final poll of the 1995-96 season.

DePaul’s exit means the Big East is reduced to a tie with the Atlantic Coast Conference with five teams each in this week’s rankings. Georgia Tech moved in to gain the ACC tie. The Big 10 has four teams, the Big 12 and SEC have three each, the West Coast has two reps, and the Pac-12, CAA and Horizon have one each.

Baylor coach Kim Mulkey moved into a tie for 25th with former Nebraska/Western Kentucky coach Paul Sanderford on the all-time AP list with 182 appearances and next week will tie WNBA Washington Mystics assistant Marianne Stanley at 24th.

Stanley picked up her numbers at Old Dominion, Southern Cal., and a one-year stint at Stanford when Tara VanDerveer was coaching the Olympic team in 1995-96.

St. Bonaventure just missed making its debut and now have a tough Atlantic 10 game Wednesday at Duquesne.

NCAA Outlook

With Duke losing to Connecticut Monday night at home in Durham, N.C., if the bracket were drawn today the winning Huskes, Notre Dame, Stanford and Baylor would likely be the No. 1 seeds.

The only other team capable right now of getting into the mix is Kentucky depending what the Wildcats and the others do.

Delaware’s RPI continues to be amazingly strong, registering a six on the NCAA’s official weekly RPI ranking, as well as the same ranking on Jim Sukup’s RPI publication as well as RealtimeRPI.com.

Villanova is at 15 and a strength of schedule at three but while bracketologists have the Wildcats in the tournament, the reality is they will have to finish in the middle of the Big East pack, which is mathematically possible right now, but maybe not realistically so.

Looking Ahead

Seton Hall, coached by Anne Donovan visits Villanova Tuesday night but the Guru will forego that Big East game to be up the road at Rutgers for the showdown with Notre Dame in the conference.

Khadijah Rushdan suffered a mild concussion in Sunday’s loss and won’t play until possibly the Connecticut game in Storrs Saturday night if cleared.

That’s it for now until early Tuesday afternoon.

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: Temple Still Streaking Through A-10

2012-01-30T01:25:00.002-05:00

(Guru's note: Material and quotes beyond the Temple game site Sunday drawn on wire and team reports).

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – Temple has turned what seemed a death march on the front part of the Owls’ Atlantic 10 portion of the season schedule into potentially a life-saving experience in terms of continuing to appear in the NCAA tournament.

Though having lost at home to conference-leading St. Bonaventure, the Owls have since defeated what can be considered the premium group of opponents with one left on Wednesday night at 7 when Temple travels to play St. Joseph’s (14-6, 4-2 A-10) at the Hawks’ Hagan Arena.

That is not the double counter in terms of the Big Five, which will be later next month when St. Joseph’s visits the Liacouras Center.

Temple made Charlotte the latest victim Sunday afternoon, beating the 49ers 65-55 in the Liacouras Center to move into third place a half game behind Dayton, whom the Owls have beaten on the road.

Charlotte (13-8, 5-2 A-10) found a way to lasso the Owls’ backcourt in the second half but not before Shey Peddy and Kristen McCarthy each scored 19 points in the opening period. McCarthy finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds while Peddy scored 22.

Temple (12-8, 5-1) recently changed to a taller lineup with both Joelle Connelly and Victoria Macaulay making contributions in the post. On Sunday Connelly, a transfer from Hofstra who became eligible last season, had six points and four rebounds while Macaulay had eight points and five rebounds.

The Owls’ defensive effort was also prominent again this time forcing the 49ers into 20 turnovers compared to Temple’s 10 and in transition outscored Charlotte 20-6.

Jai Forney had 16 points and nine rebounds for the visitors and Gabby Tyler scored 10 but keying on the opposition’s top scorer, Temple held Jennifer to four points and five rebounds, well off her 13.6 points per game and 9.7 rebounds per game averages.

“I thought it was a really good win for us against a really good Charlotte team—a team that’s physical – they’ve got good inside-outside play and guys that do a really good job on the backboards and I thought our guys did a really good job of getting on the offensive boards as well and try to limit as much as possible Charlotte’s offensive boards,” Temple coach Tonya Cardoza said.

Though to outsiders Temple’s schedule would seem to ease after playing St. Joseph’s, Cardoza will hear none of that talk, taking each game one at a time to try to keep the win streak going until the end of the regular season.

The Atlantic 10 tournament will be across town at St. Joseph’s in March.

“We don’t have one more big one – we have eight,” Cardoza said of a conference that has become wide open since two-time defending champion Xavier graduated all-Americans Ta’Shia Phillips and Amber Harris.

“We have to take care of each game – we’re not worried about St. Bonaventure (20-2, 7-0) any more,” she added. “That was our opportunity and we let it slip away.

“We’re just focusing on the game in front of us – looking and hoping to play good basketball and whatever happens at the end, happens.”

Charlotte is under new coach Cara Consuegra, a 2001 graduate of Iowa who had been associate head coach at Marquette in the Big East and before that the director of basketball operations at Penn State.

“Temple is a tough team and certainly McCarthy and Peddy gave us great games,” Consuegra said of her first experience playing the Owls. “I was disappointed in our team. I felt we didn’t make them work hard enough, they’re two good guards that if you give them open shots, they’re not going to miss them.

“We needed to just a better job checking them and finding them. They’re a great team and certainly play well on their home court and for us we just hope we get another chance to play them,” she added.

“Temple is very well balanced – the one thing that stands out to me is they know their roles and they don’t try to do anything they’re not supposed to do. They know their place on the team and that makes them dangerous.”

Consuegra is in just a small group of new Division I first-time coaches with winning records making her a prime candidate for the Maggie Dixon rookie coach of the year award from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.

Delaware Rallies Drexel Falls

In the Colonial Athletic Association 15th-ranked Delaware found a way to keep streaking and win its third straight conference 1 vs. 2 game beating host James Madison 72-65 after the first-place Blue Hens (18-1, 9-0 CAA) rallied from a seven-point deficit over the Dukes (15-5, 6-3).

Hofstra topped host Drexel 68-61 in the Daskalakis Athletic Center in a much closer contest to complete a sweep of the Dragons (10-9, 6-3) as the Pride (15-5, 7-2) moved into sole possession of second place two games behind Delaware.

James Madison and Drexel fell into a third-place tie with UNC Wilmington (13-7, 6-3), which beat Towson 76-61 but if the season ended today Drexel would have the third seed for the CAA tournament having beaten JMU and UNCW on the road.

In the Delaware game, junior Elena Delle Donne, the nation’s leading scorer, had 23 points and nine rebounds while Lauren Carra scored a season-high 22 points.

Two years ago Delle Donne as a freshman scored 54 points at the JMU Convocation Center in a loss in overtime and the Blue Hens also lost to the two-time defending conference champions in the CAA title game last March after pulling two upsets as a 7th seed to advance.

Danielle Parker scored 10 points as the Blue Hens jettisoned a nine-game losing streak against the Dukes.

Delaware, the nation’s second best foul shooting team prior to the contest, went 33 of 37 at the line.

"I'm not going to lie, it was a little nerve-racking out there, and we, at one point, were kind of letting it slip away when we weren't grabbing the rebounds and weren't getting the loose balls," Delle Donne said of the second straight game the Blue Hens had to fight back.

On Thursday, Hofstra bolted to an early lead on the Blue Hens’ court before Delaware rallied.

"I still felt confident in our team. I know the type of fight we had in us . and that's what a championship team does,” Delle Donne said. “And I think that's something we'll be able to build on throughout the year and look back on this win and see that took a lot of grit."

On Sunday, the Dukes forced Delle Donne into a mediocre 5-of-17 effort from the field but these days Delaware’s other options such as Carra are making the Blue Hens more than a one-star show.

"We executed better offensively, overall," Delaware coach Tina Martin said of the way the game went. "JMU likes to run and push and has really good athletes. You can't turn the ball over. If you do that, you're in trouble."

James Madison’s Tarik Hislop scored her 1,000th career point and finished with 17 for the game while Kirby Burkholder scored 15 points and Jasmine Gill had 10.

The Dukes travel to Old Dominion on Wednesday night.

"We talked a lot at halftime about being composed on offense," Martin said. "I thought we made a lot of mistakes early on offense that led to some turnovers, which is not something that's happened to us recently."

Delaware travels to UNCW Thursday attempting to complete a season-sweep before returning home Sunday to host Virginia Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, Hofstra outscored Drexel 23-8 at the outset of the second half to gain control as Katelyn Roper finished with 21 points and seven rebounds, and Shante Evans, a graduate of Henderson High in West Chester in the western Philadelphia suburbs, had nine points, which ended a 31-game streak of scoring 10 or more points, which had been fifth longest in the nation.

Drexel, which will host George Mason Thursday, got 22 points from Kamile Nacickaite.

Penn Downed By Cornell

In a homecoming victory of sorts for Cornell coach Dayna Smith, the Big Red defeated the Quakers 67-53 in the Palestra in front of 1,081 spectators for the largest home crowd of the year.

Smith was an assistant to former coach Kelly Greenberg, now at America East-leading Boston U., when the Quakers won their first of two Ivy titles.

Alyssa Baron had 24 points for Penn (8-9, 1-2 Ivy), which will host Yale and Brown Friday and Saturday nights. Jackie Kates had 10 points.

Clare Fitzpatrick had 14 points for Cornell (8-9, 2-1) pacing three other teammates in double figures including Allyson DiMagno, who had 10 points and 10 rebounds.

League-leading Princeton’s three-week vacation for final exams will end Friday night when Brown visits before Yale is at Jadwin Gym on Saturday.

Rutgers’ Offense Comes Up Nil In Loss At Georgetown

At one time in early January it seemed No. 11 Rutgers would be barreling into the high point of the Scarlet Knights’ schedule in trying to make a statement in the Big East Conference when No. 2 Notre Dame visits the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center on Tuesday night and then Rutgers travels to No. 2 Connecticut at the Huskies’ Gampel Pavilion arena on campus in Storrs on Saturday.

But now the games have become really formidable in terms of trying to hold position following a recent upset loss at unranked St. John’s, a last-second escape at home over No. 23 DePaul, 65-64, and Sunday’s disastrous 54-36 defeat at No. 20 Georgetown in Washington.

Tia Magee had 21 points for the Hoyas (17-5, 6-3 Big East) while Sugar Rodgers added 19 points.

Rutgers (17-4, 6-2), barely holding third place in an identical tie with No. 16 Louisville a half-game ahead of Georgetown, got 13 points from April Sykes.

The Scarlet Knights shot a poorly 30.8 percent from the field and missed all 14 three-point attempts.

More important, senior Khadijah Rushdan, Rutgers’ second leading scorer, went down with an apparent head injury late in the first half, was helped off the floor in a wheel chair, but returned to the bench in the second half.

Scarlet Knights’ Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer said Rushdan would receive a further medical evaluation on Monday and her status for Tuesday’s home game with Notre Dame is unknown.

If Rushdan is out for any length of time, her absence could be costly, though she certainly could continue to provide leadership from the bench and in the locker room.

Penn State Upset At Michigan State

No. 18 Penn State joined No. 9 Ohio State Sunday in being unable to take advantage of No. 13 and first-place Purdue’s upset Saturday loss to unranked Iowa in the Big Ten conference.

Michigan State gained a season sweep and an 83-77 ambush of the Lady Lions (16-5, 6-3 Big 10) at home in East Lansing as Porsche Poole had a career-high 34 points for the Spartans (13-9, 5-4).

Maggie Lucas had 21 points and Mia Nickson had 18 for Penn State, which stayed in fourth place falling a game behind second-place Ohio State and No. 19 Nebraska.

Minnesota (12-11, 4-5) shocked the Buckeyes 76-65 as Rachel Banham scored 20 points for the host Gophers in Minneapolis.
Ohio State (20-2, 7-2) fell into a second-place tie with No. 19 Nebraska (18-3, 7-2).

Samantha Prahalis had 19 of her 25 points in the second half for the Buckeyes, who also got a game-high 26 points from Tayler Hill.

Nebraska moved into a tie with Ohio State by winning at Illinois 67-47 as Lindsey Moore scored 20 points for the visiting Cornhuskers in Champaign.

Ivory Crawford had 12 points for the Illini (7-15, 1-8).

Miami Keeps Heat On Duke

In the Atlantic Coast Conference No. 10 Miami won at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass., 88-57 as Shenise Johnson had 16 of her 22 points in the first half for the winning Hurricanes (19-3, 8-1 ACC), who are in second place just a half-game behind No. 5 Duke (17-2, 8-0).

The idle Blue Devils are hosting No. 3 Connecticut Monday night in a nonconference game in Durham, N.C., that will have implications involving the race for No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament.

Tessah Holt had 12 points for the host Eagles (5-16, 0-8),

No. 25 North Carolina (16-5, 6-2), holding third place and trying to stay in the AP poll, edged host Wake Forest 75-71 in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Tierra Ruffin-Pratt collected 19 of her 21 points in the secondhalf for the Tarh Heels, while teammates Chay Shegog (19 points, 10 rebounds) and Laura Broomfield (20 points, 18 rebounds) each had double doubles.

Lakevia Boykin scored 21 points for Wake Forest (12-9, 2-6), which held a four-point lead with four minutes left in regulation.

Elsewhere in the ACC, Ariana Moorer had 15 points to lead host Virginia (16-7, 4-5) to a 62-52 win over Florida State (12-11, 4-5) at home in the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville and move to a three-way with the Seminoles and North Carolina State (14-8, 4-5) for sixth.

The Wolfpack became part of the tie after a 63-52 win over Virginia Tech (7-15, 3-6).

Georgia Tech (16-6, 6-3) moved into fourth a half-game in front of idle Maryland and one half behind UNC by gaining a 63-54 win over Clemson (5-14, 1-7).

Kentucky Still Pacing The SEC

Keyla Snowden had 14 points and A’dia Mathies had 13 as No. 6 Kentucky beat visiting Alabama 82-68 and the Wildcats (20-2, 9-0 SEC) remain unbeaten and in first place in the Southeastern Conference.

The Crimson Tide (10-12, 0-8) are in last place and still winless.

No. 7 Tennessee (16-5, 7-1) in second place in the SEC completed a sweep of No. 17 Georgia with a 67-50 road win over the host Lady Bulldogs (16-6, 5-4) in Athens.

Shekinna Stricklen had 24 points for the Lady Vols, while Meridith Mitchell had 13 for Georgia, which fell into fourth place a game behind South Carolina (17-5, 6-3), which advanced beating Mississippi State 69-43.

Texas A&M Survives Iowa State

The defending NCAA champion Aggies got a pair of free throws from Sydney Carter with 2.4 seconds left and No. 14 Texas A&M (14-5, 5-3) moved into a four-way tie for second in the Big 12 with Kansas (16-4, 5-3), Kansas State (14-6, 5-3) and Oklahoma (13-6, 5-3) three games behind top-ranked Baylor (21-0, 8-0).

The Cyclones (11=8, 2-6) are in ninth place in the 10-team conference.

Adaora Elonu scored 19 points for Texas A&M, which also got 14 from Tyra White, while Iowa State’s Chelsea Poppens had 22 points and nine rebounds.

And that’s Sunday’s news. The Guru will return in the next 24 hours, maybe even sooner with some NCAA talk and other discussions.

-- Mel

Guru's Report: Kuester Keeps St. Joseph's In A-10 Title Race

2012-01-28T18:57:00.002-05:00

(Guru's Note: Updating for later Saturday games and a note about Tiffany Hayes not making the midseason Wooden watch list.)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA -- St. Joseph's senior Katie Kuester went bananas on the scoreboard Saturday afternoon scoring a near-career high 20 points as the Hawks beat Duquesne 72-51 in a key Atlantic 10 game at Hagan Arena to stay in the top of the tightly-packed conference standings.

