One Big Thing In Every NCAA WBB Conference Tournament: Friday, March 7th

Thursday gave us upsets galore in some NCAA women's basketball conference tournaments. What will Friday bring? We break down what to watch for across the women's hoops world.

Hello, friends! We have officially made it to March Madness, Part One. Conference Tournaments kick off this week and, while there are few that take place a bit later in the month, most of the mid-major action is centered around the next half-dozen days. The high-majors also dominate the week with the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten starting Tuesday as well.

Instead of giving you viewer guides to preview the entirety of the Tournament, we’ll be giving you daily content outlining what we think is the biggest storyline, game or player to watch in every bracket across women’s basketball. Think of it as a combination of a preview and a watch guide.

Best of all, this content is 100% free for everyone in service of growing the game and giving you a chance to find the best hoops the sport has to offer. Let’s get to it!

Whew boy. Just had to add a quick note here. A lot happened in the span of 24 hours. We had multiple upsets, Johnnie Harris was let go as the head coach of Auburn and we got some upended brackets in a few power conferences. Some games may already be underway by the time you read this but the broad strokes should still apply. Happy reading!

One Big Thing In The…

A-10 Championship - Quarterfinal

Let the chaos truly begin! The A-10 already gave us one upset with Saint Louis topping UMass in the second round, providing a window in just how wild this particular tournament can get. Now, I anticipate things will only get weirder. Duquesne and Richmond is a fun matchup in terms of best player vs. best player. Dukes star Megan McConnell vs. Spider Queen Maggie Doogan is one of the top matchups you’ll find in the conference. But my one thing? That’s easy. It’s figuring out who will be the lowest seed to advance to the semifinal. In past years we’ve had six seeds manage to make it through and this year we have a bunch of quality matchups that could give us chaos. Rhode Island feels like they could clip a St. Joe’s team that is limping a bit into the Tournament. Saint Louis already has one scalp and could get another against George Mason. Dayton and Davidson are evenly matched while Richmond might be the only safe team in the bracket. But here’s the thing: I say that now and watch me jinx it. This one is on Peacock so if you’ve been using it to watch the Big Ten all year, keep it for this. You’ve got some guaranteed upset finishes in at least one of these games.

ACC Tournament - Quarterfinal

If there’s one thing I’m watching (and the game will probably already be underway or even over by the time you read this) is the ceiling of Florida State. To me, they’re one of the most intriguing teams in the country and we really haven’t gotten a lot of chances to see them succeed in a tournament format over the last two years. The Seminoles have typically bowed out of brackets early in the Brooke Wyckoff era but this group, led by Ta’Niya Latson, O’Mariah Gordon and Mikayla Timpson, is the best team she’s had so far. North Carolina is a wonderful test for them and will tell me a lot about how good FSU can be once we start getting into the win-or-go-home games. Outside of that, I’m interested in the Louisville vs. Duke matchup to see if Jeff Walz still has the Heisenberg gene in March. I think so. But it would be fascinating to see him reassert Louisville as nationally relevant after it felt like people were ready to write a program obituary after their early exit in the NCAA Tournament last year.

ASUN Championship - First Round

The ASUN opens today and it might take us a few days before we see Florida Gulf Coast try to hang onto the conference belt. But the opener is interesting in that we get to see Bellarmine. They’re one of the recent Division II call ups, having moved to the ASUN during the 2020-2021 season. After four years, their period of ineligibility is over so they have the ability to be a bid stealer for the first time in Division I women’s basketball. Does that mean they’re going to all of a sudden make a run? I’m not so sure about that. There’s a good chunk of solid teams, FGCU chief among them, above them in the ASUN standings but the Knights showed good improvements this year. The matchup with Jacksonville is a season series rubber match and a bit of revenge as the Dolphins sent Bellarmine packing from last years’ ASUN Tournament. We love a good bit of spice in the opening round.

Big 12 Championship - Quarterfinal

I was pretty stunned to see Texas Tech manage to pull away from Utah late last night in one of the many power conference bracket upsets and I’m curious to see if the run of form continues against No. 21 Oklahoma State. But what’s perhaps the most interesting thing about the Big 12 Championship Quarterfinals today is finding out which teams have the moxie needed for March. I think No. 8 TCU has it and will probably be able to take advantage of a Colorado team that is having a nice little run but still really down with a number of injuries. It would require a bad shooting day from the Frogs as well as a virtuoso performance from Jade Masogayo against Sedona Prince for the Buffs to have a shot. Instead, I’m looking at Kansas State vs. West Virginia and Iowa State vs. Baylor. Those are four teams that I can’t really get a good read on for the national tournament that’s coming soon. What’s the ceiling for all of them? I really don’t know. I thought I had a read on Baylor and Iowa State but they proved me wrong in very different ways over the last couple of weeks. But this is what these conference tournaments are for, in a way. It allows us the data points to better assess where each team is at. For me, I’m grading on who has that intangible ‘it’ that can be the difference between winning and losing at this juncture of the year.

Big East Tournament - First Round

The Big East Tournament is officially underway and while the matchups aren’t giving us the top end competition just yet, I’m looking forward to figuring some things out about Providence. Erin Batth, in her second year as the Friars head coach, is moving the program in the right direction and keeping them stable in the middle of the conference pack. She’ll see a Georgetown team that is rebuilding a bit and hangs its’ hat on tough defense and a bit of a grit and grind mindset. Can her Providence team string together a win or two to maybe make a case for a WNIT? It’s entirely possible. The Big East can always use some more consistent competition towards the top of the league even if no one is ever really going to catch UConn. But I like what Batth is putting together and hope that she can continue to grow that team and program out a little bit.

