(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.
Lessons at Rutgers
In some postgame comments from Saturday's action, which coach said the following: "We needed to be productive (about benching starters). We went with players who've been waiting in the wings to get us started."
And which player followed up: "We were not in trouble. Coach just wanted to see how we'd play off the bench. I got to see the pace of the game first. We were more hungry coming off the bench"
No none of it came from C.Vivian Stringer or any of the Scarlet Knights after their adventurous win over St. John's at home Saturday night in the Big East opener for both schools.
No, the aforementioned words were uttered hours earlier in the day, a little bit to the south, by Temple coach Dawn Staley and center Lady Comfort after the Owls suffered their third straight loss -- a nonconference setback at home to Florida, 68-54.
A week ago when Staley was asked what she could take from the game after the trouncing at Rutgers, she curtly and calmly replied "Nothing."
Apparently the Owls took a few things since Stringer had been using her bench players as starters in recent games. Also, Temple actually rose to No. 10 in strength-of-schedule ratings and dropped into the 50s in the RPI rankings.
"We're just making the game really hard,'' said Staley, whose players had 23 turnovers. "We're just not playing as well as a team. We're using our individual talent. We have to use each other.''
Temple played a killer nonconference slate and now heads into the Atlantic Ten competition Saturday at Dayton, which is having its best season.
"It's helped us in the past," Staley said of the early slate in terms of getting her team ready to go against Atlantic Ten opponents. "But we're not going to rely on it. I'm encouraged going into our conference and putting our players on the court."
Unfortunately, because of Temple's 7-9 record, the schedule alone is no longer helpful in acquiring a safety valve NCAA at-large bid. At this moment, the only way to gain that status is to virtually run the regular season table and find a way to beat George Washington.
Shadow Lurkers
Well, 24 hours ago, we said in this item that Georgia, one of three remaining unbeaten teams at that hour, might be a darkhorse in the hunt for a No.1 seed. As a former presidential press secretary once said: That's no longer operative barring a dynamic run in the SEC.
The Bulldogs got bushwacked at Xavier, leaving Arkansas and Connecticut as the last two remaining teams unbeaten in Division I.
Pirates of East Orange
Jack Sparrow won't be on the Main Line Tuesday night, but veteran coach Phyllis Mangina and the rest of her Seton Hall Pirates will be at Villanova, bringing a six-game win streak. Her squad will finish out the week at Rutgers on Saturday so there's an opportunity to become a national talked-about conference squad.
Topsy-Turvy
One of the many committees your Guru is asked to serve is the WBCA's player of the month selections in which we pick a 1-10 on a ballot of a list of 31 candidates representing each conference.
We're not going to get into names here, but we received the first report for Nov.-Dec., and of the candidates submitted, only two, maybe three, have been mentioned as WNBA first-round draft prospects for what is expected to be one of the pro league's all-time lucrative selections. Many, of course, in the reported submitted are not seniors.
-- Mel
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