Women's Hoops Guru

(Guru's note: This is an enhanced version of the print story elsewhere in Philly.com in the Inquirer sports section of the Temple-St. Joseph's Big Five showdown.)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - Even with an 11-point lead at the outset of the second half in Wednesday night's Temple-St. Joseph's Big Five showdown, Temple coach Dawn Staley knew the game was a long way from being decided.

"Anytime we get together, we always make it a barn-burner," Staley said after Temple escaped with a 70-67 victory at the Liacouras Center. "I didn't think it was going to be different no matter how big of a lead we had.

"It's a game in which anybody could have won. I thought our team did a tremendous job of erasing a mistake I made of getting a technical foul (in the final minute), which I'm very proud of.

"It's a good moment for me and my team -- good and bad," Staley said.

"It was just a game where we drew on our experiences from early in the season where we couldn't tough out some wins. But we put it altogether tonight."

The last meeting a year ago between the two schools resulted in a 78-71 win by Temple in overtime at St. Joseph's to keep the Owls' Big Five streak alive on the way to a third straight local title.

Temple, which will travel to Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse to play St. Joseph's again on Feb. 20 in an Atlantic Ten-only contest has now beaten the Hawks in 10 of the last 11 meetings, though St. Joseph's has the overall edge in the rivalry at 39-25.

Wednesday night's victory enabled Temple (12-10, 3-0 Big Five) to clinch at least a share of this season's Big Five title, making the Owls the first women's team to be involved in four straight championships.

Temple can be involved in more history on Saturday when a win at La Salle would give the Owls four straight outright titles, all by way of 4-0 sweeps. Overall, Temple has extended its Big Five win-streak women's record to 17 straight.

A win would make seniors Lady Comfort, Ashley Morris, Nicole Pittman and, Candice Burrows the only players to win all their Big Five games at 16-0. Incidentally, we hadn't mentioned Burrous and Pitman, who are Temple reserves, in recent discussions of the notoriety.

Comfort was nearly perfect at the foul line Wednesday night, hitting 12-of-13 attempts on the way to a game-high 24 points. Morris scored 14 points, and LaKeisha Eaddy had12 points.

"It just feels really good to have an accomplishment like this and give the people coming behind us a taste of what it's like, that Big Five basketball is really big in the city, and they can just keep it going, because Temple has done such a good job competing in the Big Five," said Morris, a graduate of Central High.

The game also counted in the Atlantic Ten, enabling Temple to stay in a crowded first-place tie with George Washington, Xavier, and Charlotte at 5-1. St. Joseph's is now 2-3.

"We really pride ourselves of being better than what people expect of us," Staley said. "The Atlantic Ten predicted us fourth in the preseason. That's a different spot for us and I'd like to better that and prove people wrong, so to speak. If we just take each game one at a time, I think we'll do that."

This story might be saying something different if the Hawks (12-10, 1-2 Big Five) had not missed 3-of-4 foul shots in the final, frantic, minute.

“We make the foul shots and the game is in our hands,” St. Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin said. “But I’m proud of the way we came back and if we can play like that the rest of the year, we’ll be all right.”

Despite committing 15 turnovers in the first half, some caused by the Owls, and some without pressure from the opposition, the Hawks stayed within single digits to go to intermission trailing, 34-25.

"I'ts not just Temple. It's been like that against everybody," Griffin said of the number of miscues involving what has been traditional reliable guard play. "But we'll correct it."

Staley spoke of Temple's defensive effort.

"We've got a lot of players who could be pretty disruptive and put a lot of pressure on a team and make them turn it over. We did a good job disrupting St. Joseph's, the way they were shooting threes."

Temple got its first double-digit lead at 36-25 right at the outset of the second half on a layup by Shanea Cotton.

But St. Joseph's eventually began cutting away at the deficit, particularly on the 3-point shooting of Amy Wold, who had three of five treys in six overall attempts in the second half.

The marksmanship recalled Wold's performance in the Hawks upset of then-nationally ranked Auburn in St. Joseph's tournament in December. She jolted the Liacouras Center with 6:17 left in the game when she got the Hawks within a field goal at 57-55 on a four-point play, making a trey and hititng a free throw.

Would finished with a team-high 21 points, while Brittany Ford added 19 points and freshman Sarah Acker added 10 points. Amy Gillespie had nine points, hitting three-of-four three pointers and the Hawks shot 9-of-14 from beyond the arc. Temple was two-of-seven, both made by Lindsay Kimmel.

The Hawks caused a stir with 4:53 left in the game when Acker's layup knotted the score at 57-57. A three-pointer by the Hawks' Timisha Gomez caused the game's fourth tie at 60-60 with 3:05 left.

Comfort hit two foul shots and then Ford hit a layup with 2:17 left for another tie at 62-62.

Then the drama got even more intense.

Would's basket at 1:43 gave St. Joseph's it's first lead since 2-0 at the start of the game.

Morris evened it up for the Owls with two foul shots to make it 64-64 with 1:14 left.

Then with 45 seconds left, Would committed a turnover.

But Landry was charged with a foul under St. Joseph's basket with 44 seconds left.

However, the official went to the scorer's table indicating Ford had committed the foul instead of being fouled. Thus, the public address announcer stated what they had been told.

The officials reversed the call and Staley reacted with enough of a gesture to be charged with a technical.

Would went to the line and made the first shot, but missed the second.

Then Ford went to the line to attempt her two free throws, but missed both.

St. Joseph's got the offensive rebound, but then committed a turnover on a five-seconds call attempting to inbound the ball.

Temple went length of the court, only to have Morris' field goal attempt blocked by Acker.

Comfort, however, grabbed the offensive rebound and scored to put Temple into the lead at 66-65 with 26 seconds left.

The Hawks came the other way, but the ball went off Ford's hands and Landry stole her sixth ball of the game.

She was fouled by Jenna Loschiavo and hit both shots for a 68-65 lead with 14 seconds left.

Ford scored inside with two seconds left, but Comfort was immediately fouled and hit both shots for the final score.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

Two years after an upset loss to then-unranked West Virginia in the Big East tournament resulted in a diasterous draw in the NCAA field of 64, it was deja-Mountaineers all over again for the Scarlet Knights Tuesday night in Morgantown.

In the hunt for a No. 1 seed in this year's NCAA event, Rutgers may have spent its margin of error, losing 63-54 to Mike Carey's 12th-ranked team after squandering a10-point lead in the second half.

Two years ago, Rutgers headed into its game against the Mountaineers perceived to have a strong shot at a No. 2 NCAA seed by getting to the Big East championship or perhaps even a No. 1 by winning it. The competition for those perks was extremely tight.

When Rutgers lost to West Virginia, 56-40. in the semifinals -- Carey only brought one suit to Hartford, expecting to be heading home quickly -- the Scarlet Knights fell to a No. 3 and then landed in the Cleveland Regional against Tennessee. The other two teams were North Carolina and Purdue, making the region the strongest of the four in terms of the four top seeds.

Had the Scarlet Knights beaten West Virginia, they would have been spared of that configuration.

That brings us to Tuesday night.

On a lesser scale of simply jockeying for positions in the conference race, the setback can be brushed aside as just another night in the bear that the Big East has become.

But Rutgers, after rising from nowhere to the NCAA championship game last season, has been operating on a higher level as a threat to finish on a more successful note this time.

Navigating on one of the nation's top schedules, Rutgers had survived to be one of five candidates for the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA field.

Top-ranked Connecticut, the Big East favorite, and Tennessee. are considered locks for two of those slots, barring some weakening by conference opponents the rest of the way.

That leaves Atlantic Coast powers Maryland and North Carolina with the Scarlet Knights in a three-for-two fight, which then becomes something similar to gymnastics or ice skating competition where slight stumbles could become costly when bodies of works are compared.

When Maryland lost at North Carolina in a thrilling double overtime game in Chapel Hill, N.C.,on Saturday, the Terrapins' setback became helpful to Rutgers, which already has a win over them.

The Scarlet Knights still have at least two games against Connecticut and a visit to Tennessee _ games in which losses would not be costly themselves because Rutgers would be considered the underdog. Obviously, wins would do wonders.

Looking ahead several weeks ago, it was said here, Rutgers could probably afford one Big East upset to a respected, but lesser-regarded team because of the nature of the conference and the overall schedule coach C. Vivian Stringer put together.

Consider that margin of error spent at West Virginia.

Furthermore, because of the nature of the game -- the Mountaineers winning on a 21-4 run without help from their top two scorers - concern arises as to how Rutgers might fare Saturday at No. 14 Pittsburgh. The first of the Connecticut games follows at home Tuesday before the Feb. 11th trip to Tennessee.

Furthermore, Rutgers must still play Notre Dame, DePaul, and Syracuse, besides the second Connecticut game and whatever the draw of the Big East tournament field presents itself.

A stumble to a No. 2 seed in itself is not terrible considering the depth of competition. But then travel assigments become less favorable and the matchups can also become more arduous earlier in the NCAA tournament.

And in the three-for-2 comparison to date, North Carolina has a narrow loss to Tennessee and one, which was partially donated, to Connecticut along with the win over Maryland.

Maryland has close head-to-head losses at Rutgers and North Carolina.

Rutgers, in outside games with the level one elite groups, now has narrow losses to l Level I-A Stanford and Duke, and the loss to West Virginia.

For now, because of games yet to be played, Rutgers stays in the overall hunt, but the ice has become much thinner.

Meanwhile, on the other side, it was a big night for the Mountaineers and as well as Syracuse in terms of virtual ticket-punching to the NCAA field.

If there were still some questions as the real worth of those two programs who have shot up the Big East ladder, West Virginia proved itself with its win over Rutgers, while Syracuse, which joined the AP for the first time two weeks ago, showed its worth with its narrow 69-66 win at No. 23 in DePaul.

Both may even be in the hunt for No. 4 NCAA seeds. Pitt, which has risen to its highest-ever ranking at No. 14 and visits Villanova Wednesday night, is another contender.

-- Mel

(Guru's note: This is an expansion of the interview portion with former Illinois-Rutgers-St. Joseph's coach Theresa Grentz that is part of a print story appearing in the sports section of the Inquirer in Monday's paper. The Philadelphia Sportswriters Association is noting the 35th anniversary of the Immaculata championship era at its annual awards dinner Monday night and Grentz will speak on behalf of her former teammates. Former Mighty Macs coach Cathy Rush,in Florida, won't attend due to a prior commitment.

Rutgers assistant coach Marianne Stanley, who was interviewed by charter blogging team member Kate Burlholder to share print coverage credit with us, is with the team for Tuesday night's game at West Virginia. And former Penn State coach Rene Portland declined an invitaiton. Kate's contribution, offering the enhanced interview with Stanley, is also included here.)

By Mel Greenberg and Kate Burkholder

PHILADELPHIA and PISCATAWAY, N.J._ Some eight months removed from her previous career as a longtime successful coach, Theresa Grentz has been enjoying her new role as assistant to the president of Immaculate, her alma mater.

Grentz resigned from Illinois in April and soon thereafter accepted an offer to come back East after also holding an offer for a similar capacity with the Illini.

"It's a new time," Grentz said in discussing life in the western suburbs compared to the glory era of the early 1970s when she helped lead the Mighty Macs to the first three titles of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women in the pre-NCAA era.

"But the same core values, the same foundation that made it great through the years,will make it great,"Grentz said of her alma mater, which became a co-ed institution three years ago.

"The addition of the men, I've really enjoyed, I thoroughly enjoy the guys," Grentz said of Immaculata's plunge into Division III men's competiton. "It was a powerful move, it was a strong move by the leadership and it was in the direction we needed to move forward to.