"It's funny, our other shooting guard Shelby Smith gave me a banana before the game as she swears that's what made me shoot better," said Kuester, who was 7-for-11 from the field and 6-for-9 on three-point attempts.

"But I haven't been shooting well, that's obvious from the stats, but shooters keep shooting and that's what my coaches have been telling me so I just tried to execute and stay with the game plan and luckily they fell today."

St. Joseph's (14-6, 4-2 A-10) was coming off a tough 68-61 loss Wednesday night at conference frontrunner St. Bonaventure.

"We battled. They're a very talented team. We hope we get another chance at them at the A-10 tournament (at St. Joseph's) but to bounce back going into Temple Wednesday, it was a good win."

Kuester is the daughter of John Kuester, the former NBA Detroit Pistons coach who is now an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Hawks moved into sole possession for fifth place though the standings will change again Sunday following the conclusion of the battle between Temple (11-8, 4-1) and Charlotte (13-7, 5-1) in town at the Owls' Liacouras Center.

St. Bonaventure (20-2, 7-0) stayed unbeaten a game in front after winning in town here 75-57 at La Salle (9-12, 3-3).

Dayton (14-5, 6-1) is in second after a 74-56 win at George Washington (10-11, 3-4) followed by Charlotte, Temple and then the Hawks.

Duquesne fell to 15-6 overall and 3-3 in the conference.

St. Joseph's, which had not been shooting well, sizzled Saturday with a 53.7 percent effort from the field as Michelle Baker added 13 points, and Samira Van Grinsven and Ashley Prim scored 10 each.

Kelly Cavallo grabbed 10 rebounds.

Duquesne's Alex Gensler scored 17 points and Carly Vendemia scored 13.

"I thought it was a great game to come home to -- Katie Kuester got us off to a great start making shots early, giving us momentum, giving us some cushion and the other kids stepped up," St. Joseph's coach Cindy Griffin said.

"To have 20 field goal assists out of 29 (made shots) says a lot about this team and how we moved the ball today," Griffin said.

"We're taking it one game at a time. We had a chance to beat 'Bonnies and we beat ourselves in a lot of regards and certainly we wanted to learn from that and move on and that's what we did today," she noted.

"We were very efficient with our offense and our defense was tremendous again. We did a nice job on their top three kids."

Duquesne was held to 34.4 percent.

Discussing Kuester's performance, Dukes coach Suzie Serio-McConnell, the former Penn State all-American, Olympic gold medalist, as well as WNBA all-star and coach, noted, "She hadn't had a game like that all season.

"But still the type of shooter she is and what she is capable of doing, obviously we didn't challenge her like we needed to -- she made great plays. We couldn't finish. A lot of disappointing things in my mind. St. Joseph's played a great game and we didn't compete."

In one of the ironies of life, one of the officials working the game was former Tennessee star Dawn Marsh, a contemporary of Allentown's Michelle Marciniak on the Lady Vols back in the day.

"Yeah, I played against her," McConnell-Serio said. "We beat them my senior year."

Meanwhile, in the La Salle game, the Explorers' Jada Payne was held to 11 points, while Nadia Duncan and Alexis Scott scored 10 each,

The Bonnies' Jessica Jenkins, selected national player of the week Tuesday by the United States Basketball Writers Association, scored 28 points, while Megan Van Tatenhove had 16 points, while Doris Ortega scored 12.

Coach Jim Crowley's squad had been nearing a first-ever appearance in the Associated Press women's poll with the Bonnies' only loss were to Villanova in Monmouth's tournament and at home to No. 15 Delaware.

In another Atlantic 10 game of note two-time defending conference champion Xavier, decimated by the graduation of two all-Americans and the transfer of the Musketeers' best outside shooter finally won a conference game as well as snapping an 11-game losing streak.

Xavier (4-15, 1-5) got a career-high 27 points from Tyeasha Moss in a 67-57 win at Rhode Island (1-20, 0-6) while Jessica Pachko scored 14 points.

In two Atlantic Ten games later in the day stretching into the night Fordham topped host Massachusetts 56-54 as the Rams reached .500 overall at 11-11 and improved to 2-5 in the conference. The Minutewomen fell to 6-15 overall and 1-5 in the A-10.

Richmond (16-5, 4-3) picked up a 63-45 win at Saint Louis (7-14, 1-5).

Villanova Edged at Louisville

The Wildcats (13-8, 3-5 Big East) nearly stole one at No. 16 Louisville (17-4, 6-2 Big East) in Kentucky, losing down the stretch 62-58.

Asia Taylor, who had a season-high 14 points, scored 12 of them in the second half for the Cardinals, while Shoni Schimmel scored 18 for Louisville and Bria Smith had 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Villanova held a 38-32 lead with 11:30 left in the game.

Laura Sweeney had 18 points and 11 rebounds for the Wildcats.

In other highlight games on a heavy card out of the rugged Big East, No. 2 Notre Dame won at St. Johns, 71-56, No. 3 Connecticut beat visiting South Florida, 77-62, No. 23 DePaul won at Seton Hall 71-59, while Cincinnati edged hosted Syracuse 55-54, and Providence topped visiting Pittsburgh 66-50.

In the win by Notre Dame (21-1, 8-0 B ig East), Skylar Diggins followed up her 27 points in Monday night's lopsided nonconference win over Tennessee at home by scoring 24 against the Red Storm (13-8, 5-3).

Deveraux Peters had 18 points and 15 rebounds for the winning Irish along with five blocked shots and four steals.

The Irish, whose only loss is at top-ranked Baylor, next visit No. 11 Rutgers Tuesday night following the Scarlet Knights' trip Sunday afternoon to Washington to play No. 20 Georgetown.

In Connecticut's win at the Huskies' second home in the XL Center in Hartford, Tiffany Hayes, who scored 35 points in Wednesday's win at Syracuse, scored 33 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in Saturday's win over the Bulls (12-10, 4-4).

The 68 points over the two games are the most ever by a long line of prestigious all-Americans at UConn.

Stefanie Dolson, the sophomore center for UConn (19-2, 8-1) whose only losses are at Baylor and Notre Dame, got 22 points and 18 rebounds.

It was the 790th win for Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, which is sixth on the all-time list and just ahead of Georgia coach Andy Landers.

Connecticut next heads for a major nonconference meeting Monday night at No. 5 Duke in Durham, N.C.

The game will be one which has a major implication in NCAA tournament pairings since both the Huskies and Blue Devils are in contention for No. 1 seeds, though their will be much to be played yet over the next month in Duke's Atlantic Coast Conference and UConn's Big East.

DePaul (16-6, 4-4) was returning to the Garden State days after losing an excruciating one-point loss before the buzzer at Rutgers after holding a 16-point lead earlier in the second half.

Jasmine Penny scored 19 points for the Blue Demons against the Pirates (7-15, 0-8).

DePaul, down to seven players, had lost three straight and needed a win Saturday ahead of playing two other ranked teams in the conference in Louisville and Notre Dame.

Seton Hall, under second-year coach and Hall of Famer Anne Donovan, have lost 21 straight conference games at home dating back before her hire after she had been head coach of the WNBA New York Liberty.

UConn's Tiffany Hayes Misses Wooden Watch List -- Yes and No

In the wake of UConn senior Tiffany Hayes completing the best back-to-back scoring efforts in the Huskies' long and storied history some individuals in coverage of Saturday's win over South Florida took time to note that Hayes was not on the midseason Wooden Award watch list of 20 players.

In the interest of journalistic enhancement the Guru feels compelled to bring some clarity to the situation before the fan base begins running amok and thinking those who vote are a bunch of dopes.

Understand that ballots were due prior to last weekend at a time when Hayes was being overshadowed by her teammates, especially Bria Hartley and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis.

Between that deadline and the release of the 20 names, election central will usually come back around the horn if a gray area develops involving the lowest totals of those holding the the last few spots and highest of those who just missed the cut.

If the break was clear cut between No. 10 and No. 11 then it's end of story.

But if, say, only a very few points separate No. 8 -- it could be a little higher depending on the totals -- and No. 12 there is a chance for re-consideration so the best candidates at this point in time are in the mix.

Also understand between now and the actual end game producing the winner there will be another go round and then a paring down to five finalists.

There are people not on the list who might be next time and vice versa.

When the Guru got a call Wednesday for his turn to provide input he was aware of what Hayes was doing in the Syracuse game and asked where she was in terms of the also rans.

The reply was Hayes nowhere near the high also rans which means to lift her into the mix this time would play havoc with the integrity of the ballot because, remember, the vote was based on the national picture at the time of the ballot.

Also, sports reporting off the first of the two games depicted Hayes making a dramatic improvement in her production, which inherently certifies there hand't been much offensive production compared to others at the time of the vote.

After the adjustments, only election central internally knows the final result and then releases the list.

So the list of 20 was in the books before Hayes' effort in Saturday's win over South Florida.

Thus to start implying Hayes was bypassed is technically correct in not making the list but incorrect in terms of Hayes' performance at the time of the initial ballot.

If Hayes had had a couple of 15-point games instead of the two monster games it would seem the allusion to not making the Wooden ballot would not even had occurred.

If she continues to be more of an prolific scorer, Hayes would definitely be a stronger candidate the next time around. And as the five finalists go, barring major alterations between now and the end of the season, most believe that four spots are virtually locked up -- not only in the Wooden vote -- with Baylor's Brittney Griner, Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins, Delaware's Elena Delle Donne, and Stanford's Nneka Oguwmike getting the nod. Then it becomes a tight race among perhaps six or seven persons, if not more, right now for the fifth spot on the finalists list.

So that said, it's time to return to the rest of the roundup.

Penn Gets Even In the Ivies

There will be a further update after the Quakers host Cornell Sunday but in a Friday night game at The Palestra Penn evened its overall record at 8-8 and Ivy record at 1-1 with a 75-50 win over Columbia (2-15, 0-3).

Renee Busch had a career-high 20 points while Alyssa Baron scored 13 and Jackie Kaites scored 10.

Tyler Simpson had 19 points for Columbia.

Penn shot 10-for-21 on three-pointers, including 4-for-6 by Busch but the highlight was the return of senior leader Jess Knapp, who suffered an ACL injury on the trip to San Diego State's tournament at the end of December, but has fought her way back on the floor.

Knapp returned to practice this past week.

"It certainly is inspirational to see her do that," said Columbia coach Paul Brown.

The National Scene

In a major upset in the Big Ten host Iowa upset No. 13 Purdue 59-42 to knock the first place Boilermakers from the unbeaten column in the conference.

No. 12 Wisconsin-Green Bay stayed overall unbeaten with a 65-37 win at host Valparaiso in the Horizon Conference.

Top-ranked Baylor, the only other unbeaten Division I women's team, beat visiting Kansas 74-46 in a night game in the Big 12 as Brittney Griner scored 28 points and had five blocks to move into second place on the all-time rejections list with 506.

Former Michigan State star Alyssa DeHaan had been second while the all-time NCAA leader is former St. Mary's, Calif., star Louella Tomlinson, who had 663 blocked shots.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, No. 21 Texas Tech edged Texas 75-71, Oklahoma beat Missouri 62-59, and Kansas State beat Oklahoma State 67-56,

The two teams out of the West Coast Conference that made the poll last Monday had major conference challenges before No. 22 Gonzaga beat host St. Mary's, Calif., 75-70 and No. 23 BYU pulled away in the closing minutes to beat host Santa Clara 74-64.

And in a Pac-12 neighborhood battle in the Bay Area in northern California No. 4 Stanford at home survived California 74-71 in overtime.

Chiney Oguwmike, the sister of Nneka who is the two-time reigning Pac-12 player of the week, had a career-high 27 points and a career-high 18 rebounds for Stanford (18-1, 9-0 PAC-12), whose only loss came in a non-conference trip to No. 3 Connecticut early in the season.

California (15-6, 6-3) got a career-high 19 points from Brittany Boyd, while Toni Kokenis scored 18 points and Layshia Clarendon scored 17, including her 1,000th career point.

  Looking Ahead

No. 15 Delaware will try to stay unbeaten in the Colonial Athletic Association Sunday when the Blue Hens visit James Madison, the two-time defending conference champion who is in a three-way tie for second with Drexel and Hofstra

The other two will meet each other Sunday afternoon at Drexel's Daskalakis Athletic Center.

The Delaware game is a rematch of last year's conference title game when the Blue Hens rode upsets of Old Dominion and N.C. Wilmington to meet the Duchesses for the championship won by JMU.

Temple, trying to keep a streak going to gain a safety valve at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, hosts Charlotte Sunday at 2 p.m. in a game betwen two upper tier teams in the Atlantic 10.

Rutgers, as mentioned, is at Georgetown, while No. 18 Penn State, the preseason favorite in the Big 10, has a chance to gain some ground with a win at Michigan State.

In other games involving ranked teams Sunday, No. 6 Kentucky will host Alabama in a Southeastern Conference game, while No. 7 Tennessee will go for a sweep visiting No. 17 Georgia in another SEC game.

No. 9 Ohio State will be looking to move into a tie with Purdue in the Big 10 when the Buckeyes visit Minnesota while in another Big 10 game No. 19 Nebraska visits Illinois..

No. 10 Miami visits Boston College in the Atlantic Coast Conference while No. 14 Texas A&M will host Iowa State in the Big 12. Also, in the ACC, No. 25 North Carolina will visit Wake Forest.

That's it for now.

-- Mel





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad10

Guru's College Report: "41" Magic Number For Delaware and Drexel in CAA Wins

2012-01-27T07:23:00.003-05:00

By Mel Greenberg

NEWARK, Del. – Individually, mark “41” down as the number of the night Thursday for 15th-ranked Delaware and junior all-America Elena Delle Donne here at the Bob Carpenter Center while to the South note “41” as a defensive team gem for Drexel in the two major games on the Colonial Athletic Association card.

The Blue Hens here are getting the hang of 1 vs. 2 games in the conference.

Four days after turning away Drexel’s attempt to gain a tie at the top of the CAA standings Delaware rode Delle Donne’s explosive 41-point performance to repulse a similar attempt from Hofstra in an 84-66 win over the Pride to open a two-game lead while staying perfect in conference competition.

Drexel, meanwhile, kept Virginia Commonwealth under control with a 47-41 win over the Rams in Richmond to move into a three-way tie with Hofstra and James Madison for second place heading into Sunday’s visit from Hofstra at the Dragons’ Daskalakis Athletic Center in Philadelphia.

The high-scoring Pride (14-5, 6-2 CAA) forced Delaware into early turnovers and drove to a nine-point lead at 19-10 with 11 minutes, 25 seconds left in the half before the Blue Hens (17-1, 8-0) rallied to gain a 37-37 tie at the half despite having starters Akeema Richards and Danielle Parker missing significant minutes because of foul trouble.

Delle Donne, who had already scored 16 points by halftime, got Delaware’s first nine points of the final 20 minutes but the outcome was still in the balance at 55-55 with 11:11 left in the game.

Just when it seemed this thriller was going to stay close to the wire, an array of Blue Hens launched a 14-0 run and by the time the game ended Delle Donne had a new building record topping her 40-point performance here earlier in the season in the upset of then-No. 11 Penn State.

Delle Donne also has gained 40 points against George Mason on the road.

Her nation-leading scoring average had shrunk to 27.9 over the previous four games but Thursday’s performance shot her up to 28.7, which is 4.4 points better than runnerup Florida International’s Jerica Coley, who is averaging 24.3 points per game.

Delle Donne, who was 10-for-10 at the line and connected on 14-of-a-career-tying 29 shots, also grabbed 15 rebounds, dealt five assists, blocked two shots, had a steal and committed two turnovers.

