Drexel's Marginean and Delaware's Delle Donne Spin Records To Remember

By Mel Greenberg

What a night for the Colonial Athletic Association in women's basketball. What a night at Drexel. And what a bittersweet moment for Delaware at James Madison.

And how about the Guru karma -- more about that in a bit.

Late in the first half of Drexel's home game Thursday against Towson, Marginean scored her seventh and eighth points on an inside hook shot and with the basket became the all-time top Division I women's career scorer in the city as she passed former Penn star Diana Caramanico (2,415 points).

Marginean finished with 19 points at the Daskalakis Athletic Center to run her total to date to 2,428 points as Drexel topped Towson, 58-52, to maintain sole possession of second place in the CAA.

Research currently shows Tammy Greene, a former Philadelphia University star in the early 1990s, scored 2,490 points at the Division II school, which is the overall record if left unchallenged. Marginean has enough games left to top that total perhaps by her senior day a week from Sunday.

The print story on Marginean for Friday editions the Guru spent two days in the writing and editing process in the same manner as writing a health care bill is elsewhere on Philly.com. Gabriella's historic moment is in the previous post below.

Meanwhile, Delaware red-shirt freshman Elena Delle Donne didn't take long to overshadow Marginean's moment the same night. The 2008 national high school player of the year lit up the baskets at James Madison for 54 points but the Blue Hens revisited heartbreak city once more -- this time with an 88-83 overtime loss in Harrisonburg, Va.

She'll be back in a few weeks, however, when the CAA tournament is held at JMU for the second straight year.

Accounts of Delle Donne's performance are on the web through the Associated Press, at Delaware's web site, and at Delaware Online.

Delaware is now 0-6 against the CAA heavyweights with each loss in the final seconds except for Thursday night. In what seemed to be a positive reversal of fortune Delle Donne's three pointer at the buzzer in regulation sent the game into overtime, but the Blue Hens could not sustan the momentum.

As for that Guru karma, he takes you back several posts below to Sunday when he followed up the school record 42 points that Kristen McCarthy set Saturday at home against Charlotte. He went on to list all the 40-point scorers in the city.

He then headed down to Delaware and in a pre-game conversation noted that no one had ever hit 40 for the Blue Hens. Delle Donne, earlier this season, and former star Lori Howard had a school-best 39 points.

Then the game against Georgia State started and Delle Donne went on a tear, reaching 33 points with eight minutes left in the game. But she only scored two more, although the 35 points were enough to inch her to the top spot in the nation with a 25.8 average.

On Thursday afternoon as the Guru was signing off with his editor on the Marginean story with game details to be inserted, this sentence ran through the Guru's head but he did not mention it vocally: So tell me, what happens tonight if Delle Donne decides to go off and score 50 points?

Wild Might Have Been With The Wildcats

Here's a scary thought and one that should interest Villanova fans.

At the moment for the one season, Marginean and Delle Donne are on rival CAA teams.

However, the Guru noted in the print story that Marginean originally had targeted Villanova in her collegiate search but coach Harry Perretta sent her in Drexel's direction because he was overloaded with forwards and couldn't guarantee that she would see much playing time.

Meanwhile, remember Delle Donne originally had Villanova among her final choices before picking Connecticut, which became a brief stay. When she decided to return to basketball last spring she said that had she been able to identify her homesickness as a major factor in the original recruiting process that would have impacted her decision that resulted in choosing the Huskies.

So consider this. If Perretta had been able to accomodate Marginean -- and you have to admire his honesty with players in the recruiting process -- and if Delle Donne had picked Villanova, the two of them would now be teammates on the Wildcats. And maybe, just maybe, in Big East play, another UConn long win streak might have been disrupted again.

-- Mel