One Big Thing In Every NCAA WBB Conference Tournament: Tuesday, March 11th

The Big East autobid has been decided which means we have an all mid-major slate the rest of the week in NCAA women's basketball. Are there any bid stealers in the mix? We tell you in this daily guide

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!

With UConn beating Creighton in the Big East Tournament final, the high-major brackets are complete. What’s left are a slew of mid majors and a lot of different opportunities for stolen bids. Who do you need to watch out for this week? We got you covered here.

One Big Thing In The…

ASUN Championship- Semifinal

There was a period of time where everything about the ASUN was a formality and that Florida Gulf Coast was going to breeze on to the NCAA Tournament. For a brief moment in time, after Karl Smesko took the Atlanta Dream job, it looked as though the conference might be up for grabs. But then the Eagles woke right back up and went 18-0 in league play en route to another regular season ASUN title. Will it be more of the same in the semifinal here? I’m curious. FGCU dominated Eastern Kentucky once at home in January but narrowly escaped an upset on the road just a couple weeks later. It was a combination of poor shooting on the part of Florida Gulf Coast and efficient offensive performances by EKU’s Jasmine McGinnis-Taylor and Liz Freihofer. If they can manage to replicate that performance and get the key bucket that they couldn’t find in the final 1:40 of that matchup, then we might have a historic upset in the ASUN. Otherwise, I think we’re probably good penciling in the Eagles for the NCAA Tournament, provided their three star tandem of Lauryn Taylor, Khamari Mitchell-Steen and Emani Jefferson rise to the occasion.

AAC Championship - Semifinal

Folks, Rice may have pulled off the biggest upset of any conference tournament on Monday by defeating the prohibitive title favorite UTSA. It was a stunning result given how easily the Roadrunners had dispatched so much of their competition this year. But it’s another testament to the up and coming coaches that exist within this conference. Lindsay Edmonds made this exact run last year, taking the Owls from a sixth place finish in the AAC to an NCAA Tournament via a bid steal. Can they do it again and be the cardiac kids that women’s basketball has been asking for? It sure would be fun to see. They’ve got to get by a Temple team that has had a quietly solid season and beat Rice in the sole meeting between the two programs this year. Now, all of it may be a moot point if South Florida manages to rediscover their midseason form after losing their final two games of the regular season. The Bulls are a lot like South Dakota State in that they beef up their non-con to get ready for the Tournament season and format. It’s also a big month ahead for USF star Sammie Puisis, who could earn herself a bit of money and WNBA Draft capital by taking advantage of the void in the league left by UTSA’s departure from the bracket.

Big Sky Championship - Semifinal

The discussion about Montana aged pretty well as the Lady Griz upset Idaho and now see Northern Arizona in the conference tournament semifinal. There’s a lot on the line here in that we may get a legit rivalry title matchup if it breaks the right way. Say, Montana State takes care of Idaho State and UM gets the win over NAU. Now we have a Brawl of the Wild with a trip to the NCAA Tournament on the line. From a talent standpoint, I’d like to see Northern Arizona get a third crack at Montana State after losing both regular season matchups by six and seven points, respectively. But given that Sacramento State gave the Lumberjacks a scare on Monday, NAU may be a little more susceptible to upset than we think. Either way, as long as Montana State wins against ISU, we’ve got a good narrative matchup however the semi between the other two breaks. Keep an eye on Lumberjacks junior forward Sophie Glancey, who is averaging 18 points and 9.4 rebounds per game and has had more than her fair share of 20 and 10+ performances this season.

Conference USA Championship - First Round

C-USA is going to get chaotic as we move further into their tournament, mark my words. Whether it’s Liberty, Mid Tenn State or Western Kentucky, there is a lot of bid stealer potential in this league. But these early games will be a lot of close matchups between teams that have had trouble producing all year long. If you’re going to look for one thing in the Conference USA Championship first round, it’s Kennesaw State senior forward Prencis Harden. She averages 15.7 points and 10.2 rebounds per game and has had some utterly ridiculous statlines in certain games this year. Take, for example, a December 30th loss to Mercer where she dropped 34 points and grabbed 15 rebounds. Maybe her 26 and 16 performance in a win over Sam Houston State is more your speed. Or, perhaps, the February win over UTEP in which Harden finished with a 39 and 14 game. There are games where she gets bottled up but if she gets a plus matchup then she’s liable to go nuclear. Given that she’s already done it against the Miners once, it may be worth tapping in to see if she’ll do it again.

Horizon League Championship - Final

Folks, we got our Purdue Fort Wayne and Green Bay rematch after all. The two teams we expected to be battling it out for the Horizon League title are indeed doing it after an exciting regular season finale that resulted in a conference championship for the Phoenix. But now, there’s even more on the line. PFW doesn’t have an NCAA Tournament resume on their own and I don’t think wins over Drake and Norfolk State are enough for Green Bay to make a push for an at-large bid. So this will be a game for all the marbles and a coveted spot in the NCAA Tournament. It, to me, has been one of the more exciting mid-major races all year and now it finally comes to a head. More than that, there’s star power to be found. Natalie McNeal led GB in the OT win over PFW in March, finishing with 27 points and 13 rebounds. She just had a 20 and 12 in the tournament semifinal win over Robert Morris. On the other side, Mastodon guard Lauren Ross probably wants to get her lick back on Green Bay after she sputtered to just 10 points and 6 boards in that last matchup. She hasn’t shot super well in the time since but these are the games the real dogs get up for.

