Five Out: Ivy Bid Stealers! Snubs and Surprises ahead of the NCAA Tournament
Who has the toughest road, an Ivy bid stealer!, Snubs, surprises and a call to watch the other March tournaments this year. Andrew's five thoughts on the world of women's hoops. March 19th, 2024.
At long last, we have arrived!
The NCAA Tournament is here and we’ve got some incredible content across multiple channels coming your way on No Cap Space. First and foremost, be sure to be a part of our bracket challenge on ESPN. It’s right there at the link.
And also subscribe to our Youtube page for Tournament previews and bracket fill-outs with the pros and joes! Now with all that in mind…
To Five Out, we go!
Who has the gauntlet bracket?
I’ll admit, I was curious to see who would have the bracket of death this year. Every season, some unlucky 1 seed has to have the hardest road. Those are just the breaks. But what makes a death bracket? To me, it’s the bracket that has a Final Four caliber 2 *and* 3 seed, a balanced middle and then difficult second round matchups for the 1 and 2 seed.
Ladies and gentlemen, the winner this year is Albany 2. Here’s why…
South Carolina has an intriguing run but I don’t foresee them having much to worry about until they hit the Elite Eight. North Carolina will be a fight if they make it out and I suspect the 4/5 lines Albany 1 may be upset prone. At that point you see a team like Oregon State or Notre Dame. The Irish also may have some adversity with Kylee Watson out for the tournament.
Portland 4 feels like the most potentially chaotic bracket. I can see a 14/3 upset, a 12/5, 11/6 and maybe even the winner of Iowa State vs. Maryland giving Stanford problems. But it still doesn’t feel like the heaviest of hitters.
Portland 3? We’re getting closer. I’d say this would be in a tie with Albany 2 if Liz Kitley was fully healthy. But with uncertainty around her and the recent news that UConn’s Amari DeBerry will be out all tournament with a head injury, it lessens the field somewhat.
So…about Albany 2.
You sure can’t say they made the road easy for Caitlin Clark. And if I were an ESPN executive, I’d spend the next three weeks puckered tight. Iowa sees either West Virginia, whose pressing defensive style could create problems, or Princeton, the scariest mid-major who beat one current 5 seed and put the fear of God into a 2 seed (UCLA) earlier this year. That’s before you get into a Kansas State 4 seed with Ayoka Lee ready to go. LSU is here too, as a 3 seed. UCLA bookends the bottom of the bracket and guess what, they may see either Creighton or UNLV. And that’s before we talk about the Hailey Van Lith Bowl —the potential Louisville vs. LSU second round matchup.
The stories are there, as are the games. Iowa is gonna have to earn it in a different way this season. And if they manage to do it. Well…let’s just say you might see a lot of Holly Rowe.
A Cheer for the Bid Stealers!
We didn’t get many this year but a shout to Drexel, Rice and Portland. Rice, in particular, came out of the absolute chaos bloodbath that was the AAC Tournament. Top seeded Tulsa and second seeded North Texas didn’t make it past the quarterfinals. Then East Carolina, a 9 seed, and Rice, the 10, upset higher seeds again to make the final. The Owls punched their first ever ticket to the tournament and take on LSU to open the dance.
Portland once again played WCC spoiler. In one of the craziest final minutes of the season, the Pilots managed to hold off Gonzaga, who was riding a 25 game win streak into the conference final. For the second straight season, UP managed to stuns the Zags and punch a ticket to the field of 68. What happens next is anyone’s guess but we get a good big-on-big matchup. Lucy Cochrane, the Pilots frontcourt star and one of the nation’s leading shot blockers, faces up against Ayoka Lee and Kansas State. Should be a good one.
And finally, Drexel. One of the slowest teams in the nation by pace, somehow pulling over *another* stunner in the CAA Tournament. In 2021, the Dragons upset Natasha Adair’s Delaware Blue Hens to sneak into the Madness. In 2024, they did the same to Ashly Langford’s Stony Brook Seawolves. A team that finished 7th in the CAA standings took the Wolves nearly wire-to-wire on the back of a 58% 3 point shooting effort. As one of the lowest rated teams, they were placed as a 16 seed and will face Texas in the opening round.
Regardless of how the first round goes, to get here is an opportunity for many mid-majors. It’s an exciting experience and a big congrats to the three that made the most of March so far.
Snubs and Surprises: Texas A&M and Washington State.
I was so conflicted to see Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament. On the one hand, I wasn’t sure the resume matched up. Only two real tournament resume-ish wins in the non-conference (@ Cal and vs. Kansas) along with a bad loss to Purdue. The Aggies only saw Ole Miss once, which was a win, split with Tennessee and then were swept by South Carolina and LSU. Was it worthy of a non First Four seeding? Who knows. I’m not on the Committee.
