One Big Thing In Every NCAA WBB Conference Tournament: Friday, March 14th
There's a Final in the America East but, for the most part, we are setting the table for a final weekend of championship matchups. Here's what to keep an eye out for this Friday.
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!
A few games have already gotten going this Friday morning and we’ll have that reflected in the daily guide. But in the meantime there is still plenty of enjoyable basketball to watch including the start of the ever-chaotic Missouri Valley Conference.
One Big Thing In The…
America East Playoffs - Final
A win in the America East final could be a really nice cap off to a season — one that began with a historic home upset over Missouri — for the University of Vermont. While the record isn’t super remarkable you can chalk some of that up to a challenging non-con that included multiple high-majors and mid-major teams who ended up contending for their conference. Albany, on the other end, is enjoying their best season in the Colleen Mullen era and aiming to complete the league sweep of the regular season and conference tournament titles. This will be the rubber match between the two programs, having split games during A-East play, and is going to be in UAlbany’s home gym. Does Vermont have the ability to steal an NCAA Tournament tournament bid in their own opponents house? That’s the kind of stakes that make these mid-major brackets so great. It’s a 3:00 pm tip on ESPNU.
Big West Championship - Semifinal
The Big West has a chalk semifinal and that’s okay. While we do love a Cinderella here and there, it is kind of enjoyable at times to get late round games in these mid-major tournaments where it truly is good-on-good between the best the conferences have to offer. If there’s one big thing I’m watching is if there is an individual player across the four semifinalists — UC San Diego, Hawaii, UC Davis and UC Irvine — who is capable of greatness in March. Right out of the gate we already have a contender (shoutout to longtime reader
for this one!) in Sumayah Sugapong at UC San Diego. The 5’7 sophomore poured in 29 points and added 6 steals on the defensive end to power the Tritons to a quarterfinal win over Cal Poly. Hawaii’s own 5’7 guard, Lily Wahinekapu, is another to watch, having found a nice stride in the last three weeks and change. UC Irvine is more a ‘sum greater than the whole’ operation where everyone eats while UC Davis has a clear star in Tova Sabel. She, to me, is a contender for Big West Player of the Year and can have a legacy performance here to try and get the Aggies to the title game. So Friday in the Big West is about players making themselves into stars. A true March storyline.CAA Championship - Quarterfinal
Already underway by the time of this writing, my one big thing is assessing the biggest threat to North Carolina A&T: the College of Charleston. The Cougars have a good combination of star contributors including the sisters Taryn and Taylor Barbot. The twins from Floral Park, NY are the two leading scorers for C of C and capable of some serious point explosions. Taryn, for instance, put up 40 points on 68.2% shooting just two weeks ago against UNC Wilmington. While Taylor is just as solid a distributor as she is a scorer, giving the Cougs a 16 point, 12 assist performance in their finale against Hampton. They only saw NCA&T once this year, a 71-59 loss but since then, Charleston has played some really good basketball. I’m curious to see how they are able to continue the run here and if they’re capable of being a potential CAA spoiler.
Conference USA Championship - Semifinal
Liberty and Louisiana Tech has its’ own interesting subplots and I’m interested in if there’s a little Lady Techster magic left in Ruston. But the matchup that has all the juice going into Friday night is Western Kentucky vs. Middle Tennessee State. We explained yesterday the historic implications of the Lady Toppers returning to the NCAA Tournament and the nice callbacks it has for a program that was formerly one of the best mid-majors in the country. This, like many top end conference matchups nationwide, was a split regular season series that now goes to a rubber match at a neutral venue. In what felt like a year where the Blue Raiders were supposed to steamroll the field, WKU has a legitimate chance to pull off an upset and meet the winner of LTU and Liberty in the C-USA Final. But MTSU is no slouch and I expect a massive game from their center Anastasiia Boldyreva. While it may be a moot point and Liberty might just be the top team in Conference USA after all, I genuinely am of the mindset that the winner of this tournament will come from this game. Which makes THE one to watch if you’re gonna tune into C-USA at all this week and weekend.
Ivy League Tournament - Semifinal
All eyes are on Harvard and Princeton in what is essentially a First Four matchup in all but name. Both teams are on the bubble in Charlie Creme’s ESPN Bracketology and still might have a legit case, win or lose. Personally, I think the Ivy is a three bid league this season. Harvard, for example, has a road win over Indiana and their lone non-con loss is to Quinnipiac who very well might either win the MAAC or have an at-large case of their own. Princeton has a good chunk of decent non-con wins over Villanova, Seton Hall, Rutgers, Rhode Island, Vermont and Mid Tenn State. They don’t have that statement but the body of work is solid. Of course, the eye catcher of this game is Harvard’s Harmoni Turner. She’s a legitimate All-American candidate and has been one of the best players the Ivy has seen in recent years. She’ll see a tandem of Skye Belker and Allison Chea. I have a feeling that Columbia is going to handle Penn just fine on the other end of the bracket so if there’s a must-watch on the day, it’s Harvard and Princeton. All day, every day.
