Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _-This is another one of those time to time Guru reports from a day in the life when everything goes wrong but comes out right in the end.

Unlike our good friend Mechelle Voepel who gives you a piece of her life with basketball, we sometimes give you a piece of basketball to go with our life.

We begin by oversleeping Monday morning from our late-night desk shift the previous day and so hurried to jump in the car and head to The Palestra where St. Joseph's at one time had been scheduled to host Seton Hall at 1 p.m.

Underway, we notified Hawk spokesman Jack Jumper we would be arriving soon to which he responded, "The game doesn't start until 5 p.m." Apparently it had been moved to be part of a doubleheader with the men's game against Cornell.

Not to worry, the Guru decided he could detour over to neartby Drexel, which had a 1 p.m. start against Richmond.

You should know that an unwritten tradition has developed in the city that when the Guru arrives late, no matter how much time is remaining, the score will be tied or near enough upon his arrival to have not missed a thing.

Sometimes the score is high, sometimes it is low, and in the case of Villanova, sometimes there is nearly no score at all.

And so it was that a tie was on the scoreboard late in the game at Drexel before Richmond pulled away at the finish.

Meanwhile, a check on the Guru's blackberry revealed that Villanova rode the momentum of its upset of Temple Saturday by promptly losing to visitng Delaware in a narrow upset.

There's no truth to the rumor that an agreement was made ahead of that game that the loser would get the rights to former top basketball propsect Elena Delle Donne, who had the Wildcats among her final basketball choices, but then decided to forego Connecticut and play volleyball at nearby Delaware.

That part of the day expired the Guru shot over to The Palestra where he planned to update his Associated Press women's poll database and companion index files as he does every Monday after the poll is released on the wire.

For the last several weeks, the Guru had alerted AP national women's writer Doug Feinberg in New York that UConn was closing in on Tennessee to re-take the total number of all time No. 1 rankings.

Based on the index file, which get updated manually, this was going to be the week that the two would be tied. And so as the Guru read the poll and story, he saw the mention that the two teams were tied 113 to 113.

So the Guru then went to work -- but as the Hawks were going at the Pirates in solid control of the action at that moment, he did a quick readout count of the Tennessee-Connecticut No. 1 situation on the main file.

The output revealed that Connecticut actually had taken over this week 113-112. The Guru did a quick doublecheck and the result quickly stood.

Knowing Doug was covering the N.C. State-Columbia game and potentially unreachable, the Guru quickly alerted AP headquarters in New York to adjust Doug's story.

He also left word for UConn spokesman Randy Press, whose team was believed still in transit from the weekend trip south of the border, knowing the Guru's vast friends in the UConn media contingent would jump on that development.

Meanwhile with St. Joe's still comfortably ahead, the Guru noted to Jumper that as long as the Guru was still doing damage control and normal updates on the poll files, the Hawks would stay ahead.

"Just hope I don't finish until the final buzzer," the Guru quipped to the Hawks spokesman.

The Guru also had to deal with which way to enter South Dakota State in the database as a brand new entry to the files.

The good news was that since Jackrabbits coach Aaron Johnston was a male, he would not have to be researched for playing on as well as coaching an AP ranked women's team.

An aside for our Summit League friends. -- Formerly known as the Mid-Con, the last member to be ranked was Northern Illinois, now in the Mid-American, which last appeared in the final poll of the 1993 season. Oral Roberts, a current Summit member, was ranked once when it was an independing in 1983 when it was then coached by Debbie Yow, sister of Kay Yow, the legendary N.C. State coach and now the overall athletic director of Maryland.

That made her the first to have three different teams ranked, including Kentucky and Florida, a statistic believe it or not she still uses in her resume.

Anyhow, as the Guru finished processing all the files he turned his attention to the contest at hand just in time to see -- Seton Hall take the lead. Ultimately, it went into overtime and the Pirates pulled a Disney Captain Jack Sparrow escape at the finish.

The Guru then ran over to get reactions on the game from both coaches for an account he had planned to write for the blog.

Seton Hall's Phyllis Mangina talked about not wanting to go into the Christmas break with a four-day case of blahs from a loss.

St. Joseph's coach Cindy Griffin talked about it being a learning experience for her team which had a lead on a quality opponent whereas previously they were playing catchup in similar situations.

Meanwhile, as the Guru sat to begin writing the account, he thought it would be nice to get in touch with Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma to let him know of the milestone involving the poll.

Within a second of the thought, Jonathan, in the arena to cover the game for Philly.com, buzzed the Guru to say Geno was in the house.

Now the Guru knows what you're thinking.

It's nice for Geno to jet straight from the tropics to meet the Guru and in the process get a chance to watch his own son Michael Auriemma, a freshman walk-on at St. Joe's under Auriemma's good friend Phil Martelli.

It was actually the other way around.

But the day was saved in that the Guru got his wish. Geno was pleased to get the word but said he still had concern over the lack of another post player on the roster.

"We can't afford to get into foul trouble," said Auriemma, who grew up in Norristown and was once a St. Joe's women's assistant when Jim Foster, now at Ohio State was in charge of the Hawks.

Of course if a certain post player at Delaware ---

Geno told many of the Hawk faithful in quick chit-chats how much Michael loves the school, his coach, and his teammates.

The Guru then noted that he had covered the St. Joe men a week ago and told Geno that he and Michael had one thing in common -- they both get to clear the bench in blowouts, although Geno usually does so six minutes into the game.

Geno was heard to mention he told Michael he would be in a 20-20-20 situation as a freshman -- "You'll play in the last 20 seconds and your team will be either up 20 or down 20."

The Guru could not cite himself as a source of the previous quote since he did not have authority to speak on Auriemma's behalf because the Huskies coach had yet to tell the quip to the UConn media.

But the entire day was not over.

The Guru stopped by his late night diner to see if Valeria -- the young cashier from Moldava he mentioned in a previous blog -- had tried on the souvenir shirt of the state of North Carolina he brought back from his recent trip to Duke.

Before he could ask, Valeria decided to greet him with six paragraphs of Spanish.

The Guru made a one sentence response in French -- no not that line.

Valeria then adjusted her comments in French and switched again to Roumanian.

Unfortunately, because of the economy, the Guru has been unable to borrow translators from the United Nations when Valeria loves scrambling the Guru's mind with the eggs he orders.

And so with sunrise fast approaching, the Guru headed home to finish this report and get some quick shuteye.

We'll be back in the next 24 with some serious commentary.

-- Mel