Va. Beach guard sparks Saint Louis to first crown
McMakin headed to second NCAA with different team, same coach
Guard Kyla McMakin of Virginia Beach scored 25 points, Julia Martinez had a triple-double, and Saint Louis earned its first NCAA Tournament berth with a 91-85 win over defending champion Massachusetts in the Atlantic 10 championship game Sunday in Wilmington, Delaware.
McMakin, on an assist from Martinez, hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:02 left in overtime for the Billikens (17-17), starting a 12-0 run she capped with two free throws at 12.7 seconds for an 89-79 lead. McMakin starred for Ocean Lakes High and Longwood before coming west.
Top-seeded UMass got back to back 3-pointers by Sydney Taylor and Sam Breen in the closing seconds after missing 10 straight shots following Taylor’s buzzer-beating 3 at the end of regulation.
Taylor had 18 points and Breen, a two-time A-10 Player of the Year, had 17 with 11 rebounds for the Minutewomen (26-6), who were the top seeds for the first time.
Fittingly Martinez, who had 17 points, 13 rebounds, 12 assists, four steals and a block for the second triple-double in school history, closed it out with the final two free throws. The tournament MVP had only one turnover in 44 minutes.
Saint Louis coach Rebecca Tillett joined Lisa Bluder as the only coaches in the women’s game to go to back-to-back NCAA tourneys with different teams. Tillett won with Longwood in the Big South last season after Bluder did it with Drake (2000) and Iowa (2001).
“This group, resilient, tough, strong,” said Tillett, a former William & Mary player. “I talked about them, they’re just so positive at their baseline. That allowed us throughout the nonconference to expand what we were learning. And every day they come back and let’s learn again, let’s learn again.”
McMakin became Saint Louis’ single-season scoring leader (589 points) earlier in the game after coming from Longwood with Tillett. Saint Louis was 3-12 before the New Year. BIG TEN No. 7 Iowa 105, No. 14 Ohio State
72: Caitlin Clark had 30 points, 17 assists and 10 rebounds in her 10th career triple-double for the Hawkeyes, who built a 37-point halftime lead in Minneapolis and beat Ohio State to win the Big Ten Tournament for the second straight year.
Monika Czinano scored 26 points on 11-for-12 shooting for the No. 7 Hawkeyes (26-6), who entered the chat about a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. BIG EAST
No. 9 Connecticut 81, Marquette 52: Aaliyah Edwards and Dorka Juhasz each put up double-doubles for the second consecutive game, Nika Muhl added another, and UConn advanced to its 19th straight conference tournament final with a win over fifth-seeded Marquette in the Big East Tournament in Uncasville, Connecticut. Edwards scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, while Juhasz scored 14 points and pulled down 11 rebounds.
No. 11 Villanova 63, Creighton 61:
Maddy Siegrist scored 37 points and grabbed 11 rebounds — her 16th double-double this season — to help Villanova earn a spot against UConn in the final.
PAC-12 Washington State 65, No. 19 UCLA 61:
Charlisse LegerWalker scored 23 points and Bella Murekatete added 21 to help Washington State earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament by winning the Pac-12 title in Las Vegas. It was the first-ever tournament championship for Washington State’s women.
Saturday REGULAR SEASON William & Mary 69, Hofstra 50:
The Tribe won on Senior Day at Kaplan Arena, equaling W&M’s best-ever Colonial Athletic Association record (12-6) and gaining a bye into the conference tournament quarterfinals.
W&M (17-12 overall) tied North Carolina A&T for fourth place and, via a 79-64 victory over the Aggies in their only meeting, gained the No. 4 seed in coach Erin Dickerson Davis’ first season. The Tribe’s first tournament game will be at 2:30 p.m. Friday in Towson, Maryland.
Guards Riley Casey and Sydney Wagner scored 18 points apiece, and Bre Bellamy had 12 points and five rebounds for the Tribe.
Hampton 77, Delaware 72: In one of the best games of an injury-plagued career, Laren VanArsdale poured in 27 points as the Pirates (11-17, 8-10 CAA) overcame the Blue Hens (16-13, 9-9) at HU Convocation Center in a regular-season finale.
The teams will meet again at noon Thursday in the CAA Tournament — Delaware as the No. 8 seed and Hampton as the No. 9.
NCAA DIVISION III Mary Washington 75, DeSales 69:
The unranked Eagles got a double-double from Jordan Carpenter (23 points, 14 rebounds) and a second-round victory in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, over the Bulldogs, who are ranked eighth by d3hoops.com.