"And I think there were quite a few presidents that line this thing up and wanted it to happen. So I'm very grateful for that."

The Mighty Macs men's team, incidentally, is a frontrunner in the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference.

Grentz said she watches more basketball now than when she had to be an active recruiter to draw players to the Illini to compete in the Big Ten Conference.

"Actually, the truth is I see more basketball games now," Grentz said. "I see high school games, I see college games, I see men's games, I see women's games, and the most important part is I absolutely, positively, love basketball again.

"I thoroughly enjoy the sport that had been so dear to me through the years," Grentz continued. "It's a big difference. Karl (her husband) and I have gotten to a game every night. And it's been fun. It's just absolutely enjoyable."

Grentz was asked what was most significant of the Immaculata championship era under former coach Cathy Rush.

"Now as I look back, and I have a tremendous view from the top of that noble hill (in Chester County) now, and I think the greatest gift that we were given is the fact we were formed by some of the greatest women I've ever been around -- those dear sisters of Immaculata and what they did.

"They really did. They formed us. We were a good team under Cathy, who was a young coach, who was disciplined, but I feel like the greatest gift they gave us is they were a living legacy and they taught us, they formed us and they prepared us for the future."

Grentz talked about how Immaculata came to be as a powerhouse.

"The greatest players in the Philadelphia Catholic League -- the very top players from Archbishop Prendergast, Cardinal O'Hara, St. Hubert's, all came to Immaculata at one time,"Grentz explained.

"They weren't recruited. No one brought them there. And we were together, it is was a reason. And you had some great, great talent that loved the game, loved playing, I think were team players, and as a result we enjoyed what we did to be successful and we went on to establish our own lives in a field we truly enjoyed."

Grentz also was the U.S. Olympic coach in 1992 and led Rutgers, as a coach ,to the last of the AIAW titles in Philadelphia at The Palestra over Texas in 1982 -- the same year the NCAA championships began.

(Guru aside: Ironically, Villanova was also part of that Final Four, with Lisa Orltlip as its star center. On Sunday, the guru covered the Drexel women. A member of the team is Brooke Cornish, a transfer from Florida, who is Orltip's daughter.)

"And that's why I say to you now," Grentz said, "I spent 33 years in it. And now, having that stress of `What have you done for me in the last 20 minutes (removed), I love basketball again.And I'm extremely grateful I can say that and that's how I feel about it.

"Immaculata's men's team is in first place in the PAC right now and I love watching those guys play. Those guys come by my office every day. They call me Miss Theresa. I talk to them.I love them. I absolutely love them.

"When you stand now and look back, you have a much better contribution as to what we were doing. At that point, you just did it. Now, when look back and see how we impacted so many lives. Agan, we were taught and formed so we were able to do that and I think that's the biggest key."

Stanley took time to reflect on Saturday after Rutgers' win over Villanova in Piscataway, N.J., took stay unbeaten in the Big East race.

“The Immaculata experience for me was just tremendous," Stanley said. "We carved out a place in basketball history – we didn’t realize it at the time but just to be a part of that was special.

"Playing for Cathy Rush was a great privilege and playing with the teammates I had, one of them was Theresa, it was just a great team atmosphere and we accomplished some incredible things despite all the odds. It’s kind of a Cinderella story if there ever was one," Stanley continued.

“I don’t even know an apt comparison – there is none. There’s no comparison between then and now," Stanley said.

"None of us were on scholarships. We incurred all the expenses getting to and from games, to and to and from practices, ourselves. The rare occasion was where we stayed overnight, the school paid for that but we paid for the rest," Stanley explained.

"It was pre-scholarship era so you really had to love the game and love what you were doing to fully commit to playing it, and all of us did. I think that’s what made our team special. We had great players and we loved the game. We did what we had to do to be successful," Stanley said.

“We were pioneers in the sense of making sure that there was a standard of excellence and that’s our legacy to all future generations of women’s basketball players.

"When there were no scholarships, we were a great team despite not having all the amenities, all the perks, all the things that players have today. It’s great that they have those things, but I think players today are beneficiaries of all the hard work of a lot of people – administrators, coaches, and players who came before them.

"It’s just an evolution of the right things happening and finally getting opportunities. When we were in the beginning stages, we didn’t have those luxuries. It’s a proud tradition of doing well and excelling despite the fact that you’re doing it on a shoe-string budget.”

By Mel Greenberg

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. _ A sum of two lumps by then-No. 1 Tennessee and No. 1 Connecticut that have blemished No. 3 North Carolina’s otherwise perfect season resulted in a reversal of fortune Saturday afternoon for the Tar Heels, who outlasted No. 4 Maryland, 97-86, in double overtime.

Unlike Monday night’s second-half meltdown at UConn, this time North Carolina (18-2, 5-0 ACC) overcame squandering a double-digit lead during the thrilling marathon contest between two elite Atlantic Coast Conference rivals ranked in the Top 5.

Games such as Saturday’s, along with Monday night’s rally by Connecticut, and several others this season have gone a long way to offset the absence of the annual UConn-Tennessee showdown, which was cancelled in June by Tennessee coach Pat Summitt.

A roaring crowd of 7,914 watched the game, a far cry from not too long when some very good Tar Heel teams performed here in total eclipse of the powerful men’s program.

Saturday’s result tightened the race among five teams for the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament. Had Maryland (22-2, 6-1) won, the Terrapins would have put most of their hard regular-season work behind them.

North Carolina still has a home-and-home with Duke in the regular season, while Maryland just has one more against the Blue Devils, with a triumph in hand.

Thus, a Tar Heels loss would have made North Carolina 0-3 in head-to-head games against three of the NCAA prime contenders for the top berths in the 64-team field. Rutgers, the other team in the mix, would potentially have its win over Maryland as a trumph card when NCAA tournament committee discussions go to the wire.

If anything, Maryland may have to do a little scrambling depending on the performances of UNC and Rutgers the rest of the way.

Of course all this could still be affected by how the Atlantic Coast and Big East tournaments play out.

As it is, poll-wise Rutgers could gain some ground in Sunday night’s voting to move up as high as No. 3, the spot the Scarlet Knights held in the preseason.

In that sense, North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell acknowledged the urgency to Saturday’s contest in terms of her team.

“This is a tough stretch for us,” Hatchell said. “We’re at UConn, then Maryland here today. We’re at Wake Forest (Thursday), and then Duke (Feb. 4), I don’t think anybody else in the country has a stretch like this. And we’re at Tennessee, we’re at UConn, I don’t know that anybody else that has that schedule, especially on the other teams’ courts.

“So this was a big game for us,” Hatchell said. “But I think what we’ve gone through so far, helped us with this game. Maryland’s a great team. They’ve got four starters from the (2006) national championship team. They’ve got no weaknesses. So this was a big game for us. This stretch right here is big.”

A slew of WNBA scouts were in Carmichael Auditorium on press row, including Connecticut Sun general manager Chris Sienko and entire Sun coaching staff.

New York Liberty coach Patty Coyle was on hand as was Washington Mystics coach Tree Rollins and Corey Gaines, the new coach of the WNBA champions Phoenix Mercury. Minnesota’s Don Zierden and Julie Plank, his new assistant who had been with the Indiana Fever, was also here.

If anyone benefitted from the presence of the WNBA observers, it might have been UNC’s senior forward-center LaToya Pringle, who followed up on a fine individual performance against UConn by being Saturday afternoon’s heroine with a game-high 31 points and nine rebounds.

Pringle also sent the game into the first overtime with a three-point play to tie it at 71-71 with 46 seconds left in regulation and had 12 points in the second overtime.

Senior forward Erlana Larkins, expected to go high in the WNBA draft in April, had 25 points and 18 rebounds, 13 on the offensive glass while still playing with a broken left hand.

“I’m really proud of these two right here,” Hatchell nodded toward Pringle and Larkins. “They’re warriors. And I just kept telling them `Go to’em. `Go to ‘em, to to ‘em, and I kept challenging them to rebound. I thought that was a major difference because Maryland is such a great rebounding team. But we kept going to these guys and they did a really nice job for us.”

North Carolina outrebounded Maryland, 59-46, including 26-17 on the offensive glass.

Rashanda McCants also scored in double figures for the Tar Heels with 14 points, while Jessica Breeland grabbed 12 rebounds.

“I felt we had to come out and play for 20 more minutes and give it all we had because we felt we didn’t do that Monday night against Connecticut,” Pringle said.

Just as the Tar Heels rocked Connecticut in the opening minutes of Monday night’s game, North Carolina built a 10-point lead in the first eight minutes against Maryland.

But the Terrapins fought back to ties of 31-31 and 33-33 before Hatchell’s group recovered with two field goals to go into the break with a 37-33 advantage.

Maryland grabbed some momentum in the second half and bolted to a seven-point lead midway through the period.

But the Terrapins began getting in serious foul trouble with Laura Harper disqualified early in the first overtime and Jade Perry gone late in the second extra session.

Furthrmore, for all her greatness, Maryland point guard Kristi Toliver committed eight turnovers, some in crucial spots. She still finished with 20 points, hitting some clutch shots, but the normally effective three-point ace was only 2-for-11 from beyond the arc.

Maryland, overall, made only 5-of-27 three-pointers.

Crystal Langhorne had 23 points and eight rebounds, while Harper scored 12.

Marisa Coleman also had 20 points for the Terrapins, who were playing in their second straight double overtime game after beating Georgia Tech on Sunday. The program is now 10-2 in overtime triumphs under coach Brenda Frese, who stayed home under her doctors’ continuing orders because of her pregnancy.

Frese is due late next month or early March, although some media types were wondering ahead of Saturday’s game whether the Maryland coach, TV savvy that she is, might deliver during halftime back home.

North Carolina, which did not go to the line in the first half, made 25 of 38 free throw attempts the rest of the way.

Maryland shot 15-of-23 from the line.

“Someone told me a long time ago, going on the road in the ACC was going to be real tough,” said the Terrapins’ new assistant coach Daron Park, who was previously at Utah. He is in charge of Maryland on the road when Frese is absent.

“We saw it first-hand today. But what a unbelievable effort from our kids. We showed great composure getting down early and keeping our heads about us and battling back against a very, very good and very, very talented North Carolina team.

“We talked about having a chance to win down the stretch and we had that chance to win.”

Maryland had won 12 straight since fading at Rutgers last month.

The Terrapins were able to hold Larkins in check for a long while.

“We just tried to mix things up on her,” Park said. “We basically tried to be very, very active where sometimes we would be in a three-quarter, sometimes behind and tried to push her off the block a little bit, and sometimes get around to a front. Basically, just tried to get her off her toes and at the same time rotate our three bigs under her so we could try to stay fresh and out of foul trouble.

“The keys for us, was getting stops at one end, because when we got stops, then we could run,” Park said. “I love our transition game. I love the way we push the ball up the floor.

“We had to get stops in order to do that, which at the beginning of the game we weren’t very effective in doing so. To keep them from running, we had to get makes and when we made baskets, that really helped our transition defense because were able to get back and finding them a little bit.”

The national spotlight will remain here through Monday night when Tennessee visits an improving Duke squad.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

NEW YORK _ Millions have been spent by entertainers over the years to host parties in Madison Saquare Garden consisting of thousands of friends in attendance.

On Wednesday afternoon, it had taken only a few phone calls by a women's basketball dad to enable his daughter and her teammates to move one of their "home" games 100 miles north for a much smaller affair in the storied venue.

"From the world's most famous arena, let's play ball," the public address announcer intoned over the Garden's massive speaker system.

And over the next 40 minutes, the women's game gained another niche to its history here when host Cabrini from near Philadelphia's Main Line played the College of Notre Dame from Baltimore in what is believed the sport's first-ever Division III contest in the Garden.