Lauren Carra added 16 points to Delaware’s total and reserve Kelsey Buchanan off the bench set a career high with nine points, all scored in the first half.

Hofstra’s Shante Evans, on a two-game homecoming trip including Sunday’s game at Drexel, had 22 points.

She is a graduate of Henderson High and lives in West Chester, Pa., a Western suburb of Philadelphia not far from here.

Katelyn Loper scored 14 points, while Candice Bellochio had 10 points.

“Against a great time like that we have to play at our best – we can’t lose focus,” Hofstra coach Krista Kilburn-Stevesky said, adding that her group has one, possibly two more shots at the Blue Hens, including the Feb. 16th visit from them to Long Island and the Pride’s arena in Hempstead.

“Two games we have lost we got outrebounded badly.”

Delaware had a 48-25 advantage on the boards, including 17-7 on the offensive end. The Blue Hens also dominated 22-4 in second chance points and 15-4 in terms of points from the bench. Hofstra gained a 16-9 advantage in points off turnovers while Delaware outscored the Pride 46-34 in the paint.

Delle Donne, who had a series of injuries and illnesses her first two season, has been on fire as a junior, especially in the wake of her performance as the top scorer and rebounder on the gold-medal USA Basketball World University team in China last summer.

“I think we came out in the first half like we were scared to lose and we were playing passive, really sloppy, weren’t going after loose ball,” Delle Donne said of the way the game went for Delaware.

“The second half more than anything, more than scoring and rebounding, I just wanted to get the hustle plays to get my team going. Once you get those you can really push ahead.”

As for her own effort, Delle Donne said, “We were kind of in a little bit of a lull tonight and some nights you just have to put your team on your back and be a leader for them and this was one of those nights where I saw it, be a leader, and step up.

“I haven’t had to do it as much this season because we’ve had such a balanced attack but we have those nights and there are nights when people put me on their backs. We needed it so you just have to step up to the plate.”

Delaware had another big crowd at 3,510 in the 5,000-seat arena that was sold out for the first time ever for a stand-a-lone women’s game Sunday.

“We got in foul trouble, which really hurt us, so yes it was a test,” Delaware coach Tina Martin said of the Blue Hens’ rally from the nine-point deficit.

“I thought Kelsey Buchanan came in and played solid,” she said. “It’s really hard when you’re a sophomore and you’re going up against Shante Evans, a first-team all-conference player.

“In the second half, we held them to 29 points and the defense speaks for themselves. The kids realized they were in a battle. Give Hofstra credit, they threw the first punch and our kids were surprised by that.

“But we made adjustments and the fact we got a tie at the half, it was a big key. Hofstra runs a dribble-drive offense to just go like a bat out of you know what, just put your head down and try to get into the paint. Then they try to dish off to Shante Evans, who is a big strong lady or kick out to the shooters,” Martin explained.

“They have a senior-laden team, seniors and juniors, those kids know how to play and Hofstra’s a solid program.

“Everybody’s giving us different looks and doing different things. Like I said, I think our team has to adjust on the fly some times. It’s an adjustment because (Hofstra) plays different than anyone else in conference.”

Dragons Slay Rams

Kamile Nacickaite scored 17 points and Fiona Flanagan scored a career-high 10 points in Drexel’s win over Virginia Commonwealth.

Defensively, the Dragons (10-8, 6-2 CAA) held the Rams’ Courtney Hurt, one of the nation’s top scorers, to nine points, well below her 22.8 average.

“It was an ugly defensive game but Fiona came up big for us and Kamile really shot the ball well tonight,” Drexel coach Denise Dillon said.

Andrea Barbour, VCU’s other big scorer, got 14 points.

Drexel’s game with Hofstra Sunday to wrap up the first half of CAA play tips off at 2 p.m. while Delaware visits James Madison (15-4, 6-2), the two-time defending CAA champions.

So for the third time in a row, Delaware will be in a 1 vs. 2 game, though the Blue Hens have a margin of error. A Blue Hens win would put the Hofstra-Drexel winner in sole possession of second place.

Hofstra beat the Dragons at home 76-65 earlier this month to open CAA play.

Elsewhere in the CAA, William & Mary beat area rival Old Dominion 83-80 in Willamsburg, Va., as Taysha Pye had 23 points for the Tribe (9-10, 2-6).

It was the first win over the Lady Monarchs (6-14, 3-5) in 37 years since 1975.

Old Dominion, which went 17-0 winning CAA titles after joining the conference in 1991-92, went 11-7 in the conference in 2009, the year Drexel knocked off the Lady Monarchs in the semifinals to end their string of titles.

The five CAA losses are second most for ODU, tying the five in the inaugural year in the conference when they began their string.

Penn State Tops Michigan

On a day that the Penn State community attended a memorial service at the Bryce Jordan Center for legendary former football coach Joe Paterno, who died Sunday, the 18th-ranked Lady Lions stayed perfect as road warriors in the Big Ten Conference, beating Michigan 77-56 in Ann Arbor to go 4-0 away from home for the first time in the conference since 1993-94.

Penn State (16-4, 6-2 Big Ten) sizzled from the field, shooting 56.1 percent as Maggie Lucas, the graduate of Germantown Academy from Narberth, Pa., outside Philadelphia, scored 23 points – the 11th time this season she has scored 20 or more points.

Alex Bentley, the preseason conference player of the year, scored 18 points against the Wolverines (16-5, 5-3).
Penn State, the preseason favorite, is tied with Nebraska (17-3, 6-2) for third place a game behind Ohio State (20-1, 7-1) and two behind Purdue (18-3, 8-0).

On Sunday, Penn State visits Michigan State, who fell at home to Illinois 72-62 in overtime to fall to 12-9 overall and 4-4 in the conference.

Elsewhere in the Big Ten, No. 13 Purdue got a career-high 29 points from Courtney Moser in an 80-70 road win at Northwestern (12-9, 2-6) in Evanston, Ill.

No. 19 Nebraska beat visiting Iowa 60-53 at home in Lincoln as the Cornhuskers got 22 points and 15 rebounds from Jordan Hooper in the win over the Hawkeyes (11-10, 3-5).

No. 9 Ohio State got all of Tayler Hill’s 18 points in the second half as the Buckeyes rallied on the road to beat Indiana 73-55 and drop the Hoosiers to 5-16 overall and 0-8 in the conference despite Aulani Sinclair’s career-high 27 points.

Virginia Tech Shocks Maryland

The No. 7 Terrapins were taken down 75-69 by the Hokies (7-14, 3-5 ACC) in the Comcast Center in College Park, Md., as Montel Tellier tied a career-high 31 points in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Maryland (18-3, 5-3), which now trails front running and fifth-ranked Duke by three games in the ACC, got 21 points and 10 rebounds from Lynetta Kizer, 19 points from Laurin Mincy, and 18 from Tianna Hawkins.

Terrapins coach Brenda Frese said the absence of leading scorer Alyssa Thomas, who was recuperating from a sprained left thumb, was no excuse for the upset.

“I’m mostly disappointed,” Frese said. “I really like coaching this team. I think this team has a lot of great parts to it. I think as young players, it’s important for them to understand the big picture.”

That situation is the Terrapins probably said adios to remaining in the hunt for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

As far as missing Thomas, Frese noted, “We also have a lot of talented players in the locker room that should be able to step up in her absence.”

Maryland next hosts Boston College (5-15, 0-7) next Thursday.

In the only other ACC game on the books, No. 10 Miami (18-3, 7-1) grabbed a 64-39 win at home in Coral Gables, Fla., over Wake Forest (12-8, 2-5) to stay a game behind Duke as Stefanie Yderstrom and Riquana Williams each scored 14 points.

Vandy Gets Dandy Win Over Georgia

Christina Foggie had a career-high 34 points as Vanderbilt (15-5, 3-4), which just fell out of the Associated Press women’s poll, upset No. 17 Georgia 68-48 at home in a Southeastern Conference game in Nashville, Tenn.
Anne Marie Armstrong had 15 points for Georgia (16-5, 5-3).

Elsewhere in the SEC, No. 6 Kentucky (19-2, 8-0) stayed unbeaten in conference play as A’dia Mathies scored 20 points in a 66-48 road win at Auburn (10-11, 2-6).

No. 7 Tennessee (15-5, 6-1) recovered from Monday night’s 72-44 drubbing at No. 2 Notre Dame in a nonconference confrontation to beat host Alabama 86-56 in Tuscaloosa as Shekinna Stricklen had 14 points and Glory Johnson scored 13 in the win over the Crimson Tide (10-11, 0-7) to stay a game behind Kentucky.

Markeshia Grant scored 20 points in a 61-43 win by South Carolina (16-5, 5-3) at home in Columbia over Mississippi (12-9, 2-6).

Still Playing Perfect

Top-ranked Baylor and No. 12 Wisconsin-Green Bay stayed unbeaten with respective conference wins.

The Bears (20-0, 7-0) of the Big 12 got 18 points and seven blocked shots from Brittney Griner in an 89-58 road win at Oklahoma (12-6, 4-3), which got 19 points from Whitney Hand in Norman.

Julie Wojta scored 13 of her 15 points in the first half as Wisconsin-Green Bay (18-0, 7-0) scored a road win in the Horizon League over host Butler (7-12, 3-5) in Indianapolis.

In the only other game involving a ranked team, Stephanie Golden came off the bench to score a career-high 15 points for No. 22 Gonzaga (18-3, 7-1) in a 79-61 home win in Spokane, Wash., over Loyola Marymount (5-15, 1-7).

Quakers Return To Ivies

In the only area Division I game on the card Friday night Penn returns to finish out its season with Ivy League games only as Columbia visits the Palestra at 7 p.m.

CACC Race Tightens

Philadelphia University and Holy Family both suffered losses in Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference games to tighten the Southern Division race.

In East Falls, though Stephanie Agger became the 27th player to reach 1,000 points for the Rams, they fell at home in overtime to Georgian Court 83-80 in the Gallagher Center.

Agger, who joined teammate Christine Wooding this season in the 1,000-point club, scored 19 points for the Rams (14-5, 8-2) while Goldey Beacom (12-6, 7-4) got 14 points and 11 rebounds from guard Ashley Rosario in snapping Philadelphia U.’s six-game win streak.

Meanwhile, University of the Sciences at home at the Bobby Morgan Arena in Southwest Philadelphia, beat Holy Family 65-53 for the Devils’ fourth straight win.

USP (11-7, 7-3 CACC) posted its first win over the Tigers (13-7, 9-2) in a regular season home game since a narrow 60-59 win on Feb. 7, 1995, though the Devils also beat Holy Family at home in a conference tournament game in 2006.

The Devils moved to with a game of first place, where Holy Family and Philadelphia U. are tied.

Freshman Brianne Traub had 16 points for USP, Carolyn Edwards and Jessica Sylvester each scored 13 points, and Becca Ruggear had 10 points and nine rebounds.

Isabella Ross pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.

Erin Mann scored 15 points for Holy Family as the only Tigers star in double figures.

Noteworthy

Carolyn Sprague, Pittsburgh’s longtime senior women’s administrator who also served on the NCAA women’s basketball tournament committee, is set to retire at the end of the school year.

As part of the reorganization, Stacey Brann, the sports information director for women’s basketball who moved to the Steel City from Rutgers last season where she was the press aide among other activities for Hall of Fame coach C. Vivian Stringer, will be promoted to assistant athletic director for women’s basketball, though Boss Brann will also retain her SID duties.

Some conspiracy theorists jokingly thought the announcement was timed for Brann to steal the thunder from the news at her former place of employment which learned Thursday that football coach Gregg Schiano had been named the new coach of Tampa Bay in the NFL.

Elsewhere, longtime Bowling Green women’s basketball coach Curt Miller will miss Saturday’s game at Central Michigan in the Mid-American Conference after a medical diagnosis Thursday determined he suffered a mild stroke late in Sunday’s win over Eastern Michigan.

Miller’s return has not been determined, though he said in a statement, “This is a wake-up call for me and I have already begun the process of finding a healthier balance.”
Jennifer Roos, associate head coach will run the team, which is 16-3 overall and 6-0 in the MAC.

“Our first priority is Curt’s health,” athletic director Greg Christopher, said in a statement. “Although he has been cleared to continue coaching, we all felt it was best to take a step back right now. We fully expect Curt to return to the bench, soon.”

Christopher is also the new head of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament committee this season and is also the first male head since the organization began sponsoring the championships in 1981-82.

And that’s it for now until tweeting from the Penn game Friday night.

-- Mel

Guru's USBWA Talk: Strong Field Continues In Weekly Candidate List

2012-01-24T02:07:00.002-05:00

By Mel Greenberg

Here are some of the performances in the week ending Sunday that produced conference player of the week honorees, which in turn makes them eligible for the new United states Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) women's national player of the week award.

The winner, baring complications of technology, will be announced Tuesday afternoon.

In the Southeastern Conference Sarah Watkins of Arkansas was chosen for her performances in a rare win by the Razorbacks over Vanderbilt in which she tied a school record with six blocked shots and she also helped in a win over

Performances in Monday;s big win by No. 2 Notre Dame over Tennessee won't get into the process until next week but at the moment the Irish's Deveraux Peters took the Big East prize for averaging 19.5 points in wins over Pittsburgh and Villanova to stay unbeaten in conference play.

In a key conference game in the Atlantic Coast Duke's Chelsea Gray had 17 points and dealt 11 assists in Duke's win over Maryland and with her performance over Georgia Tech finished with a 16.5 scoring average in the two games and a 7.5 assists average to earn the ACC citation.

Teri Oliver helped Southern Illinois break a 24-game losing streak in the Missouri Valley Conference with a win over Missouri State as she averaged 25.5 points and 5.0 rebounds.

Chantell Alford of Boston University is the reigning America East player of the year and at the moment helped keep the Terriers in first place with an 11.7 average with 5.5 rebounds in three wins including a comeback win over arch-rival Hartford.

The new career leader in three-point connections in the Atlantic Ten is St. Bonaventure's Jessica Jenkins with 293. including six against Charlotte last Saturday night in North Carolina while she finishe dwith 23 points. She also had 18 against Richmond to send the Bonnies into sole possession of first place as the only team in the A-10 that still has a perfect record.

George Mason's Taleia Moton averaged 28.8 points and 4.0 rebounds in wins over William & Mary and VCU to earn the weekly award of the Colonial Athletic Association.

It's two weeks in a row that Stanford's Chiney Oguwmike has taken Pac-12 honors this time with a 17,.0 scoring average and 11.5 rebounds in the Cardinal's home sweep of Washington and Washington State. Her older sister Nnemkadi earlier this season captured the USBWA prize.

Aarynb Ellenberg of Oklahoma starred with a 24.5 scoring average to go with 4.5 rebounds and 5.5 steals in Sooners wins over Kansas State and Texas to bring home the honor from the panel that deliberates the Big 12 award.

Hawaii's Kamillah Jackson had a 16.0 average and 13.0 rebounds to be given the Western Athletic Conference player of the week award for wins over Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State.

The Mountain West honoree is Kayla Woodward for a 25.5 scoring average, 8.0 rebounds and 3.5 steals with Wyoming.

Loyola of Maryland's Miriam McKenzie took home the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference player of the week award with averages of 20.5 points and 11.0 rebounds as the Greyhounds went 1-1.

And in the Southland Nicholls State's Sumar Leslie had a career-high 34 points in a win over Southeastern Louisiana. She leads the conference with a 20.8 scoring average.

That's just a sampling. When the Big Ten winner is known Tuesday morning that honoree will be tweeted here and then the USBWA winner will be tweeted when it is officially released. If you are not following the Guru the handle is @womhoopsguru.

On the local front, La Salle's Jada Payne took home the Atlantic 10 freshman of the week award while Temple's Shey Peddy earned another Big 5 women's player of the week award.