MAAC Championship - Semifinal
Fairfield and Mount St. Mary’s are underway at the time of this writing. The Stags have taken a quick second quarter lead and I’m trusting that they’ll be able to ride the wave to a trip to the final. Because ultimately, today is a bit of a table setter for what I think is going to be one of the most compelling mid-major finals of the year. Fairfield and Quinnipiac have been the best teams in the conference this year and have legit at-large bids in their own right. QU has wins over Harvard, Princeton, and two conference tournament finalists in Southeast Louisiana and Vermont. They also split the regular season MAAC series with Fairfield. I think there’s a legit case when you consider how hard it is for some of these mid-majors to be able to find high-major opponents that will do something like a home-and-home. The biggest worry I have is, believe or not, seeing an upset here. Selfishly, I want to see both of those teams in the final. And while I do love giants being toppled this time of year, there are other times where I want to see best-on-best. I think the MAAC’s best chance to catch some eyes this weekend is having their top two programs meet in the final. We’ll see!
MAC Championship - Semifinal
Ball State has already punched their ticket to the final and Buffalo and Toledo are already playing in the semifinal. At the time of the writing, Chellia Watson from Buffalo is 1/7 to open the game. If the Bulls want to head to the final, she’ll need to stabilize that performance. They’ve lost both matchups to Toledo this regular season by three points in each scenario. Watson scored 28 points in the first and 19 points in the second. For the most part, the 25-6 Bulls go as she goes. So that one is currently on ESPN+ (currently being 10:43 AM Mountain Time) so tap on into that one to catch who will get a chance to unseat the dominant force in the MAC this year in the Ball State Cardinals.
MEAC Tournament - Semifinal
Norfolk State is leading Copping 29-13 at halftime right now and I have a feeling that the Spartans are going to cruise to yet another MEAC Tournament Final. On the other end of the bracket is a matchup between Howard and Maryland Eastern Shore. I’m a little curious about this one despite the fact that the Bison have beaten the Hawks both times this regular season. The big question is if Zamara Haynes can continue her nice streak of scoring over the last two weeks. She had a stat stuffing 19-8-7 against Morgan State to get them to this point and is there another virtuoso performance left? Howard, of course, want the chance to try and spoil Norfolk State’s run of dominance but it feels like there’s clarity of purpose here from the Spartans. They know what’s at stake and, transparently, I’m rooting for one of the best HBCU seasons in recent memory to get its chance on the national stage.
MVC Tournament - Quarterfinal
Welcome to Chaos Valley, Baby! I have been waiting for a week and a half to get to this tournament which will be no doubt be the messiest of any mid-major. To give you an example of how tightly packed this field is, the top five teams in the league have conference records between 16-4 and 14-6. Then behind them, you have UIC, Northern Iowa and Bradley who have each beaten at least one of those top four teams at least once. There is an insane amount of upset potential in every game here. UNI has one of the best scorers in the league and Maya McDermott who you might remember from one of the great non-con performances of the year in November. She put up 37 points in that upset over then No. 8 Iowa State. Drake has conference player of the year (and one of my USBWA All-American votes) in Katie Dinnebier, who can have a real legacy run here. Then factor in Missouri State, a team whose head coach might be in the mix for other jobs already. Katie Young is a 21.9 point per game scorer who has flirted with 40 on a couple occasions. In short, watch the MVC. It’s the best mid-major tournament of the year and deserves your attention this weekend.
SWAC Tournament - Semifinal
A big shoutout to Alcorn State, who upset Alabama A&M and is now headed to the conference final having beaten Texas Southern. That’s a fun Cinderella story unfolding in College Park, Georgia. The one big thing of today is the late afternoon matchup between Jackson State and Southern. For years, the Jaguars have sat behind the Lady Tigers in the SWAC watching Tomekia Reed’s team dominate everyone in their path. They got a lick back in the 2023 Tournament, beating JSU in the semifinal en route to an NCAA Tournament trip. But the roles are reversed this season, with Southern as the one seed and Jackson State as the four. Can the Jaguars manage to hold serve and make it to the SWAC Final where they will see a plucky Alcorn team looking to make their own bit of history? It should make for a fun one on ESPN+.
WAC Tournament - Semifinal
All signs point to Molly Miller taking a high-mjaor job this cycle, be it Arkansas, Arizona State or, potentially, Arizona should it open up. While she’s been on record multiple times talking about her love for GCU, eventually the money becomes too good to ignore. And Arkansas, if nothing else, has the ability to offer life changing money to a coach. So if this is the end for her at GCU, may she go out with a bang. Utah Valley, as it happens, is one of the worst teams to come across in the midst of potential upheaval. Whatever the records and past results may show, UVU always seems to give Grand Canyon spurts of trouble here and there even if the Lopes manage to walk away winners. Sometimes, it requires some strange variance for a team to finally get the opportunity to win. One of the interesting things about Miller’s process has been the fact that it’s been a bit more drawn out than these searches are typically allowed to be. Usually, you see turnarounds in about 72 hours and Arkansas feels like they’ve been on her trail for the better part of a week. Maybe the decision comes between the WAC Final and the NCAA Tournament but I’ve always said team results are the canary in the coal mine of pending decisions. So that one is a game to watch closely in the WAC today.