There will be no Cinderellas in the women's basketball NCAA Tournament this year. Of the teams who advanced to the Sweet Sixteen earlier this week, none received higher than a six seed from the selection committee. And while this credits the job well done from the powers that be, it has made for a fairly uneventful first two rounds.
All eight of the one and two seeds will be playing in the tournament's third round, since none of them have even lost a game by single digits thus far. The seventh-seeded Marist Red Foxes may have had the best shot, riding a Div. I-best 22-game winning streak into Tuesday's matchup with the No. 2 LSU Tigers. But like several other lower seeds, Marist was easily dismissed, falling 68-49.
The Old Dominion Monarchs and the George Washington Colonials are the only two teams left that do not belong to a traditional power conference. Both escaped the Round of 32 with narrow victories, as GW earned a hard-fought 55-53 win over the California Bears, and Old Dominion outshot the University of Virginia Cavaliers 88-85 in what has perhaps been the most exciting game of the tournament this year.
As predicted, the Big East is flexing its muscles in 2008. Of the eight teams that made the cut into the field of 64, only two lost in the first round, and of the six that advanced, only the West Virginia Mountaineers lost in the second round.
Two of the conference's best, the Connecticut Huskies and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, are on a collision course for a Regional Final showdown in the Greensboro Bracket that could potentially be the best non-Final-Four game of the tournament.
But a couple of the Big East's lesser squads may see their runs come to an end soon. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish outlasted the Oklahoma Sooners in overtime Tuesday night, while the Louisville Cardinals buried the Kansas State Wildcats in an 80-63 victory that was never close. But each team will face a tall order in the Sweet Sixteen. Louisville has a date with the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, while Notre Dame will have to contend with the vaunted Tennessee Volunteers. Pat Summitt's crew is fresh off a 26-point victory over the Purdue Boilermakers secured the legendary coach her 100th career tournament victory.
Behind Candace Parker, the Volunteers are playing their best basketball of the season, and Tennessee's role players have been more than up to the task of supporting their probable National Player of the Year. With Parker in trouble in the team's first-round game against the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles, freshman Angie Bjorklund stepped in and hit four three-pointers as Tennessee cruised 94-55.
If the Lady Vols can make it past Notre Dame, either the Texas A&M Aggies or the Duke Blue Devils will await them in the regional finals. The Aggies are a slight favorite against Duke, but the Blue Devils certainly have the edge in tournament experience.
It's still too early to appoint an all-tournament team, but it's not too early to point out some of more disappointing performances in the tournament.
The Baylor Bears, the No. 3 seed in the Spokane bracket fell in the second round to the No. 6 seed Pittsburgh Panthers, ending their season by losing four out of their final five games. Forward Danielle Wilson, one of Baylor's most threatening offensive players, went scoreless in the second half against the Panthers.
The loss, coupled with Kansas St.'s loss to Louisville, solidifies the weakness of the Big 12 this season. While the conference does have two teams, Texas A&M and the Oklahoma State Cowgirls, in the Sweet Sixteen, Kansas St. and Baylor finished first and second in the conference, respectively, and both have been eliminated.
Another disappointment was West Virginia, a five seed in the Spokane region and darkhorse candidate to make a run deep in the tournament. Not only did the Mountaineers lose to the Vanderbilt Commodores in the Round of 32, but they were thoroughly overmatched in the process. After scraping out a 61-60 victory against the New Mexico Lobos in the first round, West Virginia was beaten handily down the stretch by Vanderbilt. After taking a 35-33 lead, the Mountaineers could manage only 11 more points in the entire game and fell 64-46.
The loss is disappointing for a team that went 12-4 in Big East Conference play and finished ahead of both Louisville and Notre Dame, two teams still alive in 2008.
