Women's NCAA Tournament: Looking over the Dayton Region

by David Hooper on Mar 16, 2011 6:00 PM EDT in Lady Vols Basketball

The Lady Vols grabbed the fourth #1 seