The Guru’s Local/National Roundup: South Jersey’s Hannah Hidalgo Continues to Shine for the No. 19 Irish

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

As the finals period continues in the first of two weeks, the Guru locals were idle Thursday and will be again Friday while on Saturday at 2 p.m. for both games Rider hosts Wagner at Alumni Gym in Lawrenceville, N.J., and Temple hosts VCU at the Liacouras Center.

Both games will air on ESPN+.

Three ranked teams played, all winning easily.

South Jersey’s Hannah Hidalgo scored 24 points and grabbed 11 boards for No. 19 Notre Dame (7-2) while Cassandra Prosper scored 20 with 13 rebounds in a 97-48 win over visiting Morehead State (4-6) in South Bend, Ind.

Vanessa de Jesus added 16 points for the Irish who next visit Sun Belt favorite James Madison Sunday in Blacksburg, Va.

No. 21 Ohio State (8-1) at home in Columbus won 94-62 over Northern Kentucky (3-9) as Jaloni Cambridge shot 12-21 from the field and a perfect 9-9 from the line for the Buckeyes to match her personal best of 33 points.

The winners reaped 46 points from forcing the opposition into 37 turnovers.

Ohio State next hosts Mid-American contender Toledo on Sunday.

Oregon State transfer Raegan Beers had 26 points and 15 rebounds leading No. 9 Oklahoma (10-1) in her second season with the Sooners to a lopsided 103-48 win over visiting Little Rock (3-6) in Norman.

Freshman Aaliyah Chavez was 9-11 scoring 20 points for the home team and Zya Vann had a career-high 19 points for the winners.

Oklahoma, which moved to the Southeastern Conference last season will meet No. 23 Oklahoma State, its former in-state Big 12 rival Saturday in Oklahoma City at 4 p.m. on ESPNU.

In other scores of note West Virginia at home in Morgantown beat Georgia Tech 82-50, out West Portland won 94-58 at Long Beach State, and Purdue at home easily won 88-45 over Lipscomb.

Ranked teams are off Friday but Fairfield hosts Maine at 7 p.m. on ESPN+ and Washington State hosts Texas Tech at 9 p.m. also on ESPN+.

On Saturday in the Compete 4 Cause Classic at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans coach Kim Mulkey will bring her No. 5 LSU team down from Baton Rouge to meet her alma mater Louisiana Tech at 6 p.m. on ESPNU.

No. 1 UConn, the defending NCAA champion visits No. 6 Southern Cal at the Galen Center in Los Angeles at 5:30 p.m. on FOX.