The Guru NCAAW Local Report: Smith Leads Saint Joseph’s in A-10 Opening Win on VCU; Temple Opens AAC With Big Road Triumph; Princeton Tops Middle Tennessee

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA — Once a team gets to start conference play, a coach with a team holding title desires and access to the NCAA field needs to strike a balance between having the squad game day ready without creating undue pressure.

Thus, once a person with familiarity glances at the schedule, what’s important is easily discernible.

In the world of realignment on the women’s side this season, the mid-majors know they are caught with a small part of the meal at the table and there is not much wiggle room through errors as existed five years ago.

The Saint Joseph’s schedule was quite revealing for opening week, hosting VCU here on Hawk Hill Sunday afternoon at Hagan Arena and then a few days later there’s a trip with a noon tip at George Mason, two of the teams in the league’s preseason top five besides the Hawks, defending champion Richmond and Davidson.

“No, we don’t spend on that with them, and they’re smart, they’re not stupid, they know what’s what and what needs to be done beyond the want to win every game,” Saint Joseph’s  coach Cindy Griffin said after her bunch emerged with a gritty 70-62 win over the Rams (6-7, 0-1) that much closer than the final score indicates.

But in her own mind, “This is a very talented league with a bunch of good teams and you look what we got the first week.

“So, this game, we’re home, we better win it.”

The fact that Saint Joseph’s (10-2, 1-0) has had several similar encounters in its non-conference run including the recent two-game Hawk Classic before the holiday break helped forged Sunday’s win over a team that could have easily come to town at 9-3 overall instead of 6-6.

“Actually, the Utah game,” Griffin referred to the one-point overtime loss out west last month. “We didn’t rebound in key parts down the stretch, today we did.”

Trailing 31-28 at the break, statistically the game was won in the third quarter which Saint Joseph’s owned 17-9.

But the reality was an 8-0 run by the opposition in the final period wiped out that advantage and as the game neared its finish but Laura Ziegler quickly made the deficit vanish, the defense got stops on the boards and steals on the floor with two straight and-ones from Emma Boslet and Mackenzie Smith to put Saint Joseph’s into safe territory.

At the outset, Ziegler took care of some unfinished business from the title game last weekend which saw her second triple double within a month zipping a three-ball and thus becoming the 31st member of the program’s 1,000-point club.

She finished with 18 points but Smith was a bigger story shaking a slow start and then getting a hot hand to shoot 8-14 from the field, 5-of-8 critical makes from deep, sand 4-5 from the line with eight boards and fourt assists.

Talya Bruglar was 6-9 from the field with six boards and four assists with 13 points.

Bostlet and Rhian Stokes each scored six running the offense.

VCU’s Valentina Ojeda was unstoppable with 31 points on 8-9 from the field, a perfect 3-3 from beyond the arc, and two foul shots in two tries, while Grace Hudson scored 12, with four from deep, and Mary-Anna Asare scored 11.

In some ways the league schedule makers seeking to bolster its better squads with the ratings dynamics that are part of the NCAA deliberations bears responsibility on the A-10’s title run side of things while the teams themselves attempt to create strong non-conference slates.

Between now and the conference tournament in suburban Richmond will see VCU again on the road next week, home-and-homes with Richmond, Davidson on the road, and home-and-homes with George Mason.

“This is a confidence builder,” Griffin said. “But it’s not going to get any easier.”

La Salle, meanwhile, returned to it’s A-10 action after winning at Loyola Chicago earlier this month and the Explorers fell at home in John Glaser Arena 65-54 to George Washington.

Through the third quarter the Revolutionaries (8-5, 1-1) built a 55-37 lead before La Salle (7-8, 1-1), which dipped under .500 overall again, sliced seven points off the final differential in the fourth quarter.

Ashleigh Connor scored 12 points, while Anna Przyszlak and Ivy Fox each scored 10.

George Washington got a double-double 18 points from Paige Mott, while Makayla Andrews had 14 points and eight boards, and Gabby Reynolds scored 12.

La Salle will be at Davidson Thursday at 7 p.m. in North Carolina. The George Mason game with Saint Joseph’s will be in suburban Washington in Fairfax, Va., and both will air on ESPN+.

Temple Gets Robust Start in The American Athletic Conference

The Jekyll-Hyde act Temple ran through a rigorous non-conference slate showed the nicer side opening AAC play on the road with a high-scoring 97-74 victory over UAB in Birmingham.

The Owls (7-5, 1-0) jumped to a 34-16 lead in the first quarter, was held even 21-21 in the second, added seven more points to the differential in the third, before being edged by a basket for two points in the final ten minutes.

Four of the visitors scored in double figures with Tiarra East, the MVP of the Big Five Classic, scoring 21, Jaleesa Molina scored 17, Anissa Rivera scored 13, and Tristen Taylor matched it.

UAB (9-4, 0-1) got 15 points from Eleecia Carter, while Maddie Walsh scored 13.

Temple resumes AAC play with its conference home opener Wednesday hosting East Carolina at 4 p.m. (ESPN+) in the Liacouras Center.