The Cabrini players admitted to jitters caused by the surroundings, although the media contingent consisted of one individual. The arena was also devoid of cheerleaders, bands, and the larger number of spectators who arrived later for Wednesday night's St. John's-Pittsburgh Big East men's tilt.

Even Cabrini coach Bobbi Morgan was slighted disoriented at the outset, asking the scorer's table "where's my coaching box," as she moved to position herself to yell out strategy.

But one Cabrini player was overheard at one moment to misread the magnitude of the event when she said to a teammate, "Our president is here?"

The jumbotron scoreboard did not have running video of the event.

Otherwise, both teams were given the full Garden treatment to the delight of the very few fans, friends, family and school officials who were allowed to step on the court at halftime and shoot baskets.

"My assistant coaches wanted to come out and take a few shots," Morgan smiled.

Despite the different operational setting, the school's two athletic department spokespersons -- Cabrini's Lynn Busby and Notre Dame's Ryan Griswold, who had been at Haverford -- worked the event just the same as they would have back in either Radnor or Baltimore.

Afterwards, both schools posed for team pictures on the court.

"I grew up watching everyone on this court," said Cabrini freshman Juilie Bonomo of nearby Manhassrtt, N.Y. "I used to love watching (former Knicks star) Patrick Ewing,"

A little over three decades ago, Immaculata and Queens College injected the first women's basketball game into the Garden's slate of top sports attractions.

Since then, some of the greats of the women's game have played here and the Garden is also the summer home of the WNBA's New York Liberty.

Although Cabrini was a strong favorite, the Cavaliers trailed the Gators, 32-30, with 18 minutes, 14 seconds left in the game.

Then, suddenly, Morgan's group transformed into an impersonation of Connecticut, Tennessee, the U.S.Olympic women's team and the WNBA All-Stars rolled into one.

Cabrini went on a 38-0 run over the next 16 minutes and claimed a 71-37 victory that enabled the Cavaliers (10-4, 5-0 PAC). to stay unbeaten in the conference.

The Gators (4-11, 2-5) finally hit a three-pointer to end the drought with 2:11 left in the game.

During Notre Dame's cold spell, the Gators missed 25 shots and committed 12 turnovers.

Cabrini finished with a lopsided 65-42 advantage on the boards.

Junior Kayleen Smith had a season-best 21 points for Cabrini and also grabbed five rebounds, making her the first Cavalier this season to score at least 20 points.

Sophomore Deana DiAmico, a graudate of Wilmington's Ursuline Academy and former teammate of UConn-bound Elena Delle Donne, dealt six assists.

Brittany McLeod grabbed 10 rebounds.

Angela Turner had nine points for Notre Dame.

Cabrini travelled to New York Tuesday night and did some sigthseeing while also going to Planet Hollywood.

"Sorry, it wasn't quite UConn-Tennessee," Morgan qupped afterwards of Cabrini's second-half wipeout. "We just couldn't make a shot in the first half. We were nervous, scared.

"Once we calmed down, we were fine," Morgan said. "We walked around Times Square last night and made pretend we were famous for a minute.

"It was great. I said to the team, `You're going to remember this game the rest of your life, win, lose. ... Everytime you see the Garden on TV, you'll say, yeah, I played there.

"Now that we won, it makes it even better and we're staying for the second game."

Smith said she wasn't impressed, initially, when the team was told the game had been scheduled here.

"I don't follow basketball that much. But just being here, this atmosphere, you feel it when you walk in. You feel it's an honor to be given the chance to play in one of these facilities," Smith said. "It's not something everyone gets to do."

Neither team was given one of the larger locker rooms because of the men's game.

"It was a small little closet," Smith said. "But we're used to the small. However, the hotel was nice.

"This takes our season to another level and we now have the confidence to play in a place like this. We didn't have a lot of fans,but it's a pleasure to have your family come watch you play on a court where the Knicks play. I'm never going to forget it."

DiAmico had the honor of topping former teammate Delle Donne in one way -- she beat the nation's top high school athlete into playing in the Garden. UConn is reported to be one of the teams who will play here next season in the Maggie Dixon Classic.

"I didn't believe it," DiAmico said when she was told of the event. "I thought, `There's no way we're going to play up here. But it happened and it was a great feeling.

"The second half we got the jitters out and played our normal game. The Garden treated us very well here. Very high class. Very nice."

Morgan added that effort is no different at Division III than at the big-time Division I level.

"Division III kids work just as hard as D-I kids do, they really do." Morgan said and then broke into another big smile.

"You only get one chance like this. I don't think we'll be back for the NIT or the Big East Tournament," Morgan noted.

"Cabrini is not going Division I anytime soon."

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

Duke and former Texas coach Gail Goestenkors finally parted ways in terms of the Associated Press women's basketball poll Monday when the weekly rankings were announced.

Although after last season she left the Blue Devils for the Longhorns of Texas, another program with a prominent poll history, both Duke and Goestenkors had continued together on one of the longer current streaks in the rankings because of Texas' listing since week one back in November.

On Monday, Duke made it to consecutive week number 197, but Goestenkors, whose overall total is at 240 appearances, did not when the national media panel ejected Texas.

Both streaks would be a little longer had not the Blue Devils and their former coach missed the final poll of the 1996-97 season. That stopped a streak of 44 straight appearances together, beginning with week 10 of the 1995-96 season.

Joseph Joins Elite Company With Georgia Tech

When Georgia Tech joined the rankings for the first time since Jan. 19, 1993, the Yellow Jackets enabled its current coach MaChelle Joseph to enjoy an elite category

A former star at Purdue, Joseph became the 23rd woman to both play for a team ranked in the AP Poll and now also coach one.

Ironically, on the way through the door, Joseph passed Colorado coach Kathy McConnell-Miller going in the other direction when the Buffs slipped out of the poll.

She had qualified for the list several weeks ago as a former member of an AP ranked team at Virginia.

Syracuse Becomes A Poll Debutante

When Syracuse earned its first-ever ranking Monday, the Orange became one of the few women's programs never to have been previously listed from the same school that has had a long history of appearances by the men's team.

Speaking of gender, obviously Orange coach Quentin Hillsman is ineligible for the AP women's coach-player category.

Syracuse becomes the 143rd team to be ranked since the first poll of the 1976-77 season.

The Orange are also the last of the original Big East schools to crack the weekly AP list.

Joseph's and Hillsman, by way of ranking entry, become the 222nd and 223rd coaches with teams in the rankings.

As far as total Big East history in the poll, South Florida, which flirted with an entry last season, is the only current member never to have been ranked. Cincinnati has been ranked, but previously as a member of Conference-USA.

Overall 17 teams made the list as Big East members, including Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College, which are now members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

By comparison, every Big Ten school current school has appeared as part of the Big Ten, although Penn State's history also includes former membership in the Atlantic Ten.

Every Pac-10 school has been ranked except Washington State.

The entire Big 12 has made the list with membership currency in the conference.

Every current Atlantic Coast Conference team has been ranked but Miami is the only member to earn its appearance elsewhere.

Other Notable Numbers

If Connecticut beats Notre Dame on Sunday, the Huskies will become the second team in poll history to be No. 1 at least 100 times. The other is Tennessee, which has 111 appearances at the top.

Rutgers tied Penn State this week at 18th for total number of Top Five appearances at 43. That's just two behind Vanderbilt, at 45.

The Scarlet Knights are tied with Baylor at 10th place with 59 appearances this decade, just two behind Georgia, and three behind Louisiana Tech.

Rutgers is also eighth in all-time Top 10 appearances, at two behind Old Dominion at 177. Maryland just moved into ninth place at 167 in the category.

The Scarlet Knights are also ninth in total AP appearance at 309, which is two behind LSU.

Maryland just broke a tie with ACC-rival Virginia and took over 13th place at 293.

-- Mel

(Guru's note: This is a sidebar to the main post below of Monday night's North Carolina-Connecticut game).

By Mel Greenberg

STORRS, Conn. - Since once-prized recruit Charde Houston arrived here to Connecticut from San Diego four years ago, the 6-foot-1 forward has spent more team being maligned, especially by Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, than keeping the Huskies aligned with the stars of the women's basketball universe.

Two seasons ago, Auriemma called her out, in paticular, to the media, after the Huskies suffered a narrow loss to Duke in the Bridgeport Regional championship that sent the Blue Devils on to nearby Boston and the Women's Final Four.

With a roster overloaded with talent before the injuries struck earlier this season, Auriemma no longer needed to play Houston out of necessity with his top-ranked and unbeaten Huskies.

However, after senior Mel Thomas' collegiate career-ending knee injury occurred at Syracuse a week ago, Auriemma mused that perhaps Houston could rise to the occasion and some good might come attached to the Huskies' misfortune.

So much for wishful thinking when statistical radar showed scant traces of Houston in the first half against No. 3 Carolina as Connecticut's promising future seem headed for doom.

Her line in eight minutes of work indicated 0-for-2 from the field, two rebounds, two turnovers, a block and a steal.

Then Thomas, who hobbled out on crutches before the game to be honored for her 1,000th career point, became a one-woman mission control trying to penetrate Houston's mind.

Whatever was said, it seemed to work, because the Huskies forward became a force during the comeback in the second half as an imaginary radio transmission proclaimed: "Huskies! The Houston has landed."

By the time Connecticut's comeback had been secured and the Huskies' season saved for the moment, Houston, playing in 15 of the final 20 minutes, was 6-for-10 from the field and 3-for-4 from the line for 15 points, with four rebounds, of which three were offensive, and she had an assist and two steals.

Houston spoke of her motivation to help the cause.

"Well for me in the first half I knew I didn't produce at all and just seeing Renee (Montgomery) -- just as Tina (Charles) said out there -- trying to do everything by herself and on top of that being on the bench and having Mel with her leg elevated, yelling at me and to tell me, `Go out there and play like you can play,'" Houston said.

"That really touches your heart and just knowing we lost three starters, that''s something I hold very dear to me. I wanted nothing more than for me to go out and produce in the second half."

It's one thing to have Auriemma in your face all the time at practice, it's another, however, when a teammate starts saying a few things.

"Yeah ... I mean `Coach' is going to be `Coach.' He can walk. Mel can't, so I wanted to show her that I really care about her, what happened, and the team as a whole."

Auriemma was hopeful that perhaps Houston might still live up to her promise in her final weeks with the Huskies.

"I don't know what to tell you," he said at the postgame press conference. "I thought in the second half Charde was in complete control of her emotions, of her game, at both ends of the floor.

"The thing I asked her after the game, which is an answer we have to get, is I've seen that before. Over the course of four years, I've seen that. And so has everybody else," Auriemma continued.

"And she's allowed it to get away. Whether it's the next game, or two games later, she's allowed it to disappear. Now, hopefully, she'll be able to capture this, hold on to this, for the rest of the season. That would be my wish for Charde."

Auriemma was asked about his thoughts over Thomas' pep talk to Houston.

"Earlier in the season, when all was right with the world, I asked Mel and Renee whether they ever had a conversation with Charde about we need her and how we really have to have her," Auriemma related.

"And they said, `Yeah, we did. We went in and had a great conversation with her.'

"I said, `Really. What did Charde say?'

"They said, `We had the conversation and she just sat there and stared at us.' And it was very frustrating for the two of them," Auriemma said.

"But I think circumstances have changed so much that I would like to think that Charde's hearing things a little differently now. It's not necessarily that she's hearing different things, but I think she's hearing them differently," he continued.

"I think maybe things happen for a reason and maybe this (the second half) was what Charde needed to finally -- because it wasn't crazy stuff, it wasn't crazy one-on-one stuff, you know, 360 (degree) spins, and all that goofy stuff that she does that either works or it ruins your team, it was solid basketball.