Philadelphia University's Christine Wooding captured player of the week honors in the Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference while University of Science's freshman Brianne Traub picked up another rookie of the week award from the CACC.

In other news, the Guru doesn't have the link at the moment but if you google around or get on twitter on Delaware's Elena Delle Donne's twitter you will be led to a YouTube flash dance mob video in which the entire family performs.

Perhaps whatever WNBA team Delle Donne ultimately lands on, the entire group can be hired in the manner of the New York Liberty's Timeless Torches to perform during timeouts and thus Elena can have the whole brood around in the summer for home games whatever part of the country she is at.

Will this be like 1997 for Tennessee. The Vols got knocked around that season with 10 losses, though most were competitive, and still claimed the first of what became a three-peat of NCAA titles. So far the Lady Vols have suffered an upset at unranked Virginia to go with losses to Kentucky, Stanford, Baylor and, now, Notre Dame.

There is a lot of season left so don't count Tennessee totally out for now. At this time in 1997 no one thought a championship would be attained, either.

That's it for now. The Guru will be at Rutgers for the DePaul game Tuesday night but will be tracking Temple at Xavier and Cincinnati at Villanova on the local front as well as other national games of note.

And the Guru closes on this note. However badly things went down at the end of the life of Penn State legendary football coach Joe Paterno, no one championed the cause of women's sports more than Paterno back when he was athletic director several decades ago.

When the Lady Lions were in the Atlantic 10 and the Guru made trips to Happy Valley because of the Rutgers-Temple-St. Joseph's games, there was seldom a time that Paterno was not at a home game as well as attending the many postgame receptions of the booster club afterwards.

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: Together At Last -- Delle Donne, Biden and Delaware

2012-01-23T07:03:00.003-05:00

(Guru's note: There is a print version of Sunday's Drexel game in philly.com. Tuesday's notebook will lead with St. Joseph's in the print section. Material on Penn State drawn from wire reports. At some point Monday a Big East notebook will appear in Full Court Press at the web site.).

By Mel Greenberg

NEWARK, Del. – On the front and back ends of a weekend in late August 2008 down here, the two biggest news events of the year in this state occurred.

On a Saturday it became official that U.S. Senator Joe Biden had been picked by Barack Obama to be his running mate on the Democratic ticket for the presidential campaign, which resulted several months later with Biden becoming vice president of the United States.

Two days later local high school sensation Elena Delle Donne, the high school national player of the year out of Wilmington’s Ursuline Academy dropped the other shoe after foregoing her scholarship to powerful Connecticut.

Delle Donne held a press conference here at the University of Delaware to say she had enrolled but to play volleyball saying she had suffered burnout from the sport of her acclaim.

Much has happened to the two marquee names since that eventful weekend in which some noted Delle Donne’s presser drew more reporters than the throng who camped out near Biden’s house expecting his appointment by Obama.

Biden has gone on to be anything but the traditional bit player vice presidents have been as he has helped Obama in establishing policies of the administration.

Delle Donne eventually returned to basketball the following spring, transferring sports again and joining Tina Martin’s squad to ultimately lead Delaware to new vistas in this her junior season with a first-ever national ranking as well as becoming the frontrunner and favorite in the ongoing title chase in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).

Though it seemed it should have happened before, the two finally crossed paths Sunday afternoon when Biden was part of a first-ever women’s single-game sellout of 5,021 at the Bob Carpenter Center that watched Delle Donne and her teammates on the 16th-ranked Blue Hens hold off longtime rival Drexel for a 60-49 win to move into sole possession of first place in the CAA at 16-1 overall and 7-0 in the conference.

Drexel (9-8, 5-2) dropped from second to a third-place tie with James Madison but another 1-2 CAA showdown looms Thursday night when Hofstra (14-4, 6-1) visits.

Biden is a Delaware graduate and also at the game was Delaware governor Jack Markell.

Drexel missed its first seven shots, falling 10 points behind and making it appear that for once this encounter was not going to be the closely-fought encounters that are a staple of the series dating back to the days when the two battled in the America
East before joining the CAA for the 2001-02 season.

But the Dragons rallied, got to within two near the end of the half. However, Delaware, which was part of Drexel’s only sellout two seasons ago in Philadelphia, did not yield ground and eventually pulled away late in the second half.

Delle Donne finished with 21 points, below her nation-leading 28.4 average. She’s still comfortably ahead in the NCAA statistics.

Since Martin doesn’t like the use of the phrase “supporting cast,” in terms of Delle Donne’s teammates, she heartily enjoyed the phrase “other options,” to discuss the across-the-board blend of Delaware’s attack.

Akeema Richards had a first-ever double double with 14 points and 10 rebounds while Danielle Parker and Lauren Carra each scored 10 points.

Drexel, which had a four-game win-streak snapped and was held to a season-low output, got 12 points from Kamile Nacickaite and 10 from Tyler Hale.

But before getting to the normal basketball talk there was the excitement of the surprise visit by Biden and of course the record crowd to address by Martin.

“It was an honor to meet him and the kids were thrilled they got a chance to meet him,” Martin said and reported Biden came into the locker room after the game.

“He even did a U-D Hoop Squad cheer. It was really cool. He was in the locker room with the kids, taking pictures and what an honor for our team and he said he’s been trying to come for two years now to see us play,” Martin continued.

“Obviously, he said, we’re the happening thing right now in Delaware so that was nice of him. That was very complimentary. It’s a thrill. It’s not every day you meet the vice president of the United States. It was very cool.”

Martin said she wasn’t aware of the impending visit until informed during her pre-game radio interview.

“I said, `What??’ I heard the governor was coming but I didn’t hear about the vice president.

“They were keeping it low key. The secret service was there. He obviously bleeds Delaware through and through so he was rooting for us all the way. It’s just an honor that he came to the game.”

As for how the game played out, Martin said, “Drexel and Delaware, we know each other so well. And these kids play against one another and it’s always going to be that way.

“You throw out the records, you throw out the statistics – we’re 35 miles apart from each other and all the games are like this – they’re knock down, drag out games. To win by double digits speaks volumes about our team.

“Drexel certainly put up a great fight and they’re a good basketball team and they understand now they’re really playing well together, they’ve got their two shooters going – I thought we did a very good job of defending them today,” Martin continued.

“But they’re going to fight and scrap and I have the utmost respect for Drexel as a team. I knew it was going to be a fight – it always is when we play them – and it’s going to be a fight when we go up to Drexel.

“This is the type of game you get – good, intense college basketball.”

Martin cited her team’s ability to be more aggressive in the second half to stay in control.

“(Drexel) was playing a triangle and two to start and then they switched to a box-and-one and then they went to a 2-3 zone and they stayed in that 2-3 zone but every time Elena got the ball they were playing her man-to-man in the zone.

“So wherever she cut, she had somebody hanging on her, so we moved her outside a little bit more to open up some of the driving lanes. Akeema Richards took advantage of that, Lauren Cara got to the rim a couple of times – to have four people in double figures – and obviously Danielle Parker got some looks out of that too. And Elena was able to slice, cut, and get some looks herself.

“I thought we shared the ball and attacked the rim much more effectively than in the first half. We were a little impatient.”
Delaware will have to switch gears Thursday to deal with Hofstra’s explosive attack.

“Hofstra plays a different style. Obviously Drexel like to run a motion type offense, a lot of back screens, a lot of things curl-ins, back-door cuts and things like that, whereas Hofstra just likes to run a 100 miles an hour and score 100 points,” Martin explained.

“They’re a hard team to defend because they just run, run, run. We’ve got to be again patient on the offensive end and do some good things against them because their tempo is going to be different than this game.”

Martin referred to the conference run as a “grind it out” effort at the moment compared to earlier in the year in playing the likes of Penn State, Princeton, St. Bonaventure, and Maryland.

“Everyone knows what you’re doing. A lot of junk defenses. Very physical. We have a target on our back and people are coming after us and how can you not be excited as a player,” Martin said in talking about the ambience in the arena.

“I don’t care if you are on Drexel, Hofstra, whoever you are. You come into this building and there’s 4,000 people every night – today this was obvious a sellout. This is why you put the uniform on.

“Then the vice president is here on top of that. So you’re up. Your blood is pumping and you’re ready to go. Every game is going to be like that because the opposing team knows there’s going to be great crowds, so it’s what college basketball should be.”
As for the matter of second options:

“Our other options are really starting to step up,” Martin said of the total team effort. “Elena scores a lot of points and certainly she’s got a great shot but these kids are screening and passing the ball to her and she couldn’t go 1-on-5 against anybody in the country – not even a Division III school.

“So credit goes to our other options. Our players for all the things they do – getting Elena looks and in turn Elena getting them looks – the combination of Elena and Trumae (Lucas) and Parker and Carra – it’s all those players combining their talents – if Elena scores, we all score; If Parker scores, we all score; If Carra scores, we all scores and our kids realize that.

“It’s great to have four kids score in double figures today. It’s a team and everybody needs to realize that and respect that and give these kids credit because I’ll tell you what – bodies are flying out there – these kids are playing their hearts out for Delaware and they deserve respect for thoat.”

Penn State Stays In Big Ten Hunt And Mourns Paterno

Playing hours after the passing of former Hall of Fame football coach Joe Paterno at the age of 85 because of cancer, the No. 22 Lady Lions beat Iowa 68-52 in a Big Ten game at the Bryce Jordan Center as Alex Bentley scored 21 points.

Penn State coach Coquese Washington said Paterno took care of her from the moment she arrived in Happy Valley from her previous job as associate head coach at Notre Dame, her alma mater, when she was hired in the spring of 2007.

“It wasn’t like we had Sunday dinner every week,” Washington related. “But the times we spent together he was always giving me some advice and inspiration.”

The Lady Lions (15-4, 5-2 Big Ten) had black bands on their uniforms and Washington had a black ribbon on her sweater.

“I know he would have been ticked off if we lost,” Washington said. “We just wanted to play our best today, give our best effort in honor of a man who always gave his best to Penn State.”

The Lady Lions, trailing 50-48 with 6:32 left in the game, surged with a 20-2 rally to beat the Hawkeyes (11-9, 3-4).

Temple: New Digs and New Look In Win Over Penn

After moving into impressive new offices and practice facilities built on the top of McGonigle Hall, Temple used a special post presence Saturday to beat Penn 72-47 in a Big Five game that was the last nonconference event for both teams before the Owls head back to the Atlantic 10 with a Tuesday visit to Xavier and the Quakers head back to the Ivy League to host Columbia on Friday night at The Palestra.

Victoria Macauley had a career-high 20 points and Joelle Connelly, a transfer from Hofstra, had the best effort as an Owl with 16 points.

Penn also had two players with landmark games in their careers as Jackie Kaites scored 17 points and Kristen Cody scored 12.

The Quakers on the grueling part of their schedule are now 7-8 overall on a six-game losing streak that included a league-opening loss to powerful Princeton at The Palestra. The Tigers are the two-time defending Ivy champs and league favorites.

Penn finished 0-4 in the Big Five, playing three City Series games in January after having gotten off to the best 10-game start in the program’s history.

Temple is 10-8 and 1-1 in the Big Five, already won by Villanova. One of the Owls’ Atlantic 10 games with St. Joseph’s will also count in the Big Five as will the regular-season-ending visit to La Salle.

Shey Peddy had 15 points and Kristen McCarthy scored 10 marking the first time this season four Owls scored in double figures.

Penn used the city’s subway system to travel from the Quakers’ campus in West Philadelphia to Temple in North Philadelphia.

“I thought our posts came up hugh for us, I thought our defense did a good job limiting (Alyssa) Baron’s touches,” Temple coach Tonya Cardoza said. “Last year she had a really good game against us.

“Our post presence took the pressure off our guards,” Cardoza said. “That’s how you would like to play – shooting high percentage shots.”

Despite the outcome, Penn coach Mike McLaughlin felt his players competed much better than in their previous outing, losing at Villanova on Tuesday.

“I thought we had so many open shots that we missed, but we ran a better and cleaner offense and I thought we executed better than we did the last five games.

“We need to look at the progress we are making and I thought we did. Unfortunately, we have to make those shots, playing a team like this who made us pay for every mistake we made,” McLaughlin said.

“We did some real good things in our non-league. Jackie Kaites had a breakout game – she needed one – and she controlled our portion of what we wanted to do today and that’s going to help us immensely.”

It’s not inconceivable that Penn could finish second in the league and that would lead to a bid to the Postseason WNIT.

St. Joseph’s Wins A Close One Again

The Hawks survived a visit to two-time defending Atlantic-10 champion Xavier in Cincinnati 70-67 as Michelle Baker scored 15 points, Erin Shields had 13 points and Samira Van Grinsven scored 12.

The win kept St. Joseph’s (13-5, 3-1 A-10) in a two-way tie with Temple for third, a half-game behind Charlotte and 1.5 games behind St. Bonaventure, whom the Hawks visit Wednesday night in a key game in the conference.

Xavier (3-14, 0-4) got 19 points from Jessica Patchko.
In another A-10 game Saturday involving a local team, La Salle lost its second straight – a tough one at Richmond, 74-70, despite Jada Payne’s 24 points, a second-straight career best.

La Salle fell to 9-11 overall and 3-2 in the conference while the Spiders improved to 15-4 overall and 3-2 in the A-10.

Rutgers Recovers

After an upset loss at St. John’s earlier in the week, No. 7 Rutgers beat host South Florida 72-66 as senior April Sykes had 23 points and 10 rebounds and Khadijah Rushdan, also a senior, scored 16 against the Bulls in a Big East game in Tampa. Monique Oliver had 14 points.

The Scarlet Knights (16-3, 5-1) will host No. 21 DePaul Tuesday night. Blue Demons coach Doug Bruno was just announced as an assistant to UConn’s Geno Auriemma along with WNBA Atlantia Dream coach Marynell Meadors and former WNBA Los Angeles Sparks coach Jennifer Gillom for the summer Olympics in London.

The same staff guided the Americans to a gold medal in 2010 at the world championships.
South Florida fell to 11-9 overall and 3-3 in the Big East.

That’s the news for now until the next sunrise.

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: Delaware Sells Out Sunday's CAA Showdown With Drexel

2012-01-21T10:39:00.003-05:00

By Mel Greenberg

For those of you not following the Guru on twitter here is the Delaware release about Sunday's sellout and first place CAA showdown with Drexel.

NEWARK, Del. -- The University of Delaware announced Friday that the Blue Hen women's basketball matchup with Colonial Athletic Association rival Drexel set this Sunday, Jan. 22, at the Bob Carpenter Center, is a sellout.

The Blue Hens (15-1, 6-0 CAA), who are currently ranked No. 16 nationally in both the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN Coaches polls and riding a five-game win streak, will take on Drexel (9-7, 5-1 CAA) in a battle for first place in the league standings. The Dragons have won four straight entering the game.

The game, set to begin at 3:30 p.m., will mark the first sellout for the UD women at the 5,000-seat Bob Carpenter Center in a game that does not include a doubleheader with the Blue Hen men. The previous high attendance for a UD women's game at the BCC was 4,772 vs. Old Dominion on Feb. 11, 2005.

The game will be broadcast live on 1290 AM The Ticket as well as on UD student station WVUD 91.3 FM. In addition, the game will be televised live locally and regionally on The Comcast Network as well as on Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. Live stats and live video are also available on the UD athletics website at www.bluehens.com/teams/womens-basketball.

UD athletics also has announced that due to the increased attendance for basketball games this season, doors to the arena will now open 90 minutes prior to game time for all men's and women's games for the remainder of the season. This will also include the ticket windows for both sales as well as for Will Call.

The change will begin on Jan. 21 when the Delaware men host Georgia State at 2 p.m. at the Bob Carpenter Center. Please continue to plan to arrive early to avoid lines and traffic.