Drexel and Lehigh Gain Non-Con Tuneup Wins

The Dragons and Mountain Hawks like others early in the season and before the break stepped out of Division I to ready for conference action as Drexel routed Lebanon Valley 71-30 at home in the Daskalakis Athletic Center in West Philadelphia while Lehigh handled Misericordia 81-22 at home upstate in the Stabler Sports Arena in Easton, Pa.

Drexel (4-6), which is scheduled to play long-time rival Delaware to open defense of the Coastal Athletic Association tournament title that the Dragons claimed as a seventh seed to make their third NCAA appearance, got 20 points from Cara McCormick, 15 points, five boards, and four assists from Amaris Baker, and 10 points and seven boards from Chloe Hodges.

But until it is actually occurring Friday, whether it will happen is open to question because the Blue Hens, which is in their last year in the CAA before moving to Conference USA, has been having difficulty due to injuries fielding a team.

When Villanova won down at the Robert Carpenter Center in Newark, recently, Delaware could only compete with the minimum six players but went on to lose at Navy in its next game.

Then a visit to Old Dominion just before the break was listed as postponed, an attempt to reschedule later in the season. Monday’s final non-conference game on the original slate to Ivy contender Harvard is now cancelled to be made up next season.

Meanwhile in its final non-conference game before starting in the Patriot League, Lehigh (9-3), got 13 points from Gracyn Lovette, while Keshia Vitalicio off the bench, scored 10 points.

The Mountain Hawks are set to visit mid-state rival Bucknell (5-6) Thursday at 6 p.m. (ESPN+) in Lewistown, Pa.

Princeton Tops Middle Tennessee

The Tigers (8-4), picked to again win the Ivy League but have struggled to remain powerful after losing Madison St. Rose to a season-ending injury, got a nice 64-51 win over the Blue Raiders (8-5), the preseason favorite in Conference USA.

Fadima Hall got a double-double that contained a personal best 16 points with 13 boards, in the game in Jadwin Gym, while Skye Belker scored 17 points and reserve Tabitha Amanze picked up 10 points.

Princeton takes its 23-game home win streak, third longest in the NCAA, in a final non-conference game on Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, hosting Le Moyne of the Northeast Conference, which is reclassifying to Division I.

Rutgers Falls to No. 10 Ohio State

In the gauntlet that is now the Big Ten, Rutgers fell to longtime conference rival No. 10 Ohio State 77-63 as despite a game-high effort from Destiny Adams with with 31 points and 17 boards for the Scarlet Knights (8-5, 0-2).

Freshman Kiyomi Miller added 14 points, while reserve Chyna Cornwell grabbed seven boards.

The Buckeyes (13-0, 2-0 Big Ten), one of eight remaining unbeaten teams, got two double-doubles from Ajae Petty (16 points, 10 boards) and Cotie McMahon (16 points, 11 boards), while Taylor Thierry scored 14, and Chance Gray scored 15.

Ohio State hosts Northwestern Sunday while it doesn’t get easier for Rutgers, visiting longtime region rival No. 8 Maryland Thursday at 7 p.m. and then hosts No. 4 Southern Cal and JuJu Watkins 8:30 p.m. Sunday night. 

Looking Ahead

Penn is wrapping up its non-conference slate on the road Monday and Tuesday visiting Arizona State Monday at 3 p.m. on ESPN+ in Tempe and then facing Benedictine Mesa on Tuesday at 4 p.m.

It’s the first meeting with both teams for the Quakers (8-3), with Monday’s game being the first Arizona State basketball game to be played in the Sun Devils’ Mullett Arena, built in 2022 for the school’s Ice Hockey, gymnastics, volleyball, and wrestling teams, besides the NBA G League’s Valley Suns.

Arizona State may have been the then still-alive and thriving Pac-12 when the game was scheduled, but the Sun Devils, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado are now realigned in the Big 12.

The hosts have lost three straight and this is Penn’s 12th game against an opponent from the Big 12, the last win occurring Dec. 29, 1991, against Kansas State at home in The Palestra.

The trip also serves asa homecoming visit for Penn freshman Sarah Miller from Phoenix, while ASU coach Natasha Adair is in her third season after having left Delaware to succeed the legendary Charli Turner Thorne, who had retired.

Penn opens Ivy play Saturday hosting league regular season co-champion Columbia at 2 p.m. in The Palestra (ESPN+).

There are three games with local teams on New Year’s Day, beginning with Penn State hosting No. 24 Iowa in a Big Ten clash at 1 p.m. on the Big Ten Network from the Bryce Jordan Center in State College.

The Hawkeyes have Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen, making her second closest trip back to the area after having lost to then-unranked Tennessee in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center earlier in the month.

As mentioned, Temple hosts East Carolina at 4 p.m. and Villanova in a Big East game hosts Seton Hall at 8:30 p.m. on FSI from Finneran Pavilion.

Rider hosts defending Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion Fairfield at 6 p.m. Thursday (ESPN+) at Alumni Gym in Lawrenceville, N.J.

That’s your local report.