Nihill shines again, gets parting gift as Drexel ousted
If this was going to be the last game of Hannah Nihill’s collegiate career, the two-time Daily Times Player of the Year from Cardinal O’Hara was not going down without a fight.
And not even an inadvertent elbow to her right eye late in the third quarter could slow the feisty 5-3 senior guard from Drexel.
“It’s a little swollen but my dream is to have a black eye so hopefully it will happen and it will look really cool,” Nihill said of her after the 14th-seeded Dragons fell to third-seeded Georgia, 67-53, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament Monday.
If it does swell up, it would be Nihill’s first black eye, Nihill said.
“Can you believe that?”
Nihill said.
Not the way Nihill plays. “I know,” she said. “I saved it for the last game of the season. I really hope it happens.”
Nihill bounced back from that shot to the face to score 10 of her game-high 22 points in the final period, but it wasn’t enough to keep the 14th-seeded Dragons alive in their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2009.
Georgia rode a big half from center Jenna Staiti to pull away for a 67-53 opening-round victory Monday afternoon at Bill Greehey Arena in San Antonio.
Staiti scored all 19 of her points in the second half to help the Bulldogs (21-6) open a 25-25 halftime deadlock to advance to Wednesday’s second round of the Alamo Region against the winner of the game between sixth-seeded Oregon and No. 11 South Dakota late Monday.
Staiti only played five minutes and did not attempt a field goal in the first half but more than made up for it after the break. She hit her first seven shots from the field including a pair of 3s as the Bulldogs outscored the Dragons (14-8), 42-28, in the second half to foil Drexel’s upset bid. Que Morrison pitched in with 11 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists.
Staiti was the difference, but not all of her offense came from in close as you would expect from a player of her size.
“Watching film of her you knew she was capable of making those shots,” Drexel coach Amy Mallon said. “For her size she’s got a great touch and if you’re not there right when she catches it you knew it was going in and I think that was the case for us. Our goal was to be there for every catch and we were a little slow in getting there and she took advantage of it.”
Making shots was a problem for the Dragons. Drexel shot 36 percent from the field (24-66) and 17 percent from 3-point range (3-for18). The Dragons normally shoot 40 and 31 percent, respectively. Hetta Saatman finished with eight points, and leading scorer Keishana Washington was held to seven.
“They were just really pressuring us and were all over us,” Nihill said. “They were a little longer and they were using their length and that made it a little challenging to get the 3-point shots.”
Nihill, though, was brilliant. She shot 10-for-22 from the field and finished with three assists, two rebounds and two steals to keep the Dragons in the game before the Bulldogs took control late.
“I came in kind of play the best as a team,” Nihill said. “It was all about my teammates setting good screens for me to be able to get open and be in the midrange to be able to get that shot off so credit to them for setting the screens hard on the bigger players so that kind of alleviated the pressure for me to be able to shoot.”
If this was her last game in a Drexel uniform, Nihill closed out her career with 961 points, 363 rebounds, 369 assists and 238 steals. Nihill does have the option to come back for another season; last October, the NCAA granted winter athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s something I’m deciding,” Nihill said about the possibility of a return. “I’m going to take this time we have off to do my own thing and what Amy (Mallon) said, revisit it in the future.”