Guru's College Report: Delaware and Drexel Win Big Heading To Sunday CAA Showdown

2012-01-20T05:49:00.002-05:00

(Guru's note: Material and quotes from beyond Drexel game site drawn on team and wire reports)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – There was very little for Drexel coach Denise Dillon to find fault with her Dragons in a 66-39 win Thursday night over Northeastern at home at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

At the same time to the south on a night that Elena Delle Donne was a bit off the mark No. 16 Delaware used balance to end Towson’s 7-0 home streak with a lopsided 65-46 victory and a season sweep of the Tigers.

Thus the stage was set for the first of two meetings between these neighboring rivals Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. when Drexel travels to Delaware at the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark with a chance to knot things even tighter in the Colonial Athletic Association.

Drexel (9-7, 5-1 CAA) won its fourth straight and continued its recent combo of tough defense and balanced offense to handle the Huskies (3-14, 1-5) as Tyler Hale and Kamile Nacickaite each scored 14 points while Hollie Mershon, the reigning CAA co-player of the week, scored 13 and Taylor Wootton scored 12.

In yet another wild night in the CAA, Delaware (15-1, 6-0), the preseason favorite, finally broke free in the standings to takeover first place alone and unbeaten in conference play while Drexel’s second-place dynamics was altered.

The Dragons became tied with Hofstra (13-4, 5-1), which lost at home 81-63 to two-time defending CAA champion James Madison (13-4, 4-2).

Virginia Commonwealth (11-6, 4-2) was nipped 57-56 at North Carolina-Wilmington (10-7, 3-3) to fall into a third place tie with James Madison.

Alisha Andrews scored the game-winner for UNCW with 18 seconds remaining in regulation.

After Delaware plays Drexel Sunday, the Blue Hens will host Hofstra next Thursday night while Drexel will travel to VCU. Hofstra will host Northeastern on Sunday.

“It’s early in the year,” Dillon said. “You don’t get too worked up on positioning right now – especially with the stretch we have coming up, so I just told our players, `Sunday’s game is a game you’d love to steal but we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

“We’re trying to take care of the games we have a chance of winning and we’re doing exactly that.”

While Drexel was able to hold Northeastern’s Jewell Tunstell to five points – seven below her average, the Huskies broke free for several three-pointers early in the game but the Dragons tightened things up after Jamie Conroy nailed a trey for a 16-15 lead with 7 minutes, 39 seconds left in the first half.

“I was upset early with the threes we were giving up, but we made the adjustment defensively and our players responded,” Dillon said.

“Once we took them out of that game with threes, it made it hard and Taylor Wootton did a phenomenal job on Tunstell. We’re talking about how important post defense is and she single handedly took her out of the game.”

Northeastern’s Conroy and Deanna Kerkhof each scored 12 points for the Huskies fueled by their three-pointers in the first half.

Meanwhile, down at Towson, Delle Donne, the nation’s leading scorer with a 29.3 average, was held to 15 points by the Tigers (11-6, 2-4) and the Blue Hens still won with ease.

Delle Donne missed most of the first half of Sunday’s win at Northeastern but still scored 22 points playing with what has been diagnosed as a calf injury.

It was the first time in 19 games that Delle Donne did not score 20 or more points dating back to last season.

Delaware’s Lauren Carra had a season-high 15 points and in the first half the Blue Hens found the open person consistently in getting 13 assists on 13 baskets and a 39-18 lead at the half.

Akeema Richards added 11 points and Danielle Parker scored nine.

“We shared the ball and our defense set the tone,” Delaware coach Tina Martin said. “I knew this had to be about defense and rebounding. We got some really good looks, and the defense led everything from there.

“Elena is wrestling with an injury, which really showed the strength of the team tonight. It’s nice to see the team step up because I know they are capable of doing that. They proved it tonight. It’s a win-win all around.”

Lucas Leads Penn State Again

Germantown Academy graduate Maggie Lucas of Narberth, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia, had 19 points as No. 22 Penn State picked up its third straight win and first since returning to the AP Poll after a week’s absence by beating host Illinois, 71-65, in a Big Ten game in Champaign.

Alex Bentley, the preseason conference player of the year, scored 15 points for the Lady Lions (14-4, 4-2 Big Ten) against the Illini (6-13, 0-6).

Penn State’s Nikki Greene had 10 points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots.

It was the 80^th win for Lady Lions head coach Coquese Washington, whose team will host Iowa Sunday. Lucas crossed the 900-point milestone and now has 917 career points.

Elsewhere in the Big Ten, No. 13 Purdue got a season-high 20 points from fifth-year senior Antionette Howard as the Boilermakers topped in-state rival Indiana 82-60 to hold first-place at 16-3 overall and 6-0 in the conference.

She also had eight rebounds and four steals.

Indiana fell to 5-14 overall and remained winless in the conference at 0-6.

In a game between two ranked teams in the conference No. 10 Ohio State stopped No. 20 Nebraska 82-68 as Tayler Hill scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while Samantha Prahalis scored 19 points and dealt nine assists for the Buckeyes (18-1, 5-1 Big Ten) at home in Columbus, Ohio.

Prahalis is the only senior on the Ohio State roster.

Emily Cady scored a career-high 24 points for the Cornhuskers (15-3, 4-2), new to the conference this season moving over from the Big 12.

Ohio State, which was tied with Nebraska and Michigan State for second place and now is all alone a game behind Purdue, while Penn State moved into a three-way tie for third.

Michigan State was upset by Minnesota 71-65, Michigan beat Northwestern 58-48, and Iowa beat Wisconsin 69-57.

Maryland and Miami Hold Ground

After Virginia narrowly lost at No. 9 Maryland Monday night Virginia coach Joanne Boyle, who is in her first year with the Cavaliers after a successful career in the Bay Area at California, said they were tired of moral victories and it was time to get a win.

But all Virginia had to show after a tough battle at home Thursday night was another tough loss, this time to No. 11 Miami, 56-53, at home in the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville.

Shenise Johnson, expected to go high in the WNBA draft next spring, had 20 points, including a pair of foul shots with 18.2 second left in regulation for the Hurricanes (16-3, 5-1 ACC), who stayed within a game of first-place and No. 5 Duke, which was idle, in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Ariana Moorer had 18 points for Virginia (14-6, 2-4).

Elsewhere in the ACC, No. 8 Maryland stayed with Miami by defeating Wake Forest 86-58 at home at the Comcast Center in College Park as Tianna Hawkins set a school record with 24 rebounds for the Terrapins (18-1, 5-1)

With the outcome under control after a tie score at the half, Hawkins was on the bench when Frese learned of the potential record and re-inserted her star rebounder back into the game.

“I asked the team if we should let her come back in and they unanimously said yes,” Maryland coach Brenda Frese said. “That record has been in the record books for a very long time. It’s special for us to be able to break records.”

Angie Scott set the previous mark in February 1977 against Towson State and then 10 months later Debbie Jones matched it against Howard.

"It felt good. My teammates were pushing me to get that last rebound and the crowd was pushing me," said Hawkins, who scored 18 points and fueled a second-half surge by Maryland.

Hawkins finished with 18 points, Alyssa Thomas scored 16 and had 11 rebounds, while Lynetta Kizer, Laurin Mincy and Brene Moseley each scored 11 points.

"Obviously you look pretty good when you have rebounding machines like we have here," said Frese, who sat between Hawkins and Thomas for the postgame news conference.

Chelsea Douglas of Wake Forest (11-7, 1-4) had 15 points.

“I’m very disappointed the ACC voted down my proposal to play 20-minute games,” jested Demon Deacons coach Mike Peterson. “That would have made this evening very more enjoyable.”

Meanwhile No. 24 North Carolina recovered from its nonconference 86-35 thrashing at No. 3 Connecticut Monday night, the worst-ever defeat in the program’s history, to beat Virginia Tech 56-37 as Tar Heels coach Sylvia Hatchell, who is 872-308 overall, hit a UNC milestone with her 600^th win at the ACC school.

Former Virginia coach Debbie Ryan and the late North Carolina State coach Kay Yow also got 600 victories at the same ACC school.

The win by the Tar Heels (13-5, 3-2) was the fourth try to get Hatchell to 600.

Virginia Tech (6-13, 2-4) is down to six scholarship players but trailed at the half just by four points at 25-21.

In other ACC results, North Carolina State beat Clemson, 62-46.

Mentee Caldwell Loses To Mentor Summitt

No. 9 Tennessee topped LSU 65-56 at home in Knoxville in game in which Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt in the Southeastern Conference game was on the sidelines against her former player and assistant Nikki Caldwell, who is in her first year with the Tigers (13-5, 4-2 SEC).

She previously coached at UCLA.

Meighan Simmons and Cierra Burdick, seeing more action than usual because of injuries at Tennessee (14-4, 5-1 SEC), had 19 points and 15 points, respectively.

Leading scorer Shekinna Stricklen departed with a streak of 121 starts at Tennessee because of a right knee sprain suffered Sunday against Vanderbilt while Taber Spani hasn’t played since Dec. 26 because of a bone bruise in her left knee.

The Lady Vols are headed to No. 2 Notre Dame Monday night in a nonconference meeting that will be the first between the two since last season’s NCAA tournament in which the Irish upset Tennessee in the elite eight and advanced to the title game in Indianapolis before losing to Texas A&M.

LSU’s Courtney Jones had 16 points in a game in which the Tigers lost two players with injuries.

Two minutes into the game starting Tigers point guard Jeanne Kenny went to the bench with what appears to be a concussion and later Destini Hughes went down three seconds before halftime with a serious knee injury.

“Obviously, it was a knock-down drag out type fight, but it was a very competitive fight,” Caldwell observed. “You saw two teams playing every possession like it was their last.”

In another SEC game that featured two ranked teams, No. 6 Kentucky (17-2, 6-0 SEC) outlasted No. 15 Georgia 69-64 on the road in Athens as former UConn player Samarie Walker had 18 points.

Georgia fell to 15-4 overall and 4-2 in the conference.

No. 5 Vanderbilt was upset 69-47 at unranked Arkansas (13-5, 2-4) as Sarah Watkins scored a season-high 21 points for the Razorbacks, who hadn’t beaten the Commodores (14-4, 2-3) since 2006.

Mentee Elliott Loses To Mentor Auriemma

Besides the matchup of familiarity on the coaching sidelines in the game at Tennessee, a Big East matchup in Storrs, Conn., had Geno Auriemma, coach of No. 3 UConn, going against his former star player and assistant Jamelle Elliott, who is running Cincinnati.

Like most games this season, it was another Huskies rout, this one 80-37 as Tiffany Hayes led the way for UConn (16-2, 5-1 Big East) with 17 points and the Huskies’ NCAA home win streak record was extend to 96 straight.

Cincinnati fell to 9-9 overall and 0-5 in the Big East.

“It only gets easier from here, I hope,” Elliott said after Cincinnati lost to three Top 10 teams in their last four losses.

The Bearcats will be at Villanova Tuesday night.

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: Temple and St. Joseph's Dodge Losses In A-10 Play

2012-01-19T02:44:00.001-05:00

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA – Temple and St. Joseph’s endured narrow escapes Wednesday night in a pair of Atlantic 10 games in their respective home arenas while La Salle’s six-game win streak came to an end on the road in another conference matchup.

Temple eked out a 67-64 win against Duquesne in a battle of two upper echelon squads in the conference while St. Joseph’s got pushed into overtime by Fordham at the last second of regulation but then regained its footing and dominated the extra period on the way to a 57-46 victory.

The Owls played Duquesne in a late afternoon game at the Liacouras Center on the front end of a doubleheader with the men’s team that hosted La Salle in a Big Five contest.

Temple (9-8, 3-1 Atlantic 10) shook off 23 turnovers and a 25-13 disadvantage on points off turnovers to stay within range of the conference leaders while Duquesne (13-5, 1-2) fell to the crowded middle of the pack.

“The Owls enjoyed their largest lead at 11 points early in the second half and built a seven-point lead with 46 seconds left in the game.

Temple was only narrowly in front 60-57 when Owls’ senior Shey Peddy was fouled and went to the line making both free throws and Temple getting possession because of a technical foul on Duquesne coach Suzie McConnell-Serio, the former Penn State all-American who has quickly built the Dukes into a conference contender.

BJ Williams hit a pair of free throws to extend the lead to 64-57 but Temple was not quite home as free as it seemed.

Duquesne’s Jocelyn Floyd made one of two foul shots on the next possession with 36 seconds left but Temple’s Monaya Merritt likewise made one of two chances from the line.

When she missed the second the Owls’ Victoria Macaulay got the rebound only to turn the ball over and then committed a foul to send Duquesne’s Ahjah Hall to the line.

Hall made both to cut the deficit to 65-60 and Merritt missed a chance to re-extend the lead when she failed to connect on both free throw opportunities with 26 seconds left.

Orsi Szecsi cut it to three with a layup with 14 seconds to go but missed a chance to slice it further when she didn’t hit the free throw after she had been fouled by Macaulay on the scoring play.

Hall then got a layup making it a one-point game with 10 seconds left at 65-64.

But then Peddy was fouled, hit both foul shots and Alex Gensler missed a long 3-point attempt to end the game.

“We made some unnecessary inexcusable plays allowing them to stop the clock and extend their pressure, fouling, and ones, got them to the point where they had a chance to tie the game,” Temple coach Tonya Cardoza said.

“Obviously, I’m happy we pulled the game off but I just wish we would have ended the game in a different way.”

Peddy finished with a game-high 22 points and 11 rebounds, while BJ Williams scored 14 points, Kristen McCarthy scored 11, and Macaulay grabbed 11 rebounds.

Floyd scored 18 points for Duquesne, while Wumi Agunbiade had 15 points, and Szecsi had 10.

Following a home loss last week to frontrunner St. Bonaventure, Temple knocked off Dayton – the conference co-favorite with the Owls – on the road Sunday and then outlasted Duquesne.

“It means a lot (to win the last two) because these are two of the tougher teams in the conference, they have been for the last few years. Three of their players have been among the leaders so to beat them and beat Dayton on their home court that says a lot,” Cardoza said.

“Obviously St. Bonaventure is a great team, but we feel like we let one get away, we didn’t play very well. So we made sure we were focused, played very good defense and stopped teams from what they like to do.”

Temple will take its last break from conference play Saturday hosting Penn in a Big Five game next door in McGonigle Hall at 3 p.m.

Villanova won the title with a sweep 4-0 beating the Quakers at home Tuesday night but Temple could still finish second outright with a win Saturday and also with wins over St. Joseph’s and La Salle that are also part of the A-10 schedule.

“I don’t really look forward to that game,” Cardoza said. “Penn is a good team and they play us really tough – they’re physical – since I’ve been here every game is really a close game. I’m still enjoying this one and we’ll prepare for that one in a couple of days.”

St. Joseph's Survives Ram Attack

Meanwhile over on Hawk Hill at Hagan Arena, the site of the conference tournament in March, Fordham (10-9, 1-3) battled host St. Joseph’s (12-5, 2-1) tough and forced the game into overtime when Cody Sims hit a three with one-second left in regulation.

But then Ashley Prim broke the deadlock with a layup with 3:07 left in the extra period.

Becky Peters then missed a shot for Fordham and Michelle Baker extended the lead with 2:09 left.

Abigail Corning missed a three-pointer for the Rams and then Prim nailed a trey to make it 53-46 with 1:28 left.

Arielle Collins then missed a layup and Peters fouled Katie Kuester.

Though she missed both free throws, Samira Van Grinsven grabbed the offensive rebound and Michelle Baker went to the line and hit a pair to get things safe for the Hawks.

Prim and Kuester each hit one-of-two free throws to close out an 11-0 overtime and stay in the conference hunt.

