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GO UCONN!!!!!
Well, it's almost here. Sunday at 8:00 on ESPN. I won't be able to blog about it until late that night. Like I said, I'm going to an Allman Brothers Tribute band concert. But I will be checking in on my phone.
Here is the criteria that the Selection Committee uses for their brackets.
UConn has the No. 2 NET, No. 2 SOS and their only losses were without their best player, Azzi Fudd, who is now back inthe lineup. I like their chances to be a No. 1 Seed. At the absolute worst, the best No. 2 seed.
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How things change over the course of a week. Just over a week ago Geno Auriemma gave a scathing review of his team after a slugish win over Xavier. He described UConn players and singled out Nika Muhl as selfish as they would not accept coaching and insisted that they should do it their way. A week later Geno is dancing a jig after UConn won the Biggest Championship Tournament. The next day Nika Muhl attended a press conference. See how she describes her ability to take on coaching. It will surprise you and goes a long way to explain why UConn is UConn.
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mood: https://t.co/GHrxOvMcwe pic.twitter.com/ymTtClB6Rn
— jöel. (@BizerkJerk) March 11, 2023
Geno tells it like it is.
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2022-23 Women’s National Ballot
Voting will take place from March 14th to March 21st, and voters take into consideration a player’s entire season of play, as well as the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
The finalists for the 2023 Wooden Award presented by Wendy’s will be announced on March 29th.
Congrats to Aaliyah Edwards for her nomination.
Just a reminder what Fudd can do when healthy
She would have been on this list
Allie Ziebell advanced to the second round of the state three point shooting contest today at the Resch Center in Green Bay but fell short of the finals despite scoring 18 out of 30 and having great support from her teammates! pic.twitter.com/8rrpTBWPsI
— Neenah Joint Schools (@NeenahSchools) March 11, 2023
Germantown's Kamorea "KK" Arnold selected as 2023 Ms. Basketball by the WBCAhttps://t.co/pNyE8FG8wt #wisgb pic.twitter.com/yLtpnKe8eM
— Norbert Durst (@NorbertDurst) March 10, 2023
Jazzy Davidson - No. 1 in the class of 2025.
UConn is hot on her trail!!
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Gotta love how Paige stays engaged.
And Ice Brady looks like she will carve out plenty of space in the paint!
— Bueckerszone | Paige Bueckers Fan (@bueckerszone) March 11, 2023
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Congrats to Carla Berube, former UConn star and Princeton head coach. The Tigers won their fourth Ivy league Tournament titel and the Automatic bid that comes with it. They beat Harvard 53-48 in a game that Princeton was down 11 points at one time.
Relive the final moments as the Tigers collect their fourth @IvyLeague Tournament title! #GetStops 🐯🏀 pic.twitter.com/wZwu2fEWX6
— Princeton WBB (@PrincetonWBB) March 12, 2023
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By PHIL
Quest for #1 seed
How important is a number one seed? Frankly, it’s mostly bragging rights. UConn has been a number one seed 22 times in history. Guess who else has been a number one seed 22 times in history? Yes, Tennessee. Winning the number one seed would break that tie, but it barely qualifies as an interesting trivia question.
Other than that, there are situations in which it is close to meaningless. If it comes down to being the number four or number five overall team, and they are following a strict S-curve, the number four overall team gets the last one seed, and the fifth overall team gets the first 2 seed, and they would be placed in the same region to play each other. Swap positions and the main difference is the color of the uniforms. Okay, technically 1 seed plays a 16 seed while a two plays a 15, but you’ve got bigger problems if that’s something to worry about.
Someone wondered how often a team with five losses earned a number one seed. I looked it up and it happened more often than I might’ve guessed. There have been 11 times in history that a team with five losses earned a number one seed.
• Long Beach State 22-5 1982
• Old Dominion 21-5 1982
• Tennessee 23-7 1983
• Tennessee 25-5 1990
• Tennessee 25-5 1991
• Stanford 25-5 1993
• Vanderbilt 26-6 1995
• Stanford 21-5 1998
• Vanderbilt 27-6 2002
• Penn State 25-5 2004
• Tennessee 27-5 2014
Two of the teams in the very first NCAA tournament had five losses, then the next year Tennessee had seven. Than seven years went by without a single example of a number one seed with five or more losses, followed by an example every couple of years until a decade break between 2004 and 2014.
Unfortunately, our history is not rich enough to tease out exactly what happened in all of those years. It might be interesting to know whether there is a story behind those five or more loss teams. Why is it so often that Tennessee is one of them? Is there a different story for every one of the instances or is there a theme?
For example, very relevant to this particular year is whether any of those teams lost a starter or two for a long enough period to explain some of the losses, with that player or players returning time for the selection committee. I don’t know whether that’s the case – perhaps others who have been following the sport for many years have some recollection of the circumstances in some of these years.
I do recall one specific example although it didn’t involve a number one seed. In 1997, Kelly Harper (than Kelly Jolly) tore her ACL a few days before practice for the season began, and missed much of the season. Tennessee lost 10 games, but with the return of Jolly, they were given a three seed, and went on to win the national championship. It is an example where a team got a much higher seed than you might guess based on their record but it wasn’t a number one seed.
(As a minor aside the NCAA records show Tennessee with 10 losses in 1998, but that’s a mistake. I just got an email from the NCAA saying they are correcting it immediately.)
I was able to look into the 2014 Tennessee situation. That year, Massengale was injured and missed 16 games. However, while Tennessee lost five games during the regular season, she played in four of them (all but the Kentucky loss), so they cannot blame their losses on missing Massengale. More importantly, she was lost for the season, so the decision to award Tennessee number one seed didn’t reflect the return of Massengale.
I tried looking into the Penn State situation in 2004. That was the year Kelly Mazzante was on the team, but she played in every game. I don’t know whether there were other players who missed games during the season. Veteran UConn fans will recall that Penn State was given a number one seed with their 25 – 5 record and UConn was given a number two seed with a 25 – 4 record. Then the seeding committee placed the two teams in the same regional which was played in downtown Hartford much to the chagrin of the Penn State fans, who felt it was unfair.
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UCONN LINKS
Several links are pay sites. Sorry!
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Message Boards
UConn Territory - The best UConn women's message board ever!!!
Vol Nation - Tennessee women's basketball board
ND Nation - Notre Dame women's basketball board
Rebkell - WCBB for everyone that thinks they are smarter than everyone else
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