"So maybe this is the start of something, huh?"

-Mel

By Mel Greenberg

STORRS, Conn. -- Despite three starters sidelined with injuries, two of which are lost for the season, top-ranked Connecticut displayed the kind of depth in another area Monday night against No. 3 North Carolina that had existed until recently on a roster that had been overwhelming well-respected programs.

The Huskies dug deep into their storied basketball soul to rally from an 11-point halftime deficit and overcome a strong challenge from the Tar Heels, 82-71, Monday night, in a nationally-televised intersectional matchup at Gampel Pavilion.

Fortune tellers were not on the scene here Monday nght to predict whether the comeback was an omen indictating coach Geno Auriemma's battered squad can win a sixth NCAA title.

But for now, what can be said of the Huskies (18-0), the last unbeaten Division I squad, is they will likely retain their weekly No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press women's poll for at least a while longer.

"I think a lot of us are on the same page as far as feeling that we have been tested more than I think most teams this year, just as far as defining who we are," Connecticut freshman Maya Moore said afterwards

"With each starter than we lost we had to prove again to ourselves, I think more than anything, that we are still the best team in the country," the nation's top recruit added. "This was another game just like that."

It was even more.

With the annual womano-womano showdown between Connecticut and Tennessee removed as the season's top attraction by Volunteers coach Pat Summitt, Monday night's clash was a worthy replacement, especially with North Carolina's only previous loss being a narrow setback to Tennessee.

Even when the Huskies were a healthy bunch not too long ago, they looked to UNC (17-2) as a major hurdle on the road to more glory.

Because of early season matchups of major powers and some unforeseen upsets, the race for the top four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament appears to have been reduced to five contenders.

Tennessee, (16-1) barring a collapse, seems solid to gain one of the prized berths. Connecticut was in the same position before knee injuries struck Kalana Greene in December and Mel Thomas last week at Syracuse. The Huskies have been weakened further, depth-wise, in recent games while Brittany Hunter nurses a sore knee. Maryland (22-1) is also inside the loop as is Rutgers (15-2) because of success on strong schedules.

But North Carolina has been coming up fast on the outside and with Monday night's game against the Huskies and Saturday afternoon's tilt in Chapel Hill against Atlantic Coast Conference-rival Maryland, the Tar Heels were poised to make things closer.

In fact, when North Carolina took an 8-0 lead in the opening minutes here against the Huskies, playing almost perfect basketball, the thought quickly occurred that if this continues, it could be that a Big East title game between Rutgers and Connecticut might also determine the fourth No. 1 seed.

"It was like a heavyweight fight," Auriemma said of the opening burst by the opposition. "After the ref broke us up, we got hit in the face."

Connecticut eventually settled down, but then drifted behind to a 44-37 deficit at the half.

However, UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell was not totally confident with her team's advantage.

"I didn't want us to relax because at the beginning of the game, we made some shots that gave us security, but I knew the second half Connecticut would come out very intense," Hatchell sad. "They did that and were very aggressive and very physical and I think we let it bother us a little bit and we don't usually do that."

Connecticut junior Renee Montgomery, who scored a game-high 26 points in her new role as a shooting guard, spoke of the resolve of her teammates and herself.

"We refused to lose, no matter what the score was, we had to play hard and we refused to lose," Montgomery said. "We had to do everything right. We had to make sure they got one shot and that''s it. We knew we had to rebound, we knew we had to get easy buckets in transition and we had to execute. I think everyone came with the mindset that we know what we need to do and we have to get it done."

The counterpunch from the Huskies began right at the outset of the final period.

With Montgomery leading the charge along with strong inside play from Tina Charles and Charde Houston, the Huskies broke on a 15-3 run to take a 48-47 lead on Montgomery's three-pointer with 15:15 left in the game.

"I think that was huge," Montgomery said. The whole first half we were trying to catch up and once we evened it out with them we were like `ok, it's a whole new ball game now."

Connecticut was relentless, but the Tar Heels took a while to fade, leading 69-65 with 5:29 to play.

Then the Huskies really toughened, defensively, forcing turnovers and closing out with a 17-2 run.

"We need to execute better down the stretch and compete when other teams go on runs," North Carolina's LaToya Pringle said of the closing minutes. "I think a lot of our team put our heads down when they eventually took the lead. We need to learn that basketball is a game of runs and when your opponent makes a run you have to respond."

That's something the Tar Heels failed to do in the second half against Tennessee last season when they fell to the Volunteers in one of the NCAA national semifinal games in Cleveland.

Auriemma, meanwhile, could only marvel the way his squad finished out against the Tar Heels.

"We wanted to make the game fast-paced, but only from defense-to-offense on our part, not up-and-down continuously," Auriemma said. "I thought we finally got it going the way I thought we could get it going.

"I don't think you can say enough about the way our (players) responded - we're up and then we gave it back to them. We thought we had the game won, probably, and then they came back and took a four-point lead," he continued.

"And for us to come back and do that, running away at the end, that's probably something that will help this team down the road probably more than anything else. Some individuals had a chance to do some things tonight that they thought they were able to do, but weren't sure they were able to do -Charde, Tina, in particular. I was really happy for them because they were the two I was concerned about the most coming into the game."

Charles matched a career-high 19 rebounds, 11 on the offensive end, to go with her 15 points, and Houston scored all 15 of her points in the second half. Moore had 19 points.

Pringle led UNC, scoring 30 points, and Heather Claytor and Jessica Breeland each scored 12 points. Rashanda McCants added 10 points, while Erlana Larkins grabbed 11 rebounds.

Larkins spoke of the post defense Charles and Houston used against her in the second half.

"It's nothing that I haven't experienced before, but I think it was for us as a team," Larkins said. "They did a great job of coming in to double team and we did a great job of standing. I remember, there were several times when I got the ball and I couldn't find anyone open and since I had no dribble I had to turn and throw the ball hoping someone would get it. I think they did a great job of taking me away and forcing other players to do things."

Connecticut next returns its Big East wars, visiting No. 15 Notre Dame (13-3) Sunday night. Then it's back home to host South Florida and Providence before traveling to the Rutgers, for the first of the two regular season encounters with the Scarlet Knights.

-- Mel

(Guru's Note: Stephen was on the scene with Rutgers; the Guru was on the home front but heading for Storrs for the UConn-UNC tilt.)

By Stephen K. Lee

PISCATAWAY – With solid shooting from both the field and the free throw line, the Rutgers women’s basketball team earned its tenth straight win on Sunday, downing Louisville 70-57 at home at the Louis A. Brown Athletic Center.

The No.5 Scarlet Knights (15-2, 5-0 Big East) shot 50 percent from the floor in the first half.

After RU built a 32-23 halftime advantage and held Big East leading scorer Angel McCoughtry to just three points on 1-of-6 shooting, a nine-point game between the conference rivals turned into a foul fest with Louisville (12-6, 1-4) committing 17 second-half fouls in an effort to change the game’s tempo.

Louisville coach Jeff Walz said that with the Cardinals down 51-42 with about six minutes left in the game, he decided to take his chances with a hack-a-Kia-Vaughn strategy, sending the Rutgers center to the line.

“We tried to foul,” said Walz, who is in his first year as Cardinals head coach after serving as an assistant at Maryland. “We’re down 10 and we can’t stop them and… so we just rolled the dice and said, ‘Let’s try to foul her.’”

Vaughn, who was making 42.4 percent of her free throws entering Sunday’s game, stepped up big for Rutgers, hitting nine of 13 from the charity stripe in the game’s closing minutes. The junior center blamed her struggles from this season for Walz’s targeting her as a free-throw dud.

“I did that to myself because of the beginning of the season with not being consistent and making free throws,” said Vaughn, who finished with 15 points and nine rebounds. “But he shouldn’t doubt me because when it’s time to put them in, I put them in.”

During a few stretches of the game, Louisville guard Candyce Bingham and McCoughtry were yelling at each other out of frustration.

Rutgers senior point guard Matee Ajavon said Rutgers fed off of Louisville’s troubles.

“I guess we’re doing something good if they’re yelling at each other,” said Ajavon, who finished with a game-high 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting. “I think it riles us up to keep on doing what we’re doing to make them yell at each other.”

Rutgers sophomore guard Epiphanny Prince was the primary source of McCoughtry’s struggles in the first half.

“I just wanted to be a pest to her,” said Prince, who finished with 13 points and five rebounds. “I could tell she was getting a little frustrated. She kept running to the ref and complaining about little things. So, I just wanted to keep getting inside her head and playing her tight and just try to focus on boxing out since she’s a great rebounder.”

Prince added that it was tiring guarding McCoughtry because the Cardinals would screen for their star player a lot to get her open looks.

Rutgers head coach C. Vivian Stringer said that she wanted Prince to provide defense on McCoughtry from outside in order to allow the Scarlet Knights to allow senior guard/forward Essence Carson, RU’s best defender, to defend the post and keep junior forward Heather Zurich, an offensive specialist, on the floor.

“We decided the one person who might be able to buy some minutes until we attacked the inside was Epiphanny,” Stringer said. “Epiphanny could probably play McCoughtry before they realize that Epiphanny is too small to play McCoughtry and they went to post. But they never did.”

Prince played McCoughtry so well that Stringer favored keeping her on McCoughtry for the majority of the game.

The first half was close for the first ten minutes. Then, with 7:55 remaining before halftime, the Scarlet Knights took a 19-17 lead when Ajavon hit a three pointer from the corner. The Knights outscored the Cardinals 16-6 for the remainder of the period.

McCoughtry overcame her rough first half and finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds, both team-highs for Louisville.

Stringer said that, despite the win, she still sees many problem areas Rutgers needs to work on.

“I never see that we won,” she said. “I look at the different aspects of the game. What continues to concern me is rebounding. In the crucial part of that game, (Louisville) got second and third opportunities – those you lose. They suffered at the free throw line, they missed free throws they wouldn’t have normally missed. So let’s not play jokes. I’m not willing to accept that.”

“It’s just that I’m coaching now, but I’m coaching for the future and what I know we’ve got to do.

We do need to put it all together at one time, and we probably will.”

Rutgers continues its conference stretch of games, heading to Cincinnati to face the Bearcats (10-7, 1-4) at 7:00 p.m. on Jan. 22.

NOTES: For the second time this season, the Scarlet Knights had four players finish in double-digit scoring with Ajavon (23 points), Vaughn (15), Carson (14) and Prince (13) all hitting their strides offensively.

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _ Picked for eighth place in the Colonial Athletic Association, Drexel is putting Denise Dillon in contention for another conference coach of the year award.

The Dragons won their ninth straight, Sunday afternoon, beating UNC Wilmington, 63-50, in a CAA game at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

It was Drexel's ninth straight triumph, matching the program's second highest streak set in the 1986-87 season. The Dragons's all-time victory run was at 16 games in the 1989-90 season.

Off to their best start in-conference since joining the CAA for 2000-01, the Dragons (10-6, 5-0 CAA) are now locked in a three-way tie for first with overwhelming favorite and nationally-ranked Old Dominion along with Twoson.

Drexel can make it at least a two-way tie when the Dragons visit Towson outside of Baltimore on Thursday night.

Junior Nicole Hester led the way in this one with a game-high 16 points and also set a career record with eight assists.

Early in the season, Hester received the CAA's most inspirational award for battling hodgkin's lymphoma that kept her sidelined a yer ago,

Almost back to the form of her sophomore season, Hester could be in line for a few more honors when postseason trophies are handed out.

Drexel's developed perimeter attack was a key to beating the Seahawks (10-6, 1-4) as the Dragons connected on 11-of-25 three-pointers from beyond the arc.