Van Grinsven finished with 12 points and nine rebounds, while Baker and Prim each scored 11, as did Fordham’s Charlotte Stoddart as the only Ram to hit double figures.

St. Joseph’s shot 41.2 percent from the field, but held Fordham to 30.9 percent.

“I thought it was a well-fought game and when it comes down to possessions, it’s just about execution and playing defense and today I thought our defense was terrific,” St. Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin said.

“We’re not shooting ball extremely well right now, but we’re finding ways with rebounding, key rebounds and key shots down the stretch – I thought Samira came up big for us, Prim came up big for us, and overall I thought it was a great team effort.”

As for the Fordham’s last-second shot, Griffin said, “It was a little bit of a fluke shot – could we have bene a little bit closer, or course we could have been closer and we should have been closer.

“But our team is a very experienced team and we’ve been in those situations before.”

St. Joseph’s next travels on Saturday to struggling Xavier (3-13, 0-3), the two-time defending conference champion.

“With their tradition, they have a couple of kids on the team who have experienced success. I want our team to be playing each game and learning from each experience,” Griffin said. “It’s very important we take one game at a time and focus that way.

“Our goals are what they are – seeding is going to be very important in this drag out fight that’s going to occur with the Atlantic 10 and we want a good seed and have a good showing in the Atlantic 10 and ultimately our goal is to be in the (NCAA tournament).

Former St. Joseph’s coach Stephanie V. Gaitley, also a former Villanova star, was back on Hawk Hill as the first-year coach at Fordham, following a previously stint at Monmouth.

It was her second trip back to Philadelphia in a week after losing at La Salle last week, but she thought the game against the Hawks was a major improvement for her squad.

“I was really proud of the effort, we had some tough losses at La Salle and (George Washington), where I don’t think we grew as a team,” Gaitley said. “We definitely grew as a team today against a very good St. Joseph’s team.

“You can’t put a price on experience when they’re starting four seniors. We’re young, inexperienced and I’m proud of the effort. Hopefully we can keep that effort when we’re back here in March.”

Down at Charlotte in North Carolina, the 49ers got revenge on La Salle for the Explorers’ win over them last season with a 77-66 victory.

The loss spoiled the state homecoming for Jada Payne who scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds for the Explorers (9-10, 3-1), who suffered their first AS-10 setback.

Alexis Scott had 16 points and Brittany Wilson scored 15 for La Salle.

Charlotte (12-6, 4-0) kept pace at the top of the conference with St. Bonaventure (17-2, 4-0), who beat Richmond (14-4, 2-2) Wednesday night.

Hillary Sigmon, a high school teammate of Payne, had 17 points as did Jennifer Hailey for the 49ers. Epiphany Woodson had 14 points and Amanda Dowe had 10 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

La Salle next travels to Richmond Saturday.

The National Scene

Elizabeth Williams, considered one of the top prospects last season, had 20 points and 11 rebounds as No. 5 Duke won its ninth straight and beat Atlantic Coast Conference rival Georgia Tech 79-62 for the 34^th consecutive time, dating back to a loss to the Yellowjackets on Feb. 27, 1994, in Duluth, Georgia.

Richa Jackson had 17 points for the Blue Devils (15-2, 5-0 ACC) while reigning conference player of the week Sasha Goodlett scored 25 points for Georgia Tech (13-6, 3-3).

Brittney Griner had 21 points and eight blocked shots as top ranked Baylor stayed unbeaten with a Big 12 road win at No. 17 Texas Tech, 69-63, in Lubbock, Texas.

Destiny Williams had 16 points and 16 rebounds for the Bears (18-0, 5-0 Big 12) while Christine Hyde had 15 points for the Lady Raiders (14-3, 2-3).

In another Big 12 contest, No. 14 Texas A&M, the defending national champion beat visiting Missouri 78-52 as Sydney Carter and Adaora Elonu each scored 16 points for the Aggies (12-4, 3-2) to keep the Tigers (10-6, 0-5) winless in conference competition. Missouri’s Christine Flores scored 13 points in the game in College Station, Texas.

In the lone Big East game involving ranked teams, No. 18 Louisville beat visiting Providence 64-48 as Bria Smith scored 12 points for the Cardinals (15-4, 4-2 Big East) and Alicia Cropper, the lone Providence player to score in double figures, had 14 points for the Friars (10-9,l 2-4).

Looking Ahead

Drexel goes after its fourth straight win in Colonial Athletic Association play Thursday night at home when Northeastern visits while co-conference frontrunner Delaware will visit Towson, which lost two weeks ago to the Blue Hens but are 7-0 at home.

Hofstra, also unbeaten in conference play, hosts two-time defending champion James Madison.

Penn State stays on the road in the Big 10 and visits Illinois.

The Guru will be tweeting from the Drexel game at @womhoopsguru.

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: Villanova Wins Big Five Title

2012-01-18T02:51:00.001-05:00

By Mel Greenberg

VILLANOVA, Pa. – Following its annual spanking from Connecticut in Big East play, Saturday, though a little less painful this time around, Villanova was the thrasher Tuesday night beating Penn 52-30 at home at The Pavilion to complete a sweep of the Big Five at 4-0 for veteran coach Harry Perretta’s 13^th City Series title.

The Wildcats (12-6, 4-0 Big Five) matched their entire win total for last season and with win 96 in the Big Five contests they lead St. Joseph’s by two games.

The Hawks can catch them in that regard by beating La Salle and Temple in what will also be Atlantic 10 contests while Temple and St. Joseph’s will also play a solo A-10 game as part of the annual home-and-home rivalry in the conference between the two schools.

Penn (7-7, 0-3 Big Five) will finish its local slate at Temple 3 p.m. Saturday at McGonigle Hall and then return to Ivy play the rest of the way trying to finish second to Princeton – does anyone think the Tigers won’t win three straight crowns – and get a bid to the postseason WNIT.

Villanova’s Laura Sweeney, continuing her fine play, scored 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Newcomer Lauren Burford had 17 points.

Additionally, senior Lindsay Kimmel became the first to win two Big Five titles at separate schools. Temple won when Kimmel was a freshman who later transferred to the Main Line school here after her sophomore season.

“It’s fun. I like playing against the local kids. Some of the girls I played against in AAU and some of the local high schools so it makes it competitive and makes it fun,” said Sweeney, who starred at Cherokee High across the Delaware River in South Jersey in Marlton.

“It’s fun to play with them and play against us them. Penn put a lot of pressure on us so that will help us when we get back to the Big East.”

Villanova may want to take its time changing back into the Big East mindset considering the Wildcats head to South Bend, Ind., against No. 2 Notre Dame, the Big East leader, which destroyed Pittsburgh 120-44 Tuesday night.

Here against the Quakers in one of only two local games on the slate, Villanova held a slim 20-16 lead with five minutes left in the first half and then finished with a 10-0 run culminating with Sweeney’s layup before the buzzer for a 30-16 advantage at the break.

The lead grew to 27 points late in the game prior to the final score.

Villanova bedeviled Penn into 23 turnovers and as a result had a huge 21-6 differential on points off turnovers.

“It’s always fun to win,” Perretta said of earning another Big Five crown. “And for the kids it means a lot. And for me, I’m from Philly so it means a lot to me, too.”

The women have competed in a full round robin every year since the 1979-80 season.

“Even though we won by a lot of points, it was a typical Big Five game – it was ugly, that’s what it was,” Perretta said.

“I kind of expected it to be really ugly,” he said.

“In the first half we were rushing things and either make a turnover or not get a quality shot. But then in the second half we decided to walk the ball, take our time, and then what happened was we put Sweeney and (Emily) Leer in position to see the double team better and we started to get more quality kick outs.”

Perretta said his team still lacks a certain confidence needed to get Big East wins bolstered by the RPI to have a good shot at the NCAA tournament as an at-large team.

“To be honest with you, I thought today we played scared,” he said. “I don’t think we had the same concentration level today that we had against UConn and I think it was because we’re nervous, we’re just scared because we knew we had a chance to play for the Big Five title.

“You have to be able to handle success and they’re not handling success,” Perretta said. “By success I mean now that we’re winning we’re the favorite. Last year we were the underdog and we were scared to lose.

“Good teams don’t worry about being the favorite – they just go out and win.”

Penn, meanwhile has hit the skids with a toughened stretch of schedule before getting back to Ivy competition.

“I’m really disappointed overall,” Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said. “We didn’t play the way Penn plays. We didn’t play as hard as we have to do just to give ourselves a chance, let alone s fair chance.

“Penn didn’t put on a lot of pressure on us. Just careless turnovers. Just not a very good effort for us.”

No one scored in double figures for Penn with Jourdan Banks scoring nine points and leading scorer Alyssa Baron being totally shut out.

She was 0-for-8.

“She struggled against St. Joseph’s. I’m more interested that she handles this right,” McLaughlin said. “She’s hard on herself. She’ll have better days ahead.”

Rutgers Upset By St. John’s

For the second straight year the Scarlet Knights had a disastrous visit to the Red Storm in Queens, N.Y.

The last time Rutgers lost at the finish on an error while the Scarlet Knights were on the line. Tuesday night the seventh-ranked Scarlet Knights parted with a six-game win streak losing 62-57 despite 16 points from Khadijah Rushdan and 14 from Monique Oliver.

"I was hoping we'd remember we had lost to them before and have some sense of urgency coming out,"Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said referencing two straight losses last year. "We just weren't. We were a day late and dollar short."

Rutgers (15-3, 4-1 Big East) committed 21 turnovers and St. John's got to the free throw line 32 times.

The Scarlet Knights didn't really have any urgency until they were down by nine points with 2½ minutes left. That's when senior Khadijah Rushdan tried to rally her team. It just wasn't enough.

"We were lax," said Rushdan, who led Rutgers with 16 points. "We really couldn't get into our 55 (press) and we draw a lot of our energy from it during games. We misunderstood personnel. Tonight we were playing them like shooters and they went to the line 32 times."

St. John's (12-7, 4-2) was 26 of 32 from the free throw line in the game, including making 14 of 16 over the final 4½ minutes.

"We did a great job of making our free throws," St. John’s coch Kim Barnes Arico said.

-- Mel

Guru College Report: Delle Donne Leg Injury "Just A Strain"

2012-01-17T11:53:00.001-05:00

(Guru's Note: Updating to refine and correct nature of Delle Donne injury being a strain of a tendon in her calf, not her knee. Also correcting the Mountain West home to be in Colorado Springs, not Denver. Also be patient with type faces in posts here. There's been some change in the program and the Guru's wonks aren't around to tell him how to correct the problem.)

By Mel Greenberg

Delaware fans can sort of breathe a sign of relief concerning junior sensation Elena Delle Donne, who missed most of the first half of Sunday’s win over Northeastern in a Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) game in Boston because of an injury in her left leg.

The former high school national player of the year out of Ursuline Academy in nearby Wilmington still managed to finish with 22 points after entering late in the first half to transform a closely fought contest with the Huskies into a lopsided win.

Though Delle Donne’s nation-leading scoring average got nicked a bit, falling to 29.3 points per game, the Blue Hens (14-1, 4-0 CAA) used the win to catapult from No. 21 to 16 in The Associated Press women’s poll announced Monday afternoon.

Delaware has now been in the rankings for the eight straight weeks since making its debut this season.

Penn State, incidentally, re-entered at No. 22 after dropping out last week for the first time this season, and Rutgers moved to seventh while Dawn Staley’s South Carolina team lasted just a week because of two losses.

Meanwhile, according to a person familiar with tests on Delle Donne’s leg, she has a strain of a tendon, not a ligament, as noted in the previous post, that starts in her calf and is more in her calf than her knee.

It is just a strain and she will be rehabbing and strengthening the source of the difficulty.

Delle Donne did not think she got hurt in Thursday’s win at home at the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark – she did not fall or suffer any major collisions – but after she got home her leg began to hurt and she initially had doubts she could play on it Sunday at Northeastern.

But as noted she did come to the Blue Hens’ rescue and her chances of playing at Towson will be mentioned here when it is known.

Delaware has already beaten the Tigers once but the Blue Hens head to a Towson team that is 7-0 at home.

In another note, Delaware’s RPI remains strong after wading into the CAA waters, though it has dipped to eighth on the NCAA’s official weekly tabulation after having been No. 1 until the Blue Hens’ start of conference play.

Princeton, which had been around 11-14, fell to 22 because of weak numbers from two of the Tigers’ three Ivy rivals played to date.

Strong Field Contends For National Player Honors

Two former winners of the United States Basketball Writers Association’s (USBWA) new weekly women’s national player honor are in the hunt for a second honor and are joined by the sister of another previous winner.

The pool of candidates is formed from the weekly conference player and co-player honors in all 31 leagues, of which the Guru here makes some of the performances highlighted prior to Tuesday afternoon’s weekly announcement.

Kentucky’s A’dia Mathies, who was the first-ever USBWA winner six weeks ago, picked up another citation from the Southeastern Conference for averaging 21.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.5 blocked shots in two games, including a career-high 34 points and the last-second winning shot over Tennessee.

The Big 12 named Brittney Griner of Baylor, another previous winner, again after averaging 30.0 points per game and 12 rebounds in two wins by top-ranked Baylor, which; along with Wis.-Green Bay are the only two remaining unbeaten teams in Division I.

Stanford’s Nnemkadi Oguwmike is not contending for another honor this week but her sister Chinney, who also plays for the fourth-ranked Cardinal, is in the hunt after averaging 15.0 points and 12.5 rebounds in two games on the road beating new Pac-12 opponents Utah, formerly of the Mountain West Conference, and Colorado, who left the Big 12.

In the Big East DePaul’s Anna Martin played in just one game but her 29-points against Pittsburgh in Chicago enabled her to join previous Blue Demons honorees from the conference.

Philadelphia-area athletes earned honors from several conferences to become USBWA nominees.

Drexel’s Hollie Mershon, who averaged 21.5 points in two games, including a first-ever Dragons win in regular season play at James Madison, shared the CAA award with Virginia Commonwealth’s Courtney Hurt, who averaged 25.0 points and 15.5 rebounds in two games.

Princeton’s Niveen Rasheed, who averaged 15.5 points and 10 rebounds in two wins by the two-time defending league champions, added to her collection of awards from the Ivy League.

And La Salle’s Brittany Wilson averaged 29.5 points in two Explorers wins to get both the Atlantic 10 award, which puts her in the USBWA pool, and the Big Five’s weekly women’s award in Philadelphia which just gets the winner a mention here and elsewhere.

Another local honoree, but not in Division I, was Richard Stockton College’s Kelsey Brown, who picked up the player of the week honor from the New Jersey Athletic Conference.

Back in Division I, Georgia Tech’s Sasha Goodlett averaged 21.7 points and 10.3 rebounds across three games to pick up the weekly award from the Atlantic Coast Conference’s blue ribbon media panel.

The Big 10, because of a TV game on Monday night the rest of he way, will not name a winner until Tuesday morning, which is still time to get consideration for the USBWA honor.

But the Guru suspects Purdue’s Brittany Rayburn will be at least a co-winner after tying an NCAA record with 12 three-pointers in one game and then scoring 14 Sunday, including the last-second block to preserve the Boilermakers’ win and keep them alone at the top and undefeated in Big 10 play.

If the Big 10 goes a different direction, well, Brittany, at least you know your effort was noticed here.

In the America East, Vermont’s Lauren Buschmann averaged 18.5 points and 13 rebounds in two games while in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Fairfield’s Taryn Johnson averaged 18.7 points and 12.3 rebounds.

Denver is not only the home of the 2012 NCAA Women’s Final Four, it is also the headquarters of the Western Athletic Conference and not far from the Mountain West Conference located to the south in Colorado Springs.

