VILLANOVA, Pa.– When Villanova 6-1 senior All American wing Maddy Siegrist left the floor at the Finn at the tail end of the Cats’ 76-57 victory over Florida Gulf Coast here last night at the Finn, she was greeted by a loud standing ovation. from the near sellout crowd. When the game ended, Siegrist was mobbed by her teammates and hugged and high-fived every Villanova fan down the front row of seats in a wild celebration following the biggest win of her career.
Siegrist graduates this May. Even though she technically has another year of eligibility because of Covid, this was likely her final game at the on-campus arena. Her WNBA draft stock is starting to take off.
Her skills were on full display again against FGC when she scored 31 points on 13 of 24 shooting, grabbed six rebounds, blocked four shots and had four steals to help fourth seed Villanova advance to the Sweet 16 where they will play ninth seed Miami, which shocked top seed Indiana, 70-68, in Bloomington last night, Friday in Greenville, S.C.
“We haven’t played anyone like her,” FGC coach Karl Smesko said. “She’s the best player. She was fantastic tonight. It’s extremely difficult to game plan for her with just one day between games. She makes tough shots. We were going to live with her making tough shots, but we didn’t want to give her anything easy. We went over some things about when she goes backdoor, and she still got it on us. She’s just so versatile, scores in so many ways. I haven’t seen many players hit as many tough shots as she’s able to hit.”
Siegrist, who is averaging 29.1 points and 9.2 rebounds, is the leading scorer in the country. She is Villanova’s all-time leading scorer- men or women– with 2834 points.
Siegrist is a later day version of Shelly Pennefather, the gold standard in his program and an All American who won the Wade Award in 1987 as the best women’s basketball player in the country. Pennefather played professionally in Japan before entering the convent becoming a cloistered nun,
in 1994 and changing her name to Sister Rose Marie of the Queen of Angels. Sister Rose Marie is a member of the Poor Clares, a strict religious order. She sleeps in a straw mattress and spends her waking hours in prayer.
She can receive visitors one day a year.
Harry Perretta, who coached both Pennefather and Siegrist at Villanova before he retired two years ago, drives to Virginia to visit Sister Rose Marie every year. In 2019, when Siegrist broke her freshman scoring record and was named Big East Rookie of the Year, Perretta invited Siegrist to travel with Villanova assistant AD Lynn Tighe and him to meet her.
Sister Rose Marie must have made an impression. Siegrist has been back three times.
It is part of what makes her the perfect choice for the face of Villanova athletics. She is an unselfish, humble superstar who has Larry Bird like skills who has scored 20 points or more in an NCAA record 36 games but is more than willing to involve her teammates in this team’s success story.
“What she’s done here is off the charts,” Villanova’s current coach Denise Dillon said.
Dillon is a few years younger than Pennefather but, as a player for Villanova, she heard “from Harry about how great Shelly was every day. “I had a chance to watch Shelly play here. I still remember Channel 6 doing a whole special on her and how great a shooter she was.”
Now she has a chance to coach a player just like her. “You recognize there times when you have an opportunity to coach a player at that level of efficiency,” Dillon said.
Siegrist has a chance to take Villanova to stratospheric heights not seen since Perretta coached ‘Villanova to an Elite Eight in 2003.
“There’s such a strong tradition of basketball in general at Villanova and everyone wants to leave their mark,” she said. “There are so many great players. We have such a strong alumni base, coach included, of people who come out to the games. You hear stories about when they played. They still talk about the 03 team. Just to be able to carry that tradition the best you can, I’ll always cherish.”
Villanova has won a record 30 games. But the Cats want more.
And some think they can get it, even though they are not the biggest team left in the field,
“To me Villanova is a Final Four caliber team,” Smesko said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they get there.”
President Joe Biden, whose wife Jill is a Villanova graduate, picked the Cats to win it all in his March Madness bracket.
Nova nation is filled with true believers.
One student held up a sign that said, “It’s On! March Maddyness.”
“If this is my last game at home, this is a great way to go out,” Siegrist said.