Gabriela Marginean added 15 points, including 10 in the second half. Narissa Suber scored all 10 of her points in the second half.

"I think we set the tempo, defensively," Dillon said. "That was our plan going into the game and I think our players responded very well on defense.

"Delise Johnson came up big for us on defense. She did a good job matching up against their best player and setting the tone on defense."

Alison Lupariello nailed three of four three-pointers off the bench.

"I told our players coming into the game that whichever team comes up with the most hustle plays will come out with the win and I feel that the girls did what was necessary to come up with the loose balls," Dillon said. "Making those hustle plays was key.

"I think we can continue to be successful as long as we stick to the game plan and play as a team."

-- Mel

(Guru's Note: This is an enhanced version of the Temple-GW game that was covered for the print sports section in The Inquirer, which can be found elsewhere on Philly.com)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _ Temple freshman Lindsay Kimmel may be a newcomer to the fierce Atlantic Ten rivalry between the Owls and George Washington, but she's no stranger to the history between the two conference powers.

"I was familiar with it. I've come down a few times and seen them play and I had a chip on my shoulder with them," the former high school star from Binghamton said after setting career highs with five three-pointers and 15 points in the Owls' 68-66 upset of the No. 13 Colonials Saturday afternoon at the Liacouras Center.

Although Kimmel helped Temple (9-10, 2-1 A-10) lead most of the way, George Washington (14-4, 2-1 A-10) managed to fight its way back to go ahead, 66-64, on Sarah Jo-Lawrence with two minutes left to play.

That put the Colonials in familiar territory after recent buzzer-beating wins over nationally-ranked Texas A&M and Auburn.

George Washington also carried two streaks into the game, winning nine overall and also 18 straight regular-season conference games.

But the Owls, who had not played this well in recent weeks, were not ready to roll over.

Lawrence missed a layup that could have expanded the lead and Ashley Morris grabbed the rebound to set up LaKeisha Eaddy''s game-tying jumper with 1:11 left in the game.

Colonials center Jessica Adair turned the ball over on GW's next possession and then junior transfer Shanea Cotton put back her own offensive rebound with 22 seconds left for the game-winner.

The ball left her hands at about the same time the shot clock went off, causing George Washington coach Joe McKeown to comment, "I'd have to look at the tape before I could say anything."

The game was not televised, so officials could not use a monitor to douible-check but they signaled Cotton's shot good when it went through the net.

George Washington still had a chance on the next possession.

Adair missed a jumper with 16 seconds to play and Eaddy grabbed the rebound but turned the ball over, giving the Colonials another opportunity to tie or win with 13 seconds left.

Lawrence then missed a layup and Jasmine Stone grabbed the rebound with four seconds left and was fouled.

She missed the front end of a 1-and-1 but Antelia Parrish's pass was intercepted by Eaddy as time ran out.

Temple shot 53.2 percent from the field and outrebounded the Colonials, 35-24.

"Our coaches said today we would get our mojo back if we won this basketball game, and that's what we did," said Morris, who Staley credited with having her best game ever at Temple.

That's high praise from a teacher who played point guard in her day like she invented the position.

"She controlled the game, she got her teammates involved, she hit open shots, it was a great game just from a point guard standpoint," Staley said.

The win turned Temple's season around if the Owls can hold serve, especially this week with road stops at Richmond and Rhode Island.

To an extent, the league did the Owls an unwitting favor by scheduling the contest much earlier than the two usually meet. A year ago, both were unbeaten in conference play going into the final game of the regular season, a close encounter won by the Colonials in Washington.

Morris and center Lady Comfort each added 14 points to Kimmel's total.

Lawrence had a game-high 17 points, Kimberly Beck scored 15, Adair had 13, and Parrish scored 11.

"Temple was fired up, you saw them celebrating," McKeown said. "Temple's a better team than what their record shows. Some of that is like us they went out and played a national schedule and didn't dodge anybody. So their record is a little deceiving.

"But unfortunately, a game like this gives them some confidence to get back on track. So they can thank me."

Kimmel was only recently inserted into the lineup as Temple scrambled to find another offensive threat to Morris' performance this season.

"Lindsay gives us an outside threat in which she can pull people away from double- and triple-teaming Lady and clogging up the paint," Staley said. "She was inserted into the lineup because Lady wasn't giving us something on the offensive end. We needed to put someone on the floor, who was a threat to score.

"But ever since she's been in the lineup, things have opened up for us and she's shooting a lot better," Staley continued. "I think she likes to start, I think it helps her mind get ready to play the game.

"A month ago, she wasn't ready for this. We brought her in at a time in which she got a lot of games under her belt and tried to understand college basketball," Staley said.

"It's a little different than where she comes from. We know she can score the ball. It's all the little things. It's paying attention to detail on both sides of the ball and I thought she executed to the tee."

Staley said it's the first time in weeks her team competed like earlier in the season when a slew of Top 10 teams were opponents.

But GW's ranking was not necessary for Temple to be motivated for this one.

"The players say its because it's GW,. But as coaches, we're looking at the ranking. We're looking at our 10 losses. But to beat GW, it's bragging rights. They beat us at the end of last season, so you always want to avenge those losses. And we took care of home, so it's a great win for our young team.

"We played hard, but we didn't play smart," Staley said of the Owls' recent performances. "This is a game that we can point to -- this is why we won the game. Because Lindsay you did your job, Lady you stayed on the floor for 36 minutes.Shemta (Landry) came off the bench and gave us a lift. Shaqwedia (Wallace) and Jasmine gave us a lift off the bench.

"When we do that, we can win a lot of basketball games."

click this link to go to the "jump" page to continue reading.

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA - Sometime early in Friday night's Atlantic Coast Conference game between No. 4 Maryland and Virginia in Charlottesville, Terrapins senior center-forward Crystal Langhorne will pass Vicky Bullett (1986-89) again and become the women's basketball program's all-time scorer.

The former star of Willingboro High, with 1,924 points, is five away from reaching No. 1 on the scoring list after previously becoming the all-time rebounder for both men and women at Maryland, eclipsing Bullett and Len Elmore.

Going into the game against Virginia, the 6-foot-2 Langhorne has 1,071 rebounds. Bullett, a former WNBA star, had 968. Elmore, who played from 1971-74, had 1,053 grabs off the glass.

Assumption Noted

Although this is being stated from an assumed position that the record will happen Friday night, the Guru takes a timeout to say of course he knows never totally assume anything.

Years ago on a Saturday afternoon at Connecticut to advance the Huskies' next game on the road at Villanova, the Guru was courtside in Storrs when UConn senior Nykesha Sales was minutes away from the program career scoring during a Big East tilt involving Notre Dame.

Within two points of the record, a pass went to Sales near the Guru and near the basket.

As the Guru made mental notes of the moment, Sales suddenly let out a yell after taking the pass and fell to the floor with what became a legendary torn Achilles tendon.

It became legendary because several nights later on the Main Line, Vilanova coach Harry Perretta and Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma conspired to let Sales limp onto the court at the start of the game and score the record-points while being unguarded by the Wildcats.

On the next possession, Villanova was allowed to score by the Huskies and then the real action began with Connecticut needing overtime to subdue the Wildcats.

Within minutes of the incident, thanks to the then-budding popularity of the internet, a national debate began over the move by Auriemma and Perretta.

So, yeah, never absolutely assume anything.

Debating Langhorne's Place

But returning to the original premise here, it won't be long after the Maryland record is set that a new debate of a different dimension will occur -- is Langhorne now the all-time player in the history of Maryland's hoops?

First, let's go to the Langhorne tape, er, database.

A season after she arrived with Cheltenham’s Laura Harper, the duo helped the Terrapins win their first NCAA championship in April 2006, beating Atlantic Coast Conference rival Duke in a thrilling finish in overtime.

“She’s one of the top two centers in the country, even if it didn’t show tonight,” Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said after the Scarlet Knights beat the Terrapins in December.

Langhorne passed Maryland legend Elmore on Jan. 10. She and Elmore are the only two in Maryland hoops history to grab over 1,000 rebounds.

Langhorne, who has previously earned all-America status, has already been Atlantic Coast Conference player of the week a program-record five times this season.

Projected as a first-round pick in the WNBA draft, Langhorne has played on several gold medal-winning USA Basketball squads.

When the debate begins, the others likely to be brought into the discussion are Bullett, Women's Basketball Hall of Famer Tara Heiss, who ran the point from 1974-1978, and, perhaps, Jasmia Perazic (1979-83).

The Guru, looking for some contemporary perspective for this discussion, turned to Chris Weller, the predecessor to Brenda Frese, who coached three of the aforemention candidates and has certainly been at the Comcast center to watch Langhorne operate.

Aside: A year from now the quartet of candidates might become a quintet when Kristi Toliver finishes her collegiate career. Maryland is in the hunt this season, and could be again next season, meaning she would have been on three NCAA champions if the Terrapins prevail.

"I honestly don't believe you can name any one of them as the greatest of all," Weller said, and "one (national) title shouldn't be the only thing to be considered.

"Understand, Langhorne is a great player, no question. But everyone of them has a great body of work in their resume and everyone will probably tell you their success and numbers were due to playing on great teams with great players," she continued.

"Tara didn't play in as many games as are allowed today, so that impacts her statistics and she was also deprived of going to the Olympics because of President Carter's boycott in 1980. She went to the first-ever Women's Final Four (in 1978) and she played in the first-ever Atlantic Coast championship," Weller said.

"Jaz played in the WNBA and she was all-Europe.She played on three ACC champions and went to the first-ever NCAA Final Four." she added.

"Vicky played on two ACC champions and she went to an Elite Eight and a Final Four."

Well spoken.

Let the discussion begin.

Click here to "jump" to the next page for continued reading.

By Kathleen Radebaugh

PHILADELPHIA _ It’s easy to become caught up in the new zone defense plays, multiple offensive screens, triple scooped with chocolate chip picks.

It is also easy and rewarding to go back to the basics: rebounds and paint shots. Do these well and one will land in the winner’s circle.

Saint Joseph’s (10-7, 2-0 A-10) excelled in the paint and on the boards as they pulled away from Fordham (0-17, 0-2 A-10) for another Atlantic Ten win Wednesday night at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse, 72-47.

The Hawks finished the night with 41 rebounds (30 defensive) and averaged 48 percent in field goals. Hawk center Sarah Acker, Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Week, grabbed 11 of those rebounds. Sher finished with a total of 18 points, but at the end of the game,she was upset to see three turnovers on the box score sheet despite her double-double performance.

“Sarah is coming up with great numbers for us as we start conference play,” said St. Joseph's coach Cindy Griffin. “I think her production is really going to depend on who is backing her up. I think she is better and more productive with less minutes.”

The Rams only totaled 26 rebounds (17 defensive rebounds) on Saint Joseph’s home court with forward Takita Earl leading the pack with eight of them. Freshman Kristina Bell showed promise for Fordham with only one rebound short of Earl’s total. She will have to bulk up and become more vocal on the court to keep her opponents out of the post and away from scoring potential.

Consistently throughout the game, however, Saint Joseph’s would be fighting for a rebound against another teammate. There was little communication, especially on the offensive glass, and many times three white shirts were on the ball.

“That’s a pretty good problem to have,” said Griffin. “But we need to carry that a step further and look around us and recognize our teammate so someone gets off the ball.”

Having three teammates on the same ball is wasted energy and slows players getting down the court, whether it be offensive or defensive. Throughout the game, it also helped the Rams to set up full court pressure and block passing lanes more easily since the Hawks cluttered together.

However, for a majority of the game, the Hawks did an exceptional job of throwing the ball down the court to open teammates waiting to take the jump shot. Senior guard Timisha Gomez has become more confident in her paint shooting, which, in turn, has become contagious for other players, especially Ashley Logue.

