NCAA Tournament First Weekend Takeaways
16 teams are left standing after an eventful first weekend in the NCAA Tournament.
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The first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is behind us, and 16 teams are left standing in the battle for the national title. There are the usual suspects—South Carolina, UConn, Virginia Tech, Maryland—but then there also are some big surprises left, including nine-seed Miami and eight-seed Ole Miss. The Seattle 4 region is particularly intriguing, as the two, five, six and eight seeds have advanced to the Sweet 16.
Let’s take a look at some of the key storylines from the first weekend of tournament action.
Stanford’s struggles were real
Something’s felt off about the Stanford Cardinal over the last month or so of the season. The team had a 26.3 NET rating over the course of the full season, but just a 5.0 net rating over the final five games. That first number ranked in the 99th percentile; the second one in the 67th percentile. It was clear down the stretch that something was not quite right for the Cardinal.
That trend continued in the first weekend of the tournament. While Stanford got past 16-seed Sacred Heart with ease in the first round, the team’s run came to a screeching halt on Sunday night, losing 54-49 to Ole Miss. And in that game, we got to really see how top-heavy this team has become:
The Cardinal just haven’t really had a ton of contributions beyond the trio of Cameron Brink, Haley Jones and Hannah Jump this season. No other player on the roster averages more than 6.7 points per game, and no longer having the Hull sisters and Anna Wilson has made the team so much more reliant on its stars.
With Jones likely off to the WNBA after this season, it’ll be interesting to see what this Stanford team looks like next year. Will highly-touted freshman Lauren Betts get more opportunities after averaging just 9.6 minutes per game this season? Can top 10 recruit Courtney Ogden come in and make a quick impact?
(Also, credit to Ole Miss for shutting down Stanford’s offense. The Rebels are seventh in Her Hoop Stats Defensive Rating this season and have now held both Gonzaga and Stanford to under 50 points. For Gonzaga, the first-round loss was the lowest scoring total of the season; for Stanford, the second-round loss was the second-lowest output.)
In losing to Ole Miss, Stanford became the first No. 1 seed to miss the Sweet 16 since 2009.
Indiana gets upset as well
Stanford wasn’t the only top seed to lose this weekend, as Indiana became the second No. 1 since 2009 to miss the Sweet 16 on Monday night, falling 70-62 to Miami.
In a way, this mirrored the end of Stanford’s season perfectly. Both teams lost to end the regular season, lost their second game of the conference tournament and then lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Indiana’s offense has been great all season, but the defense hasn’t been quite as good, as the Hoosiers allowed 85.8 points per 100 possessions, which ranks 53rd in Division I. That’s not a bad number, but the team felt like it was falling off defensively over the last few weeks, allowing 70 or more points in four of the team’s last five games, with the exception being the opening tournament game against Tennessee Tech. Before that, the Hoosiers had allowed 70-plus points five times all season.
In addition to letting Miami shoot 46.8% from the floor and 57.1% from three, Indiana’s offense had issues on Monday night. Mackenzie Holmes had 22 points on 10-for-19 shooting, but the rest of the team combined to shoot just 35.7% from the floor.
South Carolina looks unstoppable
The Gamecocks only led 33-29 at the half against South Florida in their second round matchup. SC ended up winning by 31 points.
That’s the problem if you’re one of the 15 remaining teams and you have your sights set on taking down the Gamecocks: you have to play the best basketball you’ve played all season for a full 40 minutes. The Bulls managed to play about 20 minutes of their best basketball and it looked like an upset could be brewing, but SC came back out of the half and just completely halted the Bulls offense, holding them to 16 second-half points.
One issue is just how deep SC is. No other team has the luxury to, for example, play Laeticia Amihere for 15 minutes off the bench—she’d be starting and playing heavy minutes on most other teams. While other teams lose something when they have to go to the bench, South Carolina just has wave after wave of top players they can throw at you.
LSU’s for real
Coming into the tournament, there were big question marks surrounding LSU. Kim Mulkey’s squad played a weak non-conference schedule and while the Tigers only lost twice all year, one of those was a 24-point loss to South Carolina. It was valid to question how good the team could be in March.
After opening the tournament with a 23-point win over Hawaii, LSU faced a really good Michigan team. But the Tigers didn’t just beat the Wolverines—they dominated them, winning by 24 and holding Michigan to just 42 points, well below the team’s average of 73.5 points per game.
LSU got a monster performance from Angel Reese in the win over Michigan, as she scored 25 points and pulled down 24 rebounds, including 14 on the offensive glass. If LSU can keep controlling the boards, this team’s going to be so tough to beat. Up next for the Tigers is two-seed Utah, which ranks third in Division I in scoring offense. Can they do to the Utes what they did to the Wolverines?
Goodbye to the Big 12
This was a terrible weekend for the Big 12. Six teams got into the field, but as we head to the Sweet 16, none of those teams remain. The Big 12 was founded in 1994; since then, at least one Big 12 team has appeared in every Sweet 16 until this one.
Essentially, all the Big 12 teams had their worst things come out at once. Texas has had a tendency to occasionally have some ugly offensive games, and the Horns were held to 51 points in Monday’s second-round loss to Louisville. Oklahoma has struggled defensively and allowed 82 points in its loss to UCLA on Monday.
Baylor deserves some props for beating Alabama in the first round and then hanging around with UConn for a while, but an eight-point fourth quarter doomed the Bears.
Meanwhile, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and West Virginia all lost in the first round. The Cyclones drew a really tough first round matchup for the second year in a row—last season, UT Arlington gave them a run for their money, and this year the Cyclones just couldn’t stop Toledo, allowing 80 points, including 24 from star Quinesha Lockett.
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Scar beats an 8 seed and you praise SCar's effort. UConn beats a 7 seed and all you say is how bad the 7 seed played. Go check a mirror because your bias is showing. Change the name of your newsletter to SPINNING WCBB WITH BIAS.
The SEC has been underrated all year. Ole Miss and Tenn should’ve been ranked higher and Georgia and Miss State too. All 4 SEC teams will go deep into the rest of the tourney.