In the Mountain West, Boise State’s Lauren Lenhardt’s 26.0 average in two games brought a shared award with San Diego State’s Chelsea Hopkins, who averaged 14.0 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.5 assists.

Over in the WAC, San Jose State’s Brittany Johnson had 22 points, 12 rebounds and five assists in a win over Hawaii.

Sequeena Thomas of Sam Houston averaged 14 points and 14 rebounds to pick up the Southland player of the week while in the Missouri Valley Conference; Drake’s Rachel Hackbarth averaged 23.0 points and 14.5 rebounds in two wins.

Finally Akil Simpson of SMU in two games averaged 18 points and 14 rebounds to receive player of the week honors from Conference USA.

On The Road Again – Briefly

This report is originating halfway between College Park, Md., and back in the hometown because, hey the nice hotel is cheap enough, much cheaper in fact, than the train still known as Amtrak.

Knowing all this had to be written, it makes sense to establish mobile headquarters unless using the fantastic I-95 rest stop near the University of Delaware exit.

The Guru was at the Comcast Center for Maryland’s ACC battle with Virginia and unlike the other nationally-ranked – the Guru doesn’t know why – ACC team getting mixed up in the state of Connecticut that reduced Tobacco Road to an alleyway resided by Duke, the Terrapins-Cavaliers contest was competitive.

There is no game report here because there’s nothing the Guru would have said that isn’t already deftly handled by the Associated Press and Washington Post.

The Guru did get nostalgic remembering a time in Cole Fieldhouse that print media vastly outnumbered photographers – videographers and all others did not exist yet.

Also, the Guru noticed the headline in his weekly notebook for the printed alma mater on North Broad St. reads Early A-10 Tests May Hurt Temple.

The Guru does not write the headlines for print – he occasionally makes them but that’s another story, and does write them here.

But before he arrives at the Liacouras Center Wednesday afternoon for the Duquesne game and gets pounced by certain friends on the Temple coaching staff, which enjoys dispensing grief, the Guru will pretend he is an SID and spin it the other way.

The original point was to say that it is a rough diet with no margin of error in terms of losses to stay strongly in the hunt for an NCAA at-large bid.

But, as was the case several years ago when Temple blitzed the four other top conference teams down the stretch, including upsetting Xavier, which was nationally-ranked, surely if the Owls could beat these teams – all with strong winning records – the at-large shot gets stronger as long as they don’t trip up after they get to the less arduous part of the conference slate, which still will have a second St. Joe game and a La Salle game.

And to you RPI junkies, this will be part of the next blog or after-next blog, the Guru noticed that the rankings are not all that far apart between the official NCAA weekly release and the daily one shown at Realtime RPI.

OK. The Guru will be on the scene at Villanova Tuesday night for the Penn game that could bring the host Wildcats the Big Five title with a win.

He will be tweeting from @womhoopsguru.

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: Temple Holds Off Dayton In A-10 Showdown

2012-01-16T05:39:00.002-05:00

(Guru's Note: Quotes beyond Drexel game site and calls to the locals are drawn on team and wire reports.)

By Mel Greenberg

Temple shook off a tough loss and moved forward with a major win. Drexel made it three straight outings of offense and defense. Penn State delivered a major dose of revenge. Princeton and Delaware stayed perfect in their respective leagues with Delaware, ranked 20^th in the Associated Press women’s poll showing one half of Delle Donne is sometimes nifty as two.

And elsewhere around the country there were other things to note.

Things began to get bleak quickly for Temple following a home loss to St. Bonaventure on Wednesday.

Ahead Sunday afternoon in another key showdown in the Atlantic 10 the Owls were slotted to play at Dayton on national TV in a game between the two conference co-favorites.

Temple had gone through a roller-coaster non-conference schedule before pulling a last-second win at surprising Richmond a week ago Saturday only to be handled by the Bonnies in the Liacouras Center.

While the Owls were being placed into a dismal situation, Dayton had dominated St. Joseph’s on the road.

But Temple was able to come out Sunday against the Flyers with a hot start that put the Owls in position to withstand a Dayton rally in the second half and emerge with a 61-57 victory as Shey Peddy scored 21 points and Victoria Macauley grabbed 11 rebounds.

The result enabled Temple (8-8, 2-1 A-10) to even its record and stay in the hunt for at least a bye for the conference tournament at St. Joseph’s in March.

“That was a great effort but we have to maintain our focus and intensity,” Temple coach Tonya Cardoza said afterwards as the team headed to the airport for the flight back to Philadelphia.

The Owls are seeing nothing but the best of the conference until they reach the back end of the schedule.

Next up Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the Liacouras Center in the opener of a doubleheader with the men’s team is a visit from Duquesne before taking a brief conference break on Saturday to host Penn in a Big Five game.

Patrice Lalor had 15 points for Dayton (10-5, 2-1), which was prevented from joining surprising La Salle and St. Bonaventure at the top of the league standings.

Other statistical performers for Temple were Brittany Lewis with 13 points, Kristen McCarthy with 11 and while BJ Williams dealt eight assists and Peddy also grabbed eight rebounds.

Temple, which led by 10 points at the half, was reduced to a mere 58-57 advantage with 26 seconds remaining when Lalor hit a jumper.

Then Peddy was fouled and hit both free throws to at least be in position with 16 seconds left to go into overtime. But Williams forced a Dayton turnover and then went to the line where McCarthy hit one of two free throw attempts and Dayton was deprived of a shot in the Flyers’ final possession.’

Drexel 1-2 Punch Carries Dragons Over Georgia State

Following a stirring first-ever regular season win at James Madison, the biggest concern for Drexel coach Denise Dillon on Sunday was whether the Dragons would still be dancing off the victory and not be able to deal with the next matters at hand in Georgia State.

The answer came quickly at the Dasklalakis Athletic Center in West Philadelphia as Drexel took an early lead and was never threatened the rest of the day as the Dragons stayed tied for third with Virginia Commonwealth one game behind Delaware and Hofstra, who have yet to lose in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).

Kamile Nacicakaite had 17 points of her 20 points in the first half and Hollie Mershon followed up her career-high total at James Madison with 16 points and nine rebounds in what became an easy 65-38 win over the Panthers.

Drexel (8-7, 4-1 CAA) dominated the boards 42-30 and built on a 30-15 halftime lead by going on an 11-1 run at the outset of the second half stay in the comfort zone all the way to the finish.

No one scored in double figures for Georgia State (6-10, 0-5), which is still winless in the CAA after five games.

The Panthers were held to 25.5 percent from the field and Kendra Long had a team high eight points.

Drexel, which shot 48.9 percent from the field, next hosts Northeastern Thursday before heading to Delaware Sunday for a major showdown in the long-running rivalry both in the conference and dating back to when both belonged to the America East before the 2001-02 season.

“That’s definitely what we were concerned about – it was a good win on the road against JMU and then coming in against a team that you’re not really aware of what they are going to do, defensively,” Dillon said.

“They do a lot of matchup zones. They do a lot of trappings so you’re not sure what you are in store for. We wanted to keep the team on track with what has been working offensively,” Dillon added.

“A couple of times we wanted to make things happen instead of just allowing the offense to create shots for us, but that will tend to happen.

“We’re now playing team defense and they’re focusing so much on that end that offense is becoming easier for them. (Reserve) Fiona Flanagan is now comfortable taking shots. There’s no panic involved. She doesn’t feel like she has to make something happen but she’s looking to shoot the ball and that’s a great thing for us.”

Flanagan had seven points off the bench in 21 minutes. And Jackie Schluth scored five points.

“How about that. Schulth comes in and scores five points in six minutes. That girl can score points, she just needs to keep working on defense. Taylor Wootten is focusing so much on defense that offense is becoming easier for her.”

Meanwhile it was high drama for Delaware up at Northeastern where before the game it was learned that Ellena Delle Donne, the nation’s leading scorer (29.8 points per game), had some kind of undisclosed injury on her left foot, would not start, and it was unlikely she would play against the Huskies in Boston.

But with five minutes left in the half, Delle Donne, who missed 12 games last season due to Lyme disease, entered the tightly contested game which ended at the break with the Blue Hens in front 31-28.

The junior all-American forward-guard then spurred Delaware to a solid lead and 70-54 victory as she finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds . The Blue Hens are now 14-1 overall and 5-0 in the CAA heading to a return match with Towson, this time at the Tigers’ arena in Maryland, Thursday.

Delle Donne was perfect at the line 9-9 but also dished five assists to be part of a season-high 20 assists, one more than Delaware’s previous game – a win at home over UNCW.

Danielle Parker had 13 points and 10 rebounds while Lauren Carra had 12 points from four three-pointers. Jocelyn Bailey scored 10 points as the fourth Delaware player scoring in double figures.

It was the Blue Hens’ 20^th straight win over Northeastern (3-13, 1-4), which got 14 points and nine rebounds from Deanna Kerkhof.

“We didn’t start out very well without our regular starters and it threw everyone off a little bit,” Delaware coach Tina Martin said after getting her 292^nd career win – all with the Blue Hens. “In the first half, we didn’t share the ball as well as we have and some people played really tight.

“Overall in the second half we got much more comfortable with the flow of the game than we were in the first half. We were very up and down but we came out with a victory.”

Hofstra kept pace in the CAA with Delaware by gaining a first-ever win at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Va., at the Ted Constant Convocation Center, beating the former conference power 81-68 as Shante Evans of Henderson High and West Chester in suburban Philadelphia posted her eighth straight double double with 22 points and 10 rebounds.

The Pride (13-3, 5-0 CAA) had lost all nine previous meetings at ODU and the 13-3 record ties the best start ever for Hofstra, which also occurred in 2006-07.

Marie Malone had a career-high 20 point and nine rebounds for the Pride, a scoring total matched by teammate Nicole Capurso.

Hofstra coach Krista Kilburn-Stevesky, a former star at North Carolina State whose six-year head coaching caeer has all been with the Pride, gained her 99^th win.

Tia Lewis had 27 points for ODU (5-12, 2-3). Hofstra next hosts James Madison Thursday. The Duchesses (12-4, 3-2), the two-time defending CAA champions, took over fifth place with a home win over Towson (11-5, 2-3), which fell into a three-way tie for sixth with ODU and UNCW.

Virginia Commonwealth kept pace with Drexel by blunting a rally by William & Mary 83-80 on the road in Williamsburg, Va., as Courtney Hurt had 28 points and 15 rebounds for the Rams (11-5, 4-1).

The host Tribe fell to 8-8 overall and 1-4 in the CAA.

Princeton Routs Columbia

The two-time defending Ivy League champion Tigers made it 3-0 in league competition this season with a lop-sided 94-35 win at home over Columbia (2-13, 0-1 Ivy) in Jadwin Gym.

Princeton (13-4, 3-0), which will now be off almost three weeks for final exams, is now 30-1 the last three seasons in the Ivies. They next host Brown and Yale in back-to-back contests Feb. 3 nd

The Tigers roared to a 58-13halftime lead. Niveen Rasheed finished with 21 points and eight rebounds, Lauren Edwards had 19 points, Laura Johnson scored 12, and Devona Allgood had 10 points.

Melissa Shafer had 10 points for Columbia.

We talked a lot about our transition push and how we wanted to start the game strong … We took it to them right from the start and sustained that effort over 40 minutes,” Princeton coach Courtney Banghart said.

“This is an important time for (the team) academically,” Banghart said. “We asked them for the first three games to let us do our thing, and they did that, now we are going to let them do their thing academically … Our goals are still in place and that means we still have to keep getting better,” she added about keeping the team fresh through the final exam period.

Penn State Eyes Return To The Rankings

Having been bounced out of the AP poll a week ago for the first time this season, the Lady Lions attempted a quick return with a revenge-tinted 93-73 win on the road over No. 15 Nebraska in Big Ten contest in Lincoln.

To get this one, Penn State had to rally from an early 11-point deficit.

Several teams at the bottom of the current poll suffered losses to make re-entry possible while A-10 frontrunner St. Bonaventure is looking to gain more support as well.

Penn State (13-4, 3-2 Big Ten) lost at home several weeks ago to the conference newcomer who moved from the Big 12

“Since we played Nebraska the first time, we found a way to get (her players) to understand how important it is to play with patience, poise and composure,” Penn State coach Coquese Washington said. “As our team learns and grows, we’ll be able to hopefully do this, by this I mean, go on the road into a tough environment and execute down the stretch of games.”

Maggie Lucas, the graduate of Germantown Academy from Narberth, Pa., in suburban Philadelphia, had 24 points, while Alex Bentley scored 23 for the Lady Lions, who were the preseason conference favorites.

Nebraska (15-2, 4-1) suffered its first conference loss and yielded 90 points for the first time since 2008.

“Penn State, I thought, was hitting all cylinders in the second half,” Cornhuskers coach Connie Yori said. “We lost the game because of our defensive end. We could not slow them down.”

Penn State heads to Illinois Thursday and then returns home to the Bryce Jordan Center against Iowa on Sunday.

Elsewhere in the Big Ten, Brittany Rayburn, who tied an NCAA record with 12 three-pointers last time out, scored 14 points and made a key block at the finish as Purdue edged Iowa 57-55 at home in West Lafayette, Ind.

“All I know is I felt the ball, and the buzzer went off,” Rayburn said.

The No. 17 Boilermakers (15-3, 5-0) are alone in first place in the conference as the last unbeaten team in Big Ten competition.

Jaime Printy had 15 for Iowa (10-8, 2-3).

No. 11 Ohio State took Michigan State down from unbeaten play in the conference beating the Spartans on the road 64-56 in East Lansing as Samantha Prahalis scored 15 points for the Buckeyes (17-1, 4-1), who pulled the opposition (12-6, 4-1) into a three-way second-place tie with Nebraska.

National Highlights

In the Southeastern Conference, No. 6 Tennessee bounced back from its last second loss at No. 9 Kentucky by beating in-state rival No. 25 Vanderbilt 87-64 at home in Knoxville.

Shekinna Stricklen scored 20 points for the Lady Vols (13-4, 4-1 SEC) and suffered a knee injury, which later was said to mostly likely be a strain but further evaluation will be made Monday.

Glory Johnson had 16 points and 13 rebounds for Tennessee.

Christina Foggie tied her career-high with 27 points for Vanderbilt (14-3, 2-2).

Kentucky turned aside No. 24 South Carolina 66-58 on the road in Columbia as Kelya Snowden scored 15 points for the first-place Wildcats (16-2, 5-0).

The Gamecocks (14-4, 3-2) returned to the AP Poll a week ago for the first time since 2003 but the stay for Dawn Staley’s squad may be short after a road loss at LSU and Sunday’s setback to Kentucky.

Iesia Walker had 14 points for South Carolina, which was hounded into 28 turnovers as Kentucky is off to its best start ever in the SEC.

“Turnovers killed us,” Staley said.

South Carolina missed a chance to beat a Top 10 team for the first time since January 2002, one year before making the NCAA tournament for the last time since then.

“Keep turning the page,” Staley said about shaking off this past week’s two setbacks to land a spot in the 64-team field. South Carolina was also 12-for-25 on the line.

Meanwhile, No. 19 Georgia’s Anne Marie Armstrong had 22 point for the Bulldogs in a 68-51 road win at Mississippi State in Starkville.

Khaadlidah had 17 points for Georgia (15-3, 4-1) while Porsha Porter had 12 points for Mississippi State (11-6, 1-3).

In the Big East, No. 18 Georgetown stayed part of a five-team logjam for fifth place with an easy 69-42 win over Syracuse at home in the nation’s capital as Sugar Rodgers poured 23 points for the Hoyas (14-4, 3-2).

Isasia Hemingway had 14 for the Orange (12-7, 1-4).

Marquette’s 63-55 road win at St. John’s put both teams in that fifth-place crawl.