Gomez finished the night with 15 points (6-11 in paint), but her steals truly highlights her athleticism. Half way through the first half, Gomez makes a jumper, 21-9, then stole the ball from Ram’s guard Annie Zopf, and raced down the court to complete a layup.

Jenna Loschiavo, another Hawk that excelled in the paint, finished the night with 17 points. The Plymouth-Whitemarsh graduate is famous though for her long range three’s that set the net on fire. Loschiavo was 6-11 in the paint and 5-10 outside the arc.

“It always feels good to find your shot again with the help of your teammates and getting into the rhythm,” Loschiavo said. “Coming off the bench I feel like I have to be a motivator and be a spark.”

“We faced a seasoned team with a great tradition for Saint Joseph’s basketball tonight,” said Head Coach Cathy Andruzzi, who was the executive director of the local organizing committee that hosted the Women's Final Four here in 2000.

. “We have taken over a program that the cupboard was empty," Andruzzi said. "We are trying to fill it, and that doesn’t happen over night.”

Meghan Mahoney, a freshman starter from St. Petersburg High School in Staten Island, N.Y., is definitely a part of reshaping the Fordham basketball program and filling those bare cupboards.

“She is a tough little cookie, plays to win, and plays every position very hard,” said Griffin. “I think we could have done a better job on her, but she is a very good player.”

Co-Player of the Week with Acker, Mahoney completed the night with ten field goals, two three pointers, two rebounds and steals. This lacks gravity to her excellent defensive movement and perfect jumpers. Mahoney was Andruzzi’s first recruit and committed to Fordham immediately. She understands the obstacles that the team is facing as the youngest squad in the A-10. Fordham has only three returning players, one of which is hurt, and three new transfers; making this year’s record seem trivial.

“We might not be winning right now, but we are turning heads,” said Mahoney.

Saint Joseph’s will play Xavier next on Saturday, and the Rams will play at home against LaSalle. A Hawk win could win the roller-coaster ride through November and December is finally settling into something much more smoother.

-- Kathleen

Guru's note: We double-teamed the Big Five Wednesday night. Your Guru was at La Salle and Kathleen Radebaugh in the post above this one handled the St. Joseph's-Fordam game. The Guru print version of La Salle for the sports section is in the Inquirer sports section of Philly.com.

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _ How far has Dayton come in coach Jim Jabir's fifth season with the Flyers?

Jabir said it best after his team escaped from La Salle's Tom Gola Arena with a 45-43 victory over the Explorers Wednesday night in an Atlantic Ten game decided with 3.3 seconds left when Nikki Oakland nailed two foul shots.

"A year ago, we don't win this game,'' he said.

Forget just one year. It could have been anytime in the last decade.

With conference-opening wins against Temple and La Salle, the Flyers (16-2, 2-0 A-10) have shown their nonconference performance had been no flue.

In fact, Dayton is on track for the best record in the program's history since becoming an NCAA Division I member in 1984-85. The Flyers began competing in the North Star Conference, which later evolved through name changes and membership shuffles to the Midwest Collegiate Conference, and then the Great Midwest. They joined the Atlantic Ten for the 1995-96 season.

``They should be doing well," St. Joseph's coach Cindy Griffin said recently of Dayton. "They have a bunch of seniors so if any year is going to be good, this should be it."

However, Wednesday night, with La Salle's ability to harness Dayton's 71.5 scoring average, Jabir had flashbacks to another time and another conference when he coached Providence against Villanova in the Big East.

``That's what this game was like,'' Jabir said. ``It was like going to the dentist.''

That's a line stolen from Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, who used to always compare games against the Wildcats to root canal work.

Speaking of the Huskies, the Flyers, temporarily at least, jumped ahead of Connecticut with sole honors of the current longest Division I women's win streak at 16 games.

Connecticut's run got more imperiled Wednesday with news that senior Mel Thomas' collegiate career has ended after suffering an ACL injury in the closing minutes of Tuesday night's escape from Syracuse.

The Orange, incidentally, will be at Villanova on Saturday.

Back to the La Salle game, the best illustration of the lack of speed in the game was the points-in-transition statistical comparison 0 vs. 0.

``We're scoring more points than anyone in our league and we come in here and kill that,'' Jabir said. "But you have to credit La Salle and the style they play.''

"Primary for us was to be able to take away the transition game and we were able to do that," La Salle coach Tom Lochner said. "We wanted to shorten the game and spread the floor.

"It worked for a long portion of the game. Unfortunately at the end it broke down defensively in the last three minutes on some of the principles in the game and Dayton was finally able to get off the snide and make a few shots. The offensive rebounds hurt us and they beat us up on the glass."

Ashley Gale returned from the massive injury list to get La Salle (8-9, 0-2) started with a trey and the Explorers hed an eight-point lead near the mid-point of the second half.

Karah Cloxton had 11 points, while Oakland scored 10 points and grabbed 12 points for Dayton.

Carlene Hightower and Margaret Elderton each scored 11 points for the Explorers.

-- Mel

By Mel Greenberg

Well it didn't take long for a few surprises over the weekend to cause a little further refinement in the Guru analysis department.

In the previous post, a number of key games were listed that will occur between now and the end-of-the regular season. Those confrontations, for the most part, involve the major conferences and their top-of-the-line members as an aide in finding clues in the hunt for NCAA upper seeds.

No question, a bunch of other significant games will occur, but these were highlighted -- with also some consideration to our local readership -- because they will become makers or breakers as a body of work when the NCAA committee has to design the 64-team draw.

Thus, in terms of the complete remaining schedule of many teams mentioned in the previous post, entire slates were not listed because operating from the high ground, the top tiers should all be favored in every game except the obvious against the ones against each other.

Entering the past weekend, Oklahoma would have been considered a favorite against Oklahoma State. As we now know, we got a one-sided upset of the Sooners.

If Oklahoma, which had an outside shot at a NCAA No. 1 seed, was figure skating, well the Sooners just lost some points with the tumble. How many will be determined by what happens the rest of the way.

Likewise, Georgia was spoken of several posts ago as a darkhorse for a No. 1 seed. Since then the Bulldogs have lost to Xavier and Auburn.

An aside: This exercise has more to do with the long-range than short-range or rankings, although many voters are looking at similar situations in submitting their weekly ballots. In fact, if one particular voter known as your Guru had been wide awake a few hours ago, he would have listed Kansas State, which beat Texas A&M and Texas this week.

Perhaps the rest of the panel will give the Wildcats their due. But two more key games this week can get Kansas State listed on the next overall ballot, if not now.

But to return to the original motivation for this post, to deepen clues to potential winners in the overall hunt, we will begin with a watch list -- teams that upset the conference frontrunners and also beat teams with the same aspirations. Once we get through the first half of conference play, then we'll begin looking at overall list and develop the group on the bubble. But it's too early now, because many teams have the ability to bolt out of nowhere.

So here's an initial watch list of the middle ground and in another few weeks we'll add and subtract as results warrant.

Again, for now, it is not worthwhile to deal with projected one- or two-bid conferences. After the first go-round we'll examine their pecking order.

Remember, the teams mentioned here need to beat the frontrunners and each other, though in the mega-leagues many will survive with losses, if not quality seeds. Anyone not in either discussion in the particular conferences needs to get down to business quick.

Atlantic Coast: Virginia, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Florida State, North Carolina State.

Discussion point: Boston College needs to do well against these others to avoid bubble speculation. N.C. State's situation could be a little troublesome if today were March, but like a year ago, it's not.

Atlantic Ten. St. Joseph's, Dayton, Temple, St. Bonaventure.

Discussion point: Dayton and St. Bonaventure entered conference play off their best efforts in some time, even if the wins weren't all eye-catchers. St. Joseph's picked up a point, besides being one of our locals, by winning at St. Bonaventure. Temple, on the other hand, lost traction at Dayton unless the Flyers continue to play well. Temple needs a win Tuesday over St. Bonaventure and then will try to get things done when George Washington visits Saturday.The Owls' at-large safety valve hope is shrinking rapidly.

Big East: Syracuse, West Virginia, Seton Hall, DePaul, Louisville.

Discussion point: Can Syracuse sustain? West Virginia picked up something by beating Notre Dame. We saw both the good and bad in Seton Hall but Rutgers had a lot to do with the latter. Which way is DePaul going? And Louisville, a preseason nationally-ranked team, has some opportunities just ahead. Others such as Villanova could join the discussion by beating this group.

Big 12: Oklahoma State, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas Tech and Kansas State.

Discussion point:Some of the harm in Oklahoma's strength-of-schedule obviously gets lessened with the win over Oklahoma. We already spoke to some credits Kansas State has acquired. Iowa State , an an afterthought, may need to be considered, but there's time.

Big Ten: This conference is a psychologist's dream because a few are needed to figure out what is happening here. A bunch of teams have already been mentioned and there's no need to add more, although some of that group may be marked down soon. Exhibit A: Michigan State.

Southeastern: Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Auburn.

Discussion point: The others have been addressed in previous post. Watch simply means watch in which all will progress. Florida has enough left to become a factor.

Pac-10: Let's go straight to the discussion point. Three are in the other post. Let's see where we are at the end of the month before others are considered for here.

Mountain West: Somehow, they always get their share, but it's a little early and muddy to determine exactly what that share is right now.

Click the jump page link to read other items.

By Mel Greenberg

And so we are about to get to some nitty gritty in terms of upper echelon teams, for lack of a better terms in this exercise, about to bang into each other.

For now, here is a selected conference look at some matchups that will be impacting high seeding in the NCAA tournament. Obviously any wannabes will be playing big games when they play the conference heavyweights to separate themselves from common hopefuls.

However, it’s too early and complex to get into that area. Once we have a first go-round complete, we’ll go a little more in-depth at the end of the month as to who needs to do what in February. And a little later as the tournaments come into the horizon, we’ll get into that and, perhaps, add a few more conferences. For now, here’s some dates to get started. Nonconference games of note will be listed twice.

And so, click the link here to go to the "jump" page and get the signficant dates in the significant conferences.

By Mel Greenberg

Welcome to another one of those behind-the-scenes insider special reports from the Guru illustrating that journalism isn't always about the preceived glamour of bylines, interviewing notables, and making deadline.

In the modern age, it is also about harnessing technology to work in synch with some of the attributes mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

And after getting a note from our colleague Aditi Kinkhabwala of the Record of Bergen County in northern New Jersey chronicling her nightmares returning from Toronto after covering the Rutgers football team in the International Bowl, there's also the travel element to consider.

Some of you might remember a previous bout with travel she reported during the early phase of the NCAA tournament last March.

But back to our adventures involving a trip to Newark, Del., Thursday night to cover Drexel's attempt to snap an 18-game losing streak to the University of Delaware, dating back to 1999.

The Guru left home at 4 p.m. for the trip south, which already had him in trouble because the time-length down the Pennsylvania side to Newark is quite longer at rush hour with tie-ups at the I-95 intersection with I-476 below center city Philadelphia and then usually a major bumper-to-bumper involving several major merging highways below Wilmington in the Diamond State.

If Jonathan is reading this and would like to use his philly.com magic to provide a link to some map illustration if it is not difficult, that would be great, and if not, well, it was a nice thought.

(Like ">this? It's a really big file, so be forewarned, but it should make the point -- Jonathan)

To continue: The Guru had one solution -- run a wide-out pattern by crossing over to New Jersey and head down the turnpike and thus avoidi the first of the two driving hurdles.

That first move seemed to be a success but our mostly trusty GPS, which gets ongoing updates from the MSN traffic network indicated a major tie-up of some 15 minutes or more 20 miles ahead. When we placed a finger on the screen to get the readout, it was the feared merge where the problem existed.