MAAC Championship - First Round

The MAAC is a little like the WAC in the sense that the two biggest teams, Quinnipiac and Fairfield, aren’t yet present in the tournament and thus the games are little bit lower stakes considering there’s only one team over .500 in Tuesday’s field. But if you want an interesting statistical anomalies I’d suggest figuring out what the Iona vs. St. Peter’s game is going to look like. The Peacocks are led by a star sophomore, 6’2 forward Fatmata Janneh, who exploded this year averaging 18.3 points, 11.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game. That’s up substantially from the 11 and 8 she averaged in her freshman season. Now factor in Iona, who doesn’t have a single double digit average scorer on their team. It’s crazy to think but it’s legit. The Gaels average 56.2 points per game as a team with no one scoring over 9.6 a game. In spite of that, Iona beat St. Peter’s in their lone meeting of the year in January. It’s a very different clash of styles so that might be of some interest for those who really want some deep cut sicko ball.

Mountain West Championship - Semifinal

All eyes are on UNLV, once again. The Rebs took out New Mexico to advance to the Mountain West Championship semifinals and now see a San Diego State team that did something rather surprising earlier in January. The Aztecs upset UNLV on a Veronica Sheffey buzzer beater that handed the Rebels their first MWC loss of the regular season. Will we see something similar? It’ll take one heck of a performance from SDSU to do it. But what Aztecs fans can take solace in is the idea that the win wasn’t a scenario where they shot hot and UNLV went cold. In fact, San Diego State went just 5/16 from 3PT as a team in the win while their opponent shot 40%. Sometimes it just comes down to some made buckets at crucial times. On the other end of the bracket, Wyoming is still in the background hoping to get another shot at the class of the MWC for the last couple years. There is some Team of Destiny vibes with the Cowgirls so, for narratives’ sake, I’m hoping we can get UNLV and Wyo in the title matchup.

SWAC Tournament - First Round

Our first HBCU tournament of the year gets underway in College Park, Georgia on Tuesday and if you’re a fan of OG women’s hoops then you’ll want to watch Florida A&M. Former University of Tennessee superstar Bridgette Gordon is in her second year at the helm for the Rattlers and has somewhat stabilized a program that had as few as three wins a season. But after a 9-21 year in 2024, FAMU seemed in stasis this year, finishing with a similar record and now taking on Mississippi Valley State in the first round of the SWAC Tournament. I always enjoy seeing former legends of the game pay it forward and get back into coaching and so for that reason I’m into the Bridgette Gordon experience at Florida A&M. But you gotta start stringing together wins the more years you get and I’d hope that Gordon can get a win or two in the first few rounds to establish her bonafides and build a future with the Rattlers program.

Southland Tournament - Quarterfinal

The biggest watch here is Stephen F. Austin, the newly minted Southland program that was expected to run through the conference but instead finished third in the regular season standings. The Ladyjacks have a good balanced attack and there’s a reasonable argument to be made that a couple of possessions is the only thing stopping them from being 29-2 instead of 26-5. But this matchup against Nicholls in the Southland quarterfinals will be instructive in how much SFA can push Lamar and Southeastern Louisiana in the later rounds. The Colonels beat Stephen F. Austin earlier in the year but fell in the regular season finale 79-56. I’m expecting the Ladyjacks to bring that same type of energy to the quarterfinal matchup and it wouldn’t shock me if we ended up getting a bid stealing upset courtesy of SFA. But you have to beat the teams in front of you before you do that and I’m curious if this extremely balanced attack can push Stephen F. Austin into the deepest rounds of the Southland.

WAC Tournament - First Round

The WAC only has one matchup on Tuesday before we start to get into quarterfinal games on Wednesday and Thursday. So it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that I’m not gonna spend too much time on this game between Seattle and Utah Tech. Both teams are a combined 9-49 overall and 2-30 in conference play this year. There isn’t really a standout scorer on either team and there’s not a ton of narrative interest aside from the fact that these teams split their regular season meetings with each other. The real team to watch in this conference is 29-2 Grand Canyon, who will see the winner of this game and who also has a claim to be the best mid-major in women’s college basketball this year. So if you have to skip a matchup, you can be forgiven if you decide to wait until tomorrow to see what the WAC has to offer.

WCC Tournament - Final

Say what you will about Scott Rueck but pound for pound he might be one of the best coaches in women’s basketball. After the realignment of conferences and mass exodus of his Elite Eight team from last year, it would’ve been easy to assume this would be a lost season. But here the Beavs are, ready to reclaim the moniker of America’s team. They’ve won their two WCC Tournament games by a combined four points but it doesn’t matter how close they are as long as you’re on the right side of them. Awaiting OSU in the final is the unlikeliest of in-state rivals, the Portland Pilots. UP has been fantastic under Michael Meek and wants to put an exclamation point on the best season in program history. In order to do that, you have to get by a team buoyed by belief and led by AJ Marotte, who is the last of a class that took this OSU team from the depths of COVID to an Elite Eight in 2024. In a lot of ways, this may be the story of the week in women’s hoops. There’s a cool narrative on either end and it gives us a potential bid stealer. Game on in Las Vegas!