But on the other hand, you get Endyia Rogers and Aicha Coulibaly in the tournament. Rogers, as decorated as her career has been, has only seen one NCAA Tournament with the Oregon Ducks and they were bounced out of the first round by Belmont. Coulibaly has never made it this far. To finally get those two players with a real chance to make a bit of a run is really going to be a gift to women’s basketball purists. It’s the argument for why 19-12 teams like the A&M’s of the world should make it.
Now to the surprises.
I thought the mid-majors were a seeded a little funny. At some point, the committee has to start respecting HBCU’s properly. Jackson State as a 14 is fine given that they didn’t have the non-con firepower they’ve had in past years but Norfolk State, at 27-5 with Diamond Johnson and Kierra Wheeler leading the way, as a 15 against Stanford? While UC Irvine, the Big West champ in a down year for the conference gets a 14? Not really sure how we get there.
I was surprised to see Eastern Washington as a 14 seed while Portland was a 13. The Eagles nearly snuck by Gonzaga and Cal in the non-con. But I’ll admit my bias: I love this EWU team and I wish they’d have gotten a better matchup than Oregon State, who have tourney dark horse written all over them.
And congratulations to Columbia and Abbey Hsu. A player that has deserved to be in this tournament for a long time finally gets her shot and the committee absolutely loves mess because they heard Megan Griffith’s plea following the Ivy League Tournament. After taking a swipe at the SEC on Saturday, the Lions learned the next day they’d see Vanderbilt.
The final surprise is a sad one. Washington State will not be making the trip to the NCAA Tournament this year. While I can understand based on a bad tournament loss to Cal and star guard Charlisse Leger-Walkers’ season ending injury earlier this year, the resume is tough to ignore. Wins over three top 5 seeds (UCLA, Gonzaga, Colorado). Further wins against Arizona (11 seed), Maryland (10 seed) and South Dakota State (12 seed). It’s a better resume than A&M’s and even Vanderbilt’s. But here’s the rub: the Cougs lost to Auburn back in December on the Plains 69-62. I said that week on Twitter how vital those middle of the Pac games would be while the top end of the conference rolled everyone.
Washington State lost to Auburn.
Cal lost to Texas A&M.
Arizona lost to Ole Miss.
Washington lost to Louisville.
Those are your gamebreakers right there. While I still think the Cougs should have made it, it’s hard to not look at games like that and wonder how much of a coin flip they turned out to be.
Time for the Pac-12 to put up or shut up.
As for the Pac-12…
I say this as the resident homer for west coast basketball. It’s time to put up or shut up. All year, we’ve been talking up the conference. The best in the nation, the best season saved for last. Marquee wins against other marquee opponents in marquee conferences. Now you can’t lay an egg in the dance. Stanford’s loss to Ole Miss last year was a feather in the cap of SEC fans that believe their brand of basketball, even if it doesn’t show up in the AP rankings, is still built best for this tournament. And when South Carolina and LSU are your last two NCAA champions its’ hard to argue with the results.
If the Pac-12 wants to make a case, or prove the committee wrong for not giving them 2 1-seeds as many argued they deserved, you have to make the run.
In 2019, the Pac sent five teams to the Sweet 16. They’ve had a Final Four team in three of the last four years. There is no reason to believe, especially given the bracket makeup, that they can’t put one into the national semifinal. The last Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament ever was everything we wanted and more. I really hope the conference doesn’t go out with a whimper now that the big dance has finally arrived.
Watch the WBIT!
Ok, so I will admit I forgot the WBIT was a thing this year. After the NCAA selections I went to the WNIT to see the field and couldn’t believe Miami, Penn State, Washington State and others denied a bid. The nerve! And then I remembered the change the NCAA brought forth this year. The WNIT is a private event, one that —much like the CBI on the men’s side— teams have had to pay to host in the past. This year, in a rare move of competence and caring, the NCAA decided they would create a new event that was similar to the men’s NIT. One that would have payouts for the teams that qualified.
Enter the WBIT.
As women’s basketball continues to improve as a product, it makes the secondary tournaments just as compelling. Elite mid-majors like George Mason, VCU, St. John’s, Missouri State and Stony Brook make up the first block. Then you’ve got NCAA Tournament worthy high majors like TCU, Washington State, Miami, and Mississippi State.
That this tournament has grown in recent years to have a field as fun as this is indicative of just how much the sport has grown. It’s not just the NCAA Tournament and then a drop off. The WBIT is bringing just as much heat and for those that have tuned in for the last few years to the then-WNIT, you’d know this is a tournament for the ball-knowers. So hook it into your veins and get ready to mainline it all.
The Madness is here. Let’s have some fun.