Women’s City Six: Deja King providing spark for La Salle; Drexel’s NCAA Tournament outlook

The City Six combined to go 7-1 in their best week in 2020. The loss came in a Big 5 matchup.

We’ll look at the biggest performances and recap the week of each of the City Six schools in this notebook.

Deja King has been a key cog in La Salle’s recent wins, but there’s more to her performance than the fans can see.

King has battled an ankle bruise since the start of December. Some days she doesn’t practice at all, and on others, she is limited to shooting. This affects her conditioning and ability to stay in tune with her teammates, but it’s hard to tell on the court.

“What you get to see in games is a kid who is watching, with incredible intelligence and able to go out there and perform after not doing [practice] at all,” coach Mountain MacGillivray said. “She’s executing plays that we’re putting in that she has never run. She just goes out there [in the game] and runs them.”

King’s tenacious defense creates easy scoring chances for La Salle’s offense, and MacGillivray believes her play helps elevate fellow guard Kate Hill due to the competition factor. King had seven points on 3-for-6 shooting Saturday against St. Joseph’s, and eight points and two steals in the Explorers’ 61-54 win at George Washington last Wednesday.

La Salle (11-14, 5-7 Atlantic 10) swept St. Joe’s in the regular season for the first time in school history with its 59-53 win, its first on the road against the Hawks since 1998.

“To beat such a storied program like St. Joe’s, which typically has been the best team in the Big 5, is a great accomplishment,” MacGillivray said. “It’s not easy to win on Hawk Hill, ever.”

You can breathe again, Villanova fans.

The Wildcats (14-11, 8-6 Big East) beat Georgetown by eight Sunday after a four-game stretch of contests decided by two or fewer points. Eight isn’t a blowout by any means, but it’s a lot less stressful than the stretch that came before it.

“It just felt a little bit better to take a deep breath a little bit and try to execute on offense and slow the game down,” coach Harry Perretta said.

Bridget Herlihy is so important. The Wildcats are 3-0 when she scores 15 or more points. She’s also one of the three best defenders on the team, according to Perretta.

This week is crucial. Marquette (Friday) and DePaul (Sunday) both beat the Wildcats earlier this season. Mary Gedaka and Madison Siegrist will have to score, of course, but Herlihy’s offense will be a key to pulling off an upset or two in the Pavilion.

“She’s been scoring inside [and] outside,” Perretta said. “She’s been playing really well, and I’m just hoping she can keep it up.”

Drexel (18-6, 11-1 Colonial Athletic Association) extended its winning streak to 11 with Sunday’s 52-32 rout of Delaware.

ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme has Drexel as a 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s Fort Wayne region. The Dragons are projected to play fifth-seeded Texas A&M. The Aggies are No. 16 in the AP poll and are led by Chennedy Carter, who is averaging more than 20 points for the third straight season.

Drexel could potentially slide up to a 10 seed if it keeps churning out impressive victories, which could help in the first round: 10 seeds are 4-4 vs. 7 seeds in the last two tournaments, 11 seeds are 3-5 vs. 6 seeds, but 12 seeds are only 1-7 against 5 seeds.

Winning in conference play is the focus right now. William & Mary (Friday) and Elon (Sunday) are on the schedule this week; Drexel posted tough road wins against both last month. Now the Dragons get them at home, where they are 11-1 and haven’t lost since Nov. 16.

Owls junior Mia Davis won Big 5 Player of the Week for the fifth time this season. She had 27 points for Temple (14-10, 6-5 American Athletic Conference) in its 76-75 win against visiting Houston on Saturday. Davis had been held to a combined 19 points in the previous two games but bounced back nicely.

“It’s always going to be a mismatch, no matter who is guarding her, usually,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “She’s a mismatch because when a big guy is guarding her, you can pull her away from the basketball and she can shoot the ball or put it on the floor, or when a smaller guy is guarding her, we can put her in the post.”

Ashley Jones added 22 points and eight assists in the Houston game. She’s a big reason why Cardoza believes this year’s Temple team doesn’t have to rely on Davis as much as last year’s team did.

Things are back to going as planned at Penn (15-5, 5-2 Ivy League). Road wins at Brown (85-73) and Yale (53-51) have put Penn back in second place.

Against Brown, Mike McLaughlin became the 19th active Division I head coach to reach 600 wins. McLaughlin is in his 11th season at Penn and is six wins away from 200 with the Quakers.

A healthy Eleah Parker has been a game-changer. The 6-foot-4 junior has been the leading scorer in three of Penn’s last four wins. Her scoring average has jumped from 9.8 to 11.8 during the Quakers’ five-game winning streak.

Also, senior forward Phoebe Sterba has also scored 12 or more points in four of the last five games. It seems like so long ago that Kayla Padilla had to carry the Quakers offensively. This is a different team now.

16: Offensive rebounds against La Salle. The Hawks (8-16, 2-10 A-10) outrebounded La Salle 40-28 overall.

10.1: Average margin of defeat during their six-game losing streak. Three games have been decided by single digits.

20: Freshman forward Gabby Smalls’ 17 points against La Salle were her most since scoring a career-high 19 against Auburn on Nov. 24. MacGillivray said Smalls caused his team problems.