Katherine Plouffe had 18 points and 11 rebounds for the visiting Golden Eagles (12-6, 3-2), while Shenneika Smith had 13 points for the Red Storm (11-7, 3-2).

Idle Louisville (14-4, 3-2), which lost in overtime at Rutgers Saturday, and idle West Virginia (12-5, 3-2) are the other two teams in the five-game tie.

In the Big 12, top-ranked Baylor used Brittney Griner’s 32 points to down host Texas 77-59 in Austin. The Bears (17-0, 4-0 Big 12) and Wis.-Green Bay (15-0) and are the only remaining unbeaten teams in Division I.

Griner connected on 12 of her first 14 shots against the Longhorns (11-5, 1-3), who were without Cokie Reid who suffered a strained leg muscle in practice Saturday. Chassidy Fussell scored 20 points for Texas.

Over in the Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 7 Duke, which might jump into the top five in the AP Poll, had an easy time at Virginia Tech beating the Hokies 61-34 in Blacksburg.

It was the 16^th straight win in the series by the Blue Devils (14-2, 5-0 ACC), who got 20 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots from freshman Elizabeth Williams.

The Hokies (6-12, 2-3) because of injuries have just six scholarship players.

No. 13 Miami edged Florida State 60-57 on the road in Tallahassee following the Hurricanes’ home upset of No. 5 Maryland as Stefanie Yderstrom nailed a three-pointer with 17 seconds remaining in regulation.

Miami (15-3, 4-1), which had not win at Florida State in 25 years, got 24 points from Shenise Johnson, including her 2,000^th career total.

Natasha Howard scored 22 for Florida State (10-9, 2-3).

In the Pac-12, California won its first game at Utah 63-56. The Utes joined the conference this year from the Mountain West.

Looking Ahead

Maryland (16-1, 3-1) will try to bounce back from its loss at Miami when the Terrapins host longtime rival Virginia (14-4, 2-2) Monday night.

The Guru may be on the scene and will tweet the game if so.

Meanwhile North Carolina (12-4), which could be out of the poll by game time, will be at No. 3 Connecticut (14-2) at the Huskies’ campus Gampel Pavillion in Storrs as Tar Heels coach Sylvia Hatchell again goes for her 600^th victory in the nonconference game.

North Carolina was upset last week at home by Clemson.

In a battle of two unbeaten America East teams in conference play Boston U. (11-6, 4-0) will visit Albany (11-7, 5-0).

-- Mel

Guru's College Report: UConn Swarms Over Villanova To Big East Win

2012-01-14T20:27:00.002-05:00

(Guru’s note: There is a separate post under this off the weekend Princeton games and below that is the interview that had been up with Cynthia Cooper-Dyke about Elena Delle Donne. Quotes in this post beyond the game site are from team and wire reports. If you are in melgreenberg.com click mel’s blog on the left column to get to the full archive in blogspot.)

By Mel Greenberg

VILLANOVA, Pa. – When it comes to Villanova playing a team like No. 3 Connecticut, where the outcome will be a foregone conclusion to many, many times to Wildcats coach Harry Perretta the win or loss takes a distinct back seat as to how the game is played.

And on Saturday afternoon before a lively crowd of 3,206 at the Pavilion though the result went heavily to the Huskies 72-49 in Villanova’s annual Big East matchup, Perretta felt from his perspective the game was played well enough.

“I thought we executed ourselves well – we were able to get shots, something we haven’t been able to do against them in a while,” Perretta said.

“I thought the game helped us a great deal and I thought it helped their young players a great deal because they don’t see (the way Villanova plays) – so I thought it was a good game for both teams.

“In the end you just couldn’t sustain it for 40 minutes. They did a good job – they disrupted us with their press, something that a lot of teams try to do – they try to not let us run our offense. I told the kids afterwards, we competed.”

Connecticut (14-2, 4-1 Big East), though, has answers to almost 96 percent of what the Huskies are presented with and even though Villanova (11-6, 2-3) is unique with its patient whip-around, shoot-from-the-perimeter style, Huskies coach Geno Auriemma went to a five-guard lineup when the Wildcats were making things difficult early in the contest.

The high watermark for Villanova came on Laura Sweeney’s layup for a 15-11 lead with 13 minutes left in the first half.

Then UConn went on a 15-0 run over the next six minutes to take control before Sweeney temporarily stopped surge with a pair of foul shots. The Huskies then scored six more points before Devon Kane’s three-pointer ended what had been a stretch of 9 ½ minutes without a field goal.

In that drought Villanova, which leads the nation with fewest turnovers at 11.1, was hounded into 11 of the Wildcats’ season-high 23 miscues.

“Our kids are not as athletic as they are so it’s tough,” Perretta said of Connecticut’s pressing defense. “Even though I know where they should pass it, they kind of know where they should pass, but they can’t get it there, and I made an adjustment, I did a poor job early not putting them in the right spot.”

Perretta’s group, though, was able to tough it out early in the second half slicing an 11-point deficit to five at 41-36 with 14:18 left in the game before the Huskies dominated the rest of the way.

Rachel Roberts, who grew up in Marlboro, Conn., watching the Huskies, was the only player in double figures for Villanova with 16 points, while Tiffany Hayes poured 22 points for UConn., freshman Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis scored 16 off the bench, and Kelly Faris scored 11.

Caroline Doty, the native of Doylestown, Pa., and graduate of Germantown Academy, celebrated her homecoming with nine points, shooting 4-for-9, including a three-pointer.

Doty and Villanova’s Jesse Carey were teammates here and played on the same AAU team. She had a large contingent of friends and family who got to see her play unlike UConn’s visit last spring to nearby Temple near center city in the NCAA Philadelphia regional.

The reason was Doty was still rehabbing from her third recurring knee injury that caused her to miss last season.

It was also another homecoming for Auriemma, who grew up in nearby Norristown.

“We’re so much better than last year,” Perretta said. “But sometimes we don’t concentrate and we kind of slip back into the last year when we don’t concentrate, we don’t make quick passes, we don’t do this or that.

“Today we were focused but they have to understand we have to be focused not just for UConn but every single time.”

Villanova, which connected on 11-of-24 three-pointers, was coming off an excruciating one-point loss at Marquette at the buzzer that occurred on a defensive lapse.

The Wildcats next step out of the Big East temporarily to host Penn Tuesday night when a win will give them the Big Five title outright at 4-0.

UConn also steps out of the conference to meet a struggling North Carolina team Monday night at Gampel Pavillion on campus in Storrs.

“Now you have to turn around and prepare for something entirely different,” Auriemma said of the different styles played by Villanova and the Tar Heels of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

He talked about the move to five guards to the Wildcats out of their rhythm.

“Villanova makes it very, very difficult on you to defend them because what they’ll do is take whatever big guy they think is the least mobile and they’ll make you come out on the perimeter and there’s nothing they can do about that. That’s how they play,” he said.

“We were hoping to have enough success where they missed enough threes and not hurt us and still play our regular lineup. But they shot the ball well from the perimeter today and forced us to go in another direction.”

Wheeler’s Shot Gives Rutgers Win Over Louisville

In an outcome that at times has gone against Rutgers in a similar fashion in recent seasons, Erica Wheeler capped her career-high 23 points with a three-point buzzer beater in overtime to give the eighth-ranked Scarlet Knights a 71-68 win over No. 16 Louisville at the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center in Piscataway, N.J.

The win moved Rutgers to 15-2 overall and 4-0 in the Big East keeping the Scarlet Knights on track for its end-of-the-month showdown hosting second-ranked Notre Dame and then visiting Connecticut in consecutive Big East games.

“One of the coaches were saying they hadn’t seen that kind of fight in us for a while,” Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said afterwards. “It’s good to see us grind that one out and we’ll be more confident because of this situation.”

The game had 11 ties and 11 lead changes as April Sykes added 19 points to Rutgers’ total and Monique Oliver had 17 points. Khadijah Rushdan had nine points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

Rutgers next travels to improving St. John’s for a Tuesday contest on Long Island.

La Salle Downs Xavier

Reversal of fortunes continued for La Salle and Xavier with the Explorers beating the two-time defending Atlantic 10 champion Musketeers 63-51 at Tom Gola Arena for La Salle’s sixth straight win.

The rugged nonconference schedule drawn up by second-year coach Jeff Williams is paying off at the moment with La Salle, at 3-0 in the conference, making its best start in the Atlantic 10 since 1996-97 season while also evening the overall record at 9-9.

Xavier, which was hit by graduation losses, transfers and the departure of former coach Kevin McGuff to Washington in the Pac-12, fell to 3-13 overall and 0-3 in the conference.

Brittany Wilson scored 28 points for La Salle, including 15 courtesy of connected three-pointers, while Nadia Duncan scored 14 points and Jada Payne scored 10. Ruvanna Campbell grabbed nine rebounds, four steals and dealt two blocks and two assists.

La Salle forced the Musketeers into 21 turnovers and cashed the miscues by the opposition into 23 points.

Shatyra Hawkes had 14 of her team high 17 points in the second half for Xavier while Jessica Pachko had a career-high 16 points.

The Explorers will wade into deeper conference waters on the road visiting Charlotte at noon on Wednesday and at Richmond Saturday.

Xavier is off all week until St. Joseph’s visits Saturday.

Hawks Edge Quakers

St. Joseph’s used a 19-4 run to finally put away Penn for a 42-34 victory in a Big Five game at home at Hagan Arena to move to 11-5 overall and 1-1 in the City Series.

Katie Kuester and Samira van Grinsven each scored 10 points for the Hawks while Kelly Cavallo matched a career high with 15 rebounds.

Penn (7-6) struggled from the field shooting 13-for-50 as Kara Bonenberger had 10 points and 10 rebounds.

The Quakers are on a three-game stretch away from the Ivy League on the Big Five circuit with a visit to Villanova ahead on Tuesday followed by Saturday’s game at Temple.

St. Joseph’s next hosts Fordham Wednesday night and visits Xavier on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic 10, St. Bonaventure continued its hot hand, beating visiting Saint Louis 64-52 to improve to 16-2 overall and stay perfect in the conference at 3-0.

It’s the fifth straight win for the Bonnies – the second time that’s occurred this season – and the 3-0 conference start is the best ever.

Jessica Jenkins had 15 points and Megan Van Tatenhove scored 14.

Janisha Gearlds was the only Saint Louis player in double figures with 19 points as the Billikens fell to 6-12 overall and remained winless in the conference at 0-3.

Charlotte edged George Washington 61-60, Fordham beat Rhode Island 69-49 and Richmond beat Masscusetts 73-54.

Temple travels to Dayton Sunday in a game between the two teams co-picked to win the Atlantic 10 according to the preseason poll of the conference coaches.

The Owls are coming out of a home loss to St. Bonaventure while the host Flyers beat St. Joseph’s on Wednesday.

Looking Ahead

In three key Colonial Athletic Association games Sunday Drexel, which is getting near the so-called NCAA bubble, hosts Georgia State while frontrunners No. 20 Delaware travels to Northeastern in Boston and Hofstra travels to Old Dominion in Norfolk,Va.

Princeton hosts Columbia before a three-week break will host Columbia to try to stay unbeaten in the Ivy League.

Penn State, looking to get back into the poll, makes a first-ever visit to No. 15 Nebraska in the Big 10. This is the host Cornhuskers’ first year in the conference after leaving the Big 10.

Elsewhere in the Big 10, No. 11 Ohio State is at Michigan State while No. 17 Purdue hosts Iowa.

In the Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 7 Duke will try to stay unbeaten in the league traveling to Virginia Tech while No. 13 Miami fresh off its upset of No. 5 Maryland will be at Florida State; The Terrapins will try to bounce back Monday hosting Virginia.

In the Southeastern Conference, No. 6 Tennessee coming off a one-point loss at No. 9 Kentucky will host No. 25 Vanderbilt while Kentucky visits No. 24 South Carolina, which is coming off a loss at unranked LSU. No. 19 Georgia travels to Mississippi State.

In the Big East, No. 18 Georgetown hosts Syracuse.

-- Mel

Guru Report: Princeton Battling Ivy Foes And Computer Rankings

2012-01-14T19:37:00.002-05:00

(There is a post above this on Saturday's action)

By Mel Greenberg

PRINCETON, N.J. - Ivy opponents are causing Princeton more problems when it comes to computer rankings than they are in the actual games though Cornell made things interesting for a half here Friday night before the Tigers put away the Big Red 64-35 in Jadwin Gym.

Kate Miller had 14 points, Megan Bowen scored 10 and Rasheed Niveen had 10 points and 12 rebounds for the two-time defending Ivy champions (12-4, 2-0 Ivy).

Clare Fitzpatrick scored 12 for Cornell (5-9, 0-1).

The Big Red stayed with the Tigers for the first 20 minutes, trailing just 25-17 at the break. Then Princeton roared from the locker room with a 13-0 run and stayed comfortably ahead the rest of the way.

“The first half against the zone, I thought we knew were the gaps were but we weren’t getting to the gaps the way we wanted to get to the gaps,” Princeton coach Courtney Banghart said. “So at halftime we found the gaps and these are the ways we want to get our bodies there and we did a much better the second half.”

Cornell coach Dayna Smith, a former Penn assistant when Boston U’s Kelly Greenberg, a La Salle grad, was in charge the front end of the last decade, spoke of the game from here viewpoint.

“I thought we did a nice job of protecting the gaps in the first half,” Smith said. “Second half, they spread us out too much – we were undisciplined in our zone. But, yeah, they’re very, very talented so it’s hard to keep them down.

“This team is bigger and stronger than any team in the league at every position,” Smith said. “They have size, they have strength, and skill set in each position. – Very unique.”

It’s enough to make one wonder after a rigorous non-conference schedule and the long break ahead followed by a group of opponents who will be heavy underdogs in each Princeton games, how the Tigers will maintain their mojo.”

“This group is not complacent – so that was not a complacent effort,” Banghart said of Friday’s game. “It wanted it so bad they were getting where they needed to go but they weren’t getting there the right way – we weren’t playing together and this is a team that needs to play together.”

When the question came up as to what challenges might exist from Princeton’s Ivy rivals, Banghart said, “Anyone watching this game might think, `Boy they’re a beatable team.’ We have to be sharper.

“Fortunately, we have depth, we have great effort, we had more offensive rebounds (26) than they had total (55), but I still expect better play from our starters and I think we’ll get it Sunday.”

That’s when Columbia will visit before Princeton goes on a three-week break for finals before resuming the Ivy schedule the rest of the way.

“There are some good teams in our league. Our league RPI is 11 out of 31. Last year it was 28 out of 31. We have to make them look bad and we’re going to try.”

One reason is Princeton alone is lifting the league level with its amazing designation at 14 RPI and 10 strength of schedule.

It was even higher before being dragged down by Cornell (273) followed Sunday by Columbia (335).

Saturday's daily simulation looked like this in the Ivy section in terms of RPI and Strength of Schedule:

Princeton 14 10

Yale 93 136

Harvard 143 215

Penn 165 197

Brown 215 319

Dartmouth 253 85

Cornell 273 305

Columbia 335 304

If Princeton runs the table, the Tigers could get the highest seed ever given an Ivy team in the NCAA tournament because many concede that on a blind sampling of sorts they could be mistaken as one of the bonafide BCS bunch.

The Tigers are taking a bigger hit in the computer ranking because they had been as high as 11 before this weekend’s set of games.

If such a thing were possible, the Ivies should declare Princeton the champion, put the number of games needed to sweep the league into the Tigers’ win column, freeze their RPI and then let the rest of the league play for the WNIT berth, which is what is going to inherently happen anyway.

One just hopes when the NCAA committee meets to set up the 64-team draw the infamous blind test of teams on their own merits and not where they come from will be used to give the Tigers their due.

-- Mel