Big Ten Tournament - Quarterfinal

We got some fun chaos in Indianapolis yesterday with Indiana and Iowa upsetting Oregon and Michigan State, respectively. I’m eyeballing two games here: Michigan vs. No. 15 Maryland and Iowa vs. No. 13 Ohio State. Both of the lower seeded teams cruised to wins yesterday and have felt all year that they have the extra gear needed to make a run in this tournament and the next one in a couple weeks. Iowa, in particular, feels like they’ve got some serious juice coming into this one. Keep in mind that the first matchup between the Hawkeyes and the Buckeyes went to overtime and I expect to see this one remain just as competitive. Jan Jensen has a chance to make a major statement in year one here and, if Caitlin Clark is in attendance again, I know Iowa isn’t going to fumble in front of their former superstar. We have two data points that now support the team plays really well when she’s watching. So maybe Jan just needs to park CC courtside from now until late March/early April and see what happens.

OVC Championship - Semifinal

This has now been two days where I’ve been telling you all, our dear readers and friends, that Western Illinois has absolute bid-stealer bonafides. And, as it so happens, they beat directional rival Eastern Illinois in an OVC upset and now take on Lindenwood in the conference tournament semifinal. Do the Leathernecks still have a little bit of magic in them? I’m willing to say yes. While WIU had problems with Tennessee Tech, the top seed and title favorite in the OVC, they did manage to split their regular season series with Lindenwood, losing by four back in December before winning by 5 in February. Raegan McCowan has been sensational for Western in this Tournament. She opened with a 27 point, 9 rebound performance against UT Martin and then followed it up with 25 and 5 against EIU. In the last game against Lindenwood she had a 19 and 15 game. They are my Cinderella of the Week and, if the game is close in the 4th, it’s definitely worth heading over to ESPN+ to see what happens.

SEC Tournament - Quarterfinal

Vanderbilt upset Tennessee while Florida sent Alabama home in the second round. Just March things, am I right? What’s amazing about the Commodores win over the Lady Vols was the fact that they managed to win with Mikayla Blakes and Khamil Pierre not shooting the stripe off the ball. Instead, it was an 8/11 performance by Iyana Moore that made the difference in the first half and into the end of the game. If she has that performance against South Carolina, this thing might be a little more interesting than logic would have us believe. The one big thing here, to me, is No. 1 Texas. They lost the coin flip for the top seed, but are still the best ranked team in America and, somehow, can legitimately claim having a chip on their shoulder. How are they planning on making their mark in March? That’s probably the most interesting storyline outside of this Vandy - South Carolina game. Oklahoma and Kentucky will be fun but I feel that both of those teams have steady Sweet 16 ceilings and the semifinal will probably bare that out if they see the Gamecocks. But so far, the SEC has been the most chaotic of the bunch so let’s see if it continues today.

SoCon Championship - Semifinal

The big matchup here (though underway by now) is Wofford and UNC Greensboro. I was stunned to see how close the Spartans got to being upset by Western Carolina while Wofford narrowly avoided an upset themselves. But the name of the game is survive and advance. For all intents and purposes, this game feels like the real SoCon Championship even though Chattanooga and Furman still play one another on the other side of the bracket. Wofford is the only team that got the better of UNCG in conference play so the second half of this one should be pretty interesting. If the Terriers manage to pull off the upset, we’ll officially have our first bid stealer in March. It’ll just depend on who is the winner of the SoCon final to determine who gets the honor of representing the conference in March. That one is (at the time of this writing) in the first quarter on ESPN+. Keep an eye on it!

Summit League Championship - Quarterfinal

So St. Thomas - Minnesota is still ineligible for NCAA Tournament play because of their move up to Division I but I’m really interested in seeing just how far they can go in this Tournament. They’ve enjoyed pretty solid success in a variety of sports since moving up a level and their 9-7 finish in the Summit is enough to indicate that they’ll be a fun addition to the conference in the long term. I fully expect North Dakota State to handle Kansas City but this game between STM and North Dakota feels noteworthy. UND has a close loss and a blowout loss to St. Thomas this year and they’re firmly in the tier of “beat the teams worse than you and lose to the teams better than you.” While I don’t expect an upset in the two quarterfinal games being played today, I’d recommend you keep an eye on St. Thomas. They’re one for the future, for sure.

Sun Belt Championship - 4th Round

We’re finally at the point in the gauntlet where some of the top teams in the Sun Belt are beginning to make their appearances. Marshall managed to win their first game of the Tournament and now take on App State while Georgia State sees Old Dominion in the 4th Round. My one big thing in the Sun Belt today is how the Monarchs perform. I believe in DeLisha Milton-Jones in the long term and feel that she’s building ODU up over time after a handful of years of apathy in Virginia Beach. That’s no fault of the coaches but it’s become clear, in talking with numerous alums and former hall-of-famers associated with the program, that there is a desire to rekindle what was once one of the best women’s basketball teams in America. Milton-Jones is starting to put those building blocks back together but I would love to see a nice Sun Belt run from the Monarchs to affirm that. Georgia State is no slouch though, having one one matchup and lost the other by just 4 in the regular season. Gear up, because the gauntlet is just getting rolling.

WCC Tournament - Second Round

The WCC’s gauntlet is a couple rounds behind the Sun Belt’s but I think the general quality, even towards the bottom of the league, is a bit better and thus gives us some better teams early. I’m watching Pacific here and not just because I covered them for a bit when I worked in the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto TV market. I really like the pieces that the Tigers have but they just seem to underperform relative to their talent every year. San Diego is a pretty easy matchup for them to advance but it would be great to see Pacific finally hit their stride as some of their top players begin the last phase of their playing careers. Anaya James is electric when she’s on and I expect her to be heavily involved in this opening matchup. We’ve still got a ways until Oregon State, Washington State, Portland and Gonzaga arrive but this tournament will get very interesting very soon.