However, the unit suggested a bypass route. The Guru hit the "Yes" button and sure enough, technology had become our friend in routing us around all the difficulty with only five minutes added to our original time length.

Then the real fun began. Arriving inside the Bob Carpenter Center, the Guru shared the news of his success with some Drexel folks while opening his laptop computer which would send the game report back to the home office.

Upon hitting the start button, some strange beeps, which had been occurring recently, began going off again. Up until now, it only took a couple of extra efforts to kick the windows startup into motion.

But the laptop was having none of it. The Guru remained calm, knowing there was plenty of time, and no sense in getting the folks back in the Inquirer sports control tower nervous that one of their pilots was having engine trouble at 25,000 feet.

The Delaware folks offered one of their unused machines, and Drexel also offered to help.

However, the Guru suddenly recalled a night now legendary when a former columnist who once had a show on ESPN managed to file his work from the NBA draft on his blackberry device.

Well, since the Guru had recently upgraded to the blackberry curve with a full-size, ok, improved keyboard capable of less strokes, he immediately began his composition after Drexel jumped to a 13-2 lead over the Blue Hens.

After all, the Guru already knew what had to be addressed if Drexel finally rid itself of hits longtime hex by its area rival in the Colonial Athletic Association.

But as the Guru typed away, the Dragons' advantage was erased by Delaware, which took a one-point lead at the half.

Nevertheless, the Guru sent by email what he had to the home office to determine if it could be
read and if Drexel went on to win, not much more had to be done except scoring and quotes.

And the Guru said he would write another version during the second half opposite the first report to handle what had to be said if Delaware made it 19th straight over the Dragons.

Right before the halftime break ended, the Guru hit the start button on the laptop one more time to see if the computer Gods would return to his side and sure enough the unit fired up.

The Guru notified the home office and then emailed the early version to himself so he could grab it in the computer and then cut and paste the copy into the writing program.

Viola. It all worked.

So in an effort to save time, since the Guru was somewhat back in a normal mode, he began writing a Delaware version after the Blue Hens twice built a six-point lead in the second half.

But as he worked the new version, Drexel rallied (we'll speak to the basketball part of this in the next item) and took control down the stretch.

The Guru was tempted to return to the Drexel version and start getting it ready, but based on the previous night's experience, there was a fear of becoming bad luck again.

On Wednesday, the Guru had been at the Penn-Lehigh game and the host Quakers held a 44-37 lead late in the game at the Palestra.

The Guru noted to Penn SID Mike Mahoney that it looked like Penn was going to both win the game and score more than 50 points.

``Shhh,''' he responded. ``Don't jinx us.''

He was right. Penn didn't score again until 40 seconds were left as Lehigh went on a 12-0 run to move to a victory.

The Guru then noted, that's the difference between your team and UConn -- they win by 50, you're still trying to get to 50.

Anyhow, Drexel did win the game and the Guru figured to be in excellent shape -- until the postgame interviews began and he noticed that the batteries in his microcasette tape player were dead because the unit had been unwittingly set off in his briefcase.

However, he had a set of replacements and then filed a report that you can find in the print section of Philly.com in the Inquirer sports section.

But you can also stay right here and hit the click to jump to the next item and read another version right here -- if the platform technology is still working.

By Mel Greenberg

An email late Monday night popped into the Guru's in-box late Monday night from the Seattle Storm announcing a press conference Tuesday featuring Storm executive Karen Byrant and WNBA president Donna Orender.

A search a few hours later after getting up for air found our Seattle Times colleague Jayda Evans reporting that the WNBA franchise is going to local, unidentified owners.

The future of the franchise, which won the 2004 WNBA title, has been murky with the current owner having made noise about moving the team and the NBA Seattle Supersonics out of town, potentially to Oklahoma where he is from, because of an arena controversy.

But there also was much activity in the Northwest to find a way to retain the popular WNBA team.

If reports become true, Seattle would join Connecticut, the new Atlanta franchise, Washington, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles, as teams not affiliated with a local NBA operation. The total would become 50 percent of the current 14 franchises.

Seattle is still looking for a coach after the recent resignation of Anne Donovan, the coach of the Olympic team.

Also, top stars Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson are currently free agents, although both seem likely to remain in the Emerald City.

The Collegiate Scene

Top-ranked Connecticut and its coach Geno Auriemma made it 300 appearances in team and coaching categories in the AP poll Monday when the Huskies were an unanimous choice this week.

George Washington earned its 100th appearance.

Willingboro's Crystal Langhorne is 38 points away from breaking Maryland's all-time scoring record.

Texas is No. 15 in the AP poll, enabling the Longhorns to continue to add to its appearance stature near the top of the list, as well as continue to appearance streak of former Duke coach Gail Goestenkors.

But in the weekly wire-released Collegiate Basketball News RPI report, Texas was ranked 43rd Monday with a strength-of-schedule ranking of 183.

Speaking of Duke, the Blue Devils will retire recently-graduated Lindsey Harding's number on Jan. 20 when North Carolina State visits.

We'll be at Villanova Tuesday night for a Big East clash in which the Pirates are riding a six-game win-streak and the Wildcats will again try to bounce from a loss -- the current one being last week's slaughter by Connecticut.

-- Mel

(Guru's Aside: As promised, updating to reflect Sunday games. Acacia was on the scene Saturday night for Syracuse's Big East opening triumph against Louisville. Her report is in the post below yours truly.)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _ And we begin our observations to note that gender-equity training was in play Saturday afternoon, and so your Guru was across town at the Drexel men's CAA game against nearby rival Delaware. The print coverage is in the Inquirer sports section in Philly.com.

After having been fed an excellent Christmas dinner by Drexel men's coach Bruiser Flint and his wife Rene, whose home is blocks away from our office,where we had desk duty that day, Flint's Dragons forced the Guru to digest a horrible display of foul shooting, including 9-for-22 in the second half in the loss to the Blue Hens.

Speaking of digesting, Gabriela Marginean, the top star of the red-hot Drexel women's team, was working one of the concession stands, an activity that was noted in our print coverage of the Dragon's CAA women's opener Sunday afternoon here against Hofstra. Drexel set a 26-year mark in Division I competition, holding Hofstra to 30 points.

Throwing It All Away

Well, the title of the Phil Collins/Genesis' song is not exactly accurate, but a bit of it was in play at several locations Friday and Saturday.

The shot of the weekend, excluding any that might occur between now (middle of Saturday night) and the next 24 hours, belongs to Boston U. Kristi Dini, whose half-court buzzer-beater gave Boston U. a stunning 62-60 upset of coach Jen Rizzotti's Hartford Hawks in the America East opener for both schools in Boston.

Anyone can get stomped by Connecticut as the Hawks did a week ago, followed by Army and Villanova. But after looking capable of a safety-valve at-large bid to the NCAA tournament with wins over Virginia and Michigan State in the body of work, Hartford's loss to Boston U. reduces waggle room in the margin-of-error department.

On the other side, it's a great win for Boston U. coach Kelly Greenberg who was able to find ways to take down at least one Big Five team most seasons when the former La Salle star was here coaching Penn.

Meanwhile, Stanford went South in more ways then one on a weekend road trip in the Pac-10 that resulted in upset losses at UCLA and Southern Cal. The double takedown had to be good news for Rutgers, Maryland, and, perhaps a few others who could get in the hunt for a No. 1 seed.

The Cardinal had moved solidly into contention with the upset of Tennessee and was thought capable of running the Pac-10 table, although a loss along the way to either California or Arizona State, considered top-of-the-conference contenders, might have been acceptable. Now Stanford will have to run the table and hope that others in the hunt suffer some similar misfortunes along the way to level the field for Stanford.

Penn State: Mirage or the Real Deal?

The Nittany Lions ended a 12-game losing streak in Big Ten road games with the win over Michigan State, completing a week in which new coach Coquese Washington's troops took down Illinois. Add the win over Duke to the mix and if the NCAA were picking at-large teams right now, Penn State would be in the mix.

But much is left to the season and the Big Ten, as previous noted, is quite volatile. Meanwhile, Penn State's week makes the Nittany Lions a threat to return to the rankings this week.

Orange Heat

Name two current members of the Big East who have never been ranked.

One is South Florida, a newer member who was on the cusp last season and will be hosting the NCAA Women's Final Four in Tampa.

The other is Syracuse, a charter member who hasn't played this well to date since Big East executive Barb Jacobs was in charge coaching the team back in the day.

Acacia, in her post below off the Louisville game, notes ranking possibilities.

It's nice to know that the while the citrus Orange in the South is involved in a crop freeze, the one in the north is quite hot.

click the link to go to the virtual "jump" page to continue reading.

by Acacia O'Connor

SYRACUSE_NY--The doubts were being confirmed, it seemed, as I stood by the Carrier Dome “Will Call” waiting for them to figure out my press status.

Louisville’s Angel McCoughtry, the nation’s leading scorer with 24.3 ppg going into today, had just sunk a 3-pointer. Two possessions later, she’s stealing the ball, laying it up at the other end and standing on the line completing an and-one.

Maybe the women’s team wouldn’t earn some time in the spotlight afterall, as I had hoped.

Had their schedule had been too easy? Were the AP votes a gift? I was trying not to wonder.
But before I was able to concede that Syracuse’s critics had been right, the team settled down, dug in and began to turn things around.

In front of over a thousand loyal and vocal fans, the Orange didn’t just hold off the Cardinals– they defeated them, winning 79-56. (Aside: Among these fans, I noticed, was SU top recruit Tyler Ash of Liverpool High School, who I interviewed this summer)

“We really competed tonight and that’s what we talked about before the game started,” said SU Head Coach Quentin Hillsman.

Chandrea Jones led all players with 20 points on the night and spent much of her defensive energy keeping the ball out of McCoughtry’s hands or frustrating her scoring attempts.
That effort was largely successful: McCoughtry had five turnovers and only 10 points.

“It feels great to have a win against a good team,” said sophomore forward Nicole Michael. “Our fans supported us. We played hard. It was up to which team wanted it more, and it was us.”

Michael posted a double-double with 15 points (14 of which came in the second half) and 11 rebounds and a perfect percentage from 3-point land (3-3). Also pitching in for the Orange was Freshman guard Erica Morrow with 19 points, 9 boards and 5 assists.
After going down by nine early in the first half, Syracuse woke up from their tip-off slumber and proceeded to turn out a 19-8 run in the last 8 minutes.

A three from freshman guard from Israel, Marisa Gobuty turned up the heat for the Orange. Morrow took over from there, pulling down three boards and netting 3 three-pointers of her own.

Syracuse took the lead on Morrow’s last rainmaker and went into halftime up 28-26. They would not relinquish that lead for the remainder of the game.

When the second half began it seemed like the battle might continue with give and take baskets coming from each team.

With just a seven-point lead and the shot clock down to its final seconds Michael stepped back and drilled a three at the buzzer.

That clutch shot led to another run and a fifteen-point lead that SU held for the rest of the game.

“I tell you what, players make plays,” Hillsman said. “…I’m always telling her, ‘Step up and be a player.’ [Nicole Michael] did it; she made some big shots for us in the second half.”

In the final minutes of the game Louisville amped up their press which resulted in several turnovers on Syracuse’s part and conversions on their part. After an intentional foul and technical foul on the Cardinal’s Patrika Barlow, the Orange were able to re-adjust to the sideline traps and take control.

While Hillsman and his players were glad to have come out on top in their league opener, they are alert to what lies ahead.

“It’s a long season to go and every game is a winnable game,” he said. “Obviously, I’m very happy and very excited about the win, but we have 15 more games to play and this is the toughest conference in America. We have to be ready to play the next game.”

That game, for Syracuse will be at Pittsburgh on Jan. 9. Their next game at the dome will be on Jan. 15, when they will host No. 1 Connecticut.

If they garner enough votes to break into the Top 25 in next week’s polls, it will be the first time in the program’s history.

(Updating: to reflect in first item Pepperdine's visit, coached by Julie Rousseau, to Rutgers)

By Mel Greenberg

Penn State will host Illinois Wednesday night and this second Big Ten encounter of the season for the Nittany Lions and the third for the Illini will be historically diffrerent than in past meetings the previous 12 years.

That's because when the two teams take the floor at the Bryce Jordan Center, two former Immaculata teammates and longtime coaching rivals will no longer be opposite each other from the bench.

The Nitany Lions' Rene Portland resigned in March and Illinois' Theresa Grentz did likewise several weeks later.

Instead, the Illini (10-3, 2-0) will be run by former Rutgers associate head coach Jolette Law, while Penn State (9-4, 0-1) will be under the guidance of former Notre Dame head coach Coquese Washington.

With the Big Ten looking less powerful top to bottom than in previous seasons, this is actually a key matchup. Penn State has been tough at home, so a victory by the Illini could mean an eventual NCAA bid if they finish in the top three.

Because of Ilinois' record to date, this could also be game with a victory that helps Penn State move back in the direction of postseason play.

And, this will probably be noted elsewhere in internet-land, but the Washington-Law matchup marks the second time this week that two African-American women coached a key contest against one another.

On Sunday, Temple, coached by the legendary former point guard Dawn Staley, went up against Hall of Famer C. Vivian Stringer of Rutgers in a nonconference triumph dominated by the home team.

Actually, it was the third. Stringer was again on one bench while Pepperdine's Julie Rousseau, a former coach of the WNBA';s Los Angeles Sparks, was on on the other when the Waves visited Rutgers Thursday night.

Penn State is 11-4 in Big Ten home openers and 11-2 against Illinois in Happy Valley.

Last season after Illinois grabbed a 74-65 overtime win in Champaign and then Penn State got even with a 61-49 upset in the Big Ten quarterfinals.

Repelling the Wave

No. 6 Rutgers (9-2) gets its shot at revenge Wednesday night in its last nonconference game for a while when Pepperdine (5-6) visits.

It was during the dreadful part of Rutgers' later glorious season a year ago that the Wave pulled a shocking 75-73 upset in overtime.

So, though not really necessary, this can be another measuring stick on how different the Scarlet Knights are 12 months later heading into this weekend's opening of Big East play.

Rutgers is coming off the lopsided 70-34 victory over Temple on Sunday. The Owls are on the road Wednesday night trying to get their act back together in a nonconference visit to Miami of Ohio, part of the football deal with the Mid-American Conference that has the Temple women playing four MAC opponents each season.

Reports are that in the past few days Dawn Staley -- in the manner of C. Vivian Stringer and former Temple men's coach John Chaney -- took full advantage of the academic break to teach a heavy course load of Basketball 101.

Trenton Homecoming for Virginia's Debbie Ryan

Virginia will visit Rider Wednesday night in Lawrenceville, N.J., outside of Trenton in a nonconference game that brings Cavaliers coach Debbie Ryan back to her native Mercer County.

Ryan, who will be part of next summer's Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction class, has battled pancreatic cancer and will be honored as the inaugural sponsor of the Courage Award in memory of Chris Somma, a guard at Hamilton West High who died of colon cancer in 2005.

The Colonial Valley high school Conference will present the award Feb. 22 at the championship game of the Mercer County Tournament to a Mercer County athlete.

Rider is under a new coach this season, former St. Joseph's assistant Lynn Milligan.

Here Come the Huskies

The No. 1 team in the nation comes to the area Thursday at 7 p.m. when Connecticut and Villanova get a portion of the Big East competition under way.

The Huskies, one of three remaining unbeaten Division I teams along with Arkansas and Georgia, feature freshman sensation Maya Moore, the No. 1 newcomer in the country.

Of course, likely to be seated in the Pavilion is Wilmington's Elena Delle Donne, the current top prospect who has committed to UConn for next season.

Villanova, now at 10-3 has been experiencing a renaissance after suffering with a worst-ever 8-21 season last year after graduating six seniors.

Connecticut also has the top prospect of a year ago in sophomore center Tina Charles from Christ the King in New York.

The game will mark the annual homecoming of Connecticut Head Coach and Hall of Famer Geno Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown.

Earlier in the day, St. Joseph's, fresh off its upset of nationally-ranked Auburn, will host Gonzaga at noon in the annual field trip day for school-age students.

-- Mel

(Updating -- Oops, forgot one -- the Immaculata movie, which is now under the noteworthy at the very end)

(Guru's note: We have a three-pack this New Year's Day to greet 2008. Make sure to read the two posts below this review. One of the stories has some updated AP Poll trivia, and the other is an on-the-scene look at Syracuse by blogging team member Acacia O'Connor, the new editor-in-chief of Vassar's student newspaper. Also, well wishes this day to Dan Fleser, the longtime Tennessee beat writer who recently had successful surgery involving colon cancer.)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA -- And so comes a first: We cannot let 2008 arrive without joining the media crowd who looks back at the previous 12 months, evaluating the stories and individual headline makers who dominated the news.

Recently, we were asked to submit nominations to the Inquirer sports department’s overall list of the year in review. Now, we’re going to do our own. Because we operate in a local/national setting, much of what is written falls into both categories in this space.

And so, with that reference point, and looking at the clip file, our No. 1 story of the year is a slam dunk.

Some of the most prominent layouts on the Inquirer sports pages, as well as other newspapers, involved the Rutgers women’s team, which easily becomes the Guru’s first-ever story of the year.

The Scarlet Knights dominated coverage, beginning auspiciously with a downward slide out of the AP rankings in early January as Hall of Fame coach C.Vivian Stringer scrambled to get a young squad, hit by some injuries, back on track playing the defensive schemes upon which she made her reputation.

By early February, Rutgers was again on the rise with some momentum, although two setbacks were to Connecticut along the way.

However, a week after the second loss to the Huskies, the Scarlet Knights stunned UConn in Hartford, of all places, to win a first-ever Big East title.

Several weeks later in Greensboro, N.C., in the NCAA regional semifinals, Rutgers pulled the upset of the year, rallying to edge overall No. 1 seed Duke, 53-52, in a finish that involved all-American Lindsey Harding, the Blue Devils’ best player, missing two foul shots with just a scant of time left on the clock.

Two days later, the Scarlet Knights earned their second-ever trip to the NCAA Final Four and first since 2000 by beating Arizona State.

Once arrived in Cleveland, Rutgers surprised again by routing LSU in the national semifinals and becoming the first-ever team to advanced from an unranked slot in the AP poll to the NCAA championship.

However, longtime nemesis Tennessee ended the Cinderella ride as the Vols captured their seventh NCAA crown.

But unknowingly at the time, Rutgers was not yet done becoming front-page news.

Nationally-known radio talk show host Don Imus in New York had watched the title game and the next morning made made some disparaging remarks about the Rutgers women during his broadcast.

The comments created a firestorm resulting in his firing, although he has since returned to the airways on another station after having apologized several times to Rutgers.

On the morning of April 10, Stringer and her players gained acclaimed in their response to the Imus in a nationally-televised press conference.

The Rutgers program had legs extend into the summer. Essence Carson, Matee Ajavon, and Kia Vaughn were on gold-medal winning USA Basketball teams.

And prominent Scarlet Knights alum Cappie Pondexter, perhaps the program’s all-time player, became the MVP of the WNBA playoffs when the Phoenix Mercury rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win their first pro-league title, beating the defending champion Detroit Shock in the Motor City to become then first in the league’s 11-year history to win a championship on the road.

On the front part of this season, Rutgers showed capability of returning to the NCAA title game and also made news on the recruiting front with one of the very elite recruiting classes.

``Can you believe that class she has?” Auburn coach Nell Fortner said to us when the Tigers were here last weekend for St. Joseph’s tournament, won by the Hawks over Fortner’s team.

Click here on the link to read the rest of the list

By Mel Greenberg

Welcome to 2008 everyone. But before moving on, the final vote and release of the 2007 portion of the season was completed hours before the ball fell in Times Square in New York signaling a turn of the page in the annual calendar,

And with it, some milestones were reached or about to be reached affecting the database compilations. Here's a look.

First, the ninth week of the season was also poll No. 545 dating back to the first ranking in November of 1976.

The re-entry of Arkansas for the first time since about a year ago enabled first-year Razaborbacks coach Tom Collen to join the exclusive three-team group consisting of coaches who have had three different teams in the rankings.

Collen's entry grows the group to nine -- including five active head coaches -- led by Rutgers' C. Vivian Stringer, who has 365 appearances with Cheyney, Iowa, and Rutgers.

Stringer, overall, is fourth on the all-time list behind Tennessee's Pat Summitt, who at 531, has missed just 14 weeks of ranking appearances. Georgia's Andy Landers follows at 423, and retired Texas coach Jody Conradt at 395. Stanford's Tara VanDerveer, who gained her 700th win on Friday, is fifth at 339, having recently moved past departed Penn State coach Rene Portland, whose total is 336.

Returning to the three-team group, Jim Foster is behind Stringer in the No. 2 slot with appearances at 283 from stints at St. Joseph's, Vanderbilt, and Ohio State. If the Buckeyes don't suffer any upsets this week to become imperiled, Foster will tie former coach Nancy Darsch in total poll appearances at Ohio State at 85. VanDerveer appeared 27 times with the Buckeyes before moving West.

Rutgers assistant Marianne Stanley is third in the group with a bit of an asterisk tacked on to her overall 183. She had 141 at Old Dominion and 24 at Southern Cal, while her 18 at Stanford occurred in 1995-96 when she ran the Cardinal with Amy Tucker while VanDerveer was coaching the gold-medal winning United States Olympians.

Gary Blair is next at 180 with a combination of Stephen F. Austin (79), Arkansas (67), and Texas A&M (34). Oddly, with Collen's entry, Arkansas factors in two different coaches' totals.

Lin Dunn, the new head coach of the Indiana Fever, is next 133 from Miami (2), Mississippi (1), and Purdue (130). Retired Don Perrelli made the group courtesy of Southern Connecticut (30), St. John's (1), and Northwestern (52) for 73,

Mississippi State's Sharon Fanning is next at 54, ahead of Collen, courtesy of Tennessee-Chattanooga (4), Kentucky (4), and Mississippi State (46). And Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow, who prides herself to this day of being the first member, now drops to ninth at 24 off Florida (2), Kentucky (21), and Oral Roberts (1).

In other notes, Connecticut's Geno Auriemma, who will bring his No. 1-ranked Huskies to Villanova Thursday night, will hit his 300th appearance next week. He is currently ninth on the all-time list and sixth on the active list.

Tennessee, the leader in every category, has made its 400th all-time appearance in the Top five. Maryland is three Top 5 appearances away from taking sole posession of seventh place for total appearances this decade. Texas (29) and Notre Dame (28) are ahead of the Terrapins.

Connecticut (107) could soon pass Duke (110) to move into second in the decade top five total behind Tennessee (137).

Joe McKeown could reach 100 at George Washington next week. His overall, counting New Mexico State, is 105,which tied him at 18th on the active list with Melanie Balcomb, whose Vanderbilt team slipped out this week. DePaul's Doug Bruno (95) could soon move past Boston College's Cathy Inglese (98), Wichita State's Jane Albright (96 -- achieved at Northern Illinois and Wisconsin), and Iowa State's Bill Fennelly (96).

-- Mel