Hartford follows plan to the letter, beats Temple

The 11th-seeded Hawks won their first NCAA tournament game.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON, N.J. -- The University of Hartford is in the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in its history, thanks to a career performance by a sore-legged forward and a game plan that was followed to the letter.
Danielle Hood shook off a gimpy ankle to score 20 points and lead Hartford past Temple 64-58 in the first round of the Bridgeport region on Sunday. Ikea Witt added 17 points for the Hawks (27-3) and made two free throws with 11 seconds left to put the Owls away.
Eleventh-seeded Hartford, the America East champion, had never defeated a Top 25 team and was 0-2 in its first two NCAA Tournament games under seventh-year coach Jennifer Rizzotti, a former national player of the year at Connecticut in the mid-1990s. The two NCAA losses were by a combined 57 points.
"It means so much to our program at Hartford, not just to get a win in the NCAA Tournament, but to get a win over a top-25 program that's been nationally ranked for two seasons," said Rizzotti. "I thought we had a good game plan and stuck to it."
Hartford advances to a Tuesday night matchup against Georgia.
The Hawks proved their mettle this season with wins against teams from the Big East (Seton Hall) and Atlantic 10 (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Saint Joseph's), and they took the game to Temple from the opening tap, forcing the Owls to play from behind for most of the game.
"We just attacked from the beginning of the game," Witt said. "We didn't want to play tentative or play scared. Our whole mind-set was just to attack for the entire game."
The other half of the Hawks' game plan revolved around stopping Temple forward Candice Dupree, the Atlantic 10 player of the year who averaged 17.6 points and 8.7 rebounds for the Owls this season. They did it by swarming to the 6-foot-2 senior whenever she got the ball in the paint and giving her little room to shoot or pass.
It succeeded in flustering Dupree, who finished with 11 points on 4-for-12 shooting. Teammate Kamesha Hairston led the Owls with 17 points and 10 rebounds, but it wasn't enough for No. 6 seed Temple (24-8), which was attempting to reach the second round for the second year in a row.
"It was the same thing I've been seeing for every single game," Dupree said. "I just think we didn't have enough movement in our offense and that made it tough to pass out of the triple team."
Hood has been playing on a sore left ankle that she sprained before the America East tournament, though she managed to average 13 points in the Hawks' three tournament wins.
With the ankle wrapped in extra tape on Sunday, she played 34 minutes and shot 9-for-17.
"It's fluctuating between feeling OK and hurting really bad," she said. "It feels OK right now."
Trailing 58-51 with four minutes left, Temple mounted a rally and tied the game on Khadija Bowens' three-point play with 2:34 left. But Hartford answered by scoring the game's final six points, four on foul shots by Witt and two on a driving layup by Erica Beverly.
In between, Dupree missed two shots in the lane and Bowens missed a 3-pointer with Temple trailing 62-58 with less than 20 seconds left.
Georgia 75, Marist 60
TRENTON, N.J. -- Tasha Humphrey scored 23 points and Sherill Baker added 23 points and nine steals to lead the third-seeded Bulldogs to a victory over 14th-seeded Marist.
Alexis Kendrick had 11 points to help Georgia (22-8) advance to the second round for the 11th time in 12 years. The Bulldogs will face Hartford.
When the teams last met in December 2004 at Marist, Georgia led by only one at halftime before pulling away for a 79-62 victory. Coach Andy Landers vowed the Bulldogs wouldn't take the MAAC champions lightly again, and they didn't.
Baker, the Southeastern Conference's career steals leader with 143, had at least nine for the fourth time this season.
Fifi Camara had 20 points and 10 rebounds to lead Marist (23-7).
Rutgers 63, Dartmouth 58
TRENTON, N.J. -- Cappie Pondexter scored 21 points, Matee Ajavon added 19 and third-seeded Rutgers rebounded from a stunning loss in the Big East tournament with a win over 14th-seeded Dartmouth.
Rutgers scored the first 13 points of the game, then had to beat back a second-half rally by the Big Green in the first round of the Cleveland region.
Angie Soriaga was 6-for-10 from 3-point range and led Dartmouth (23-7) with 23 points after scoring three in the first half.
The game was the first for Rutgers (26-4) since a 56-40 loss in the second round of the Big East tournament to a 12th-seeded West Virginia team that was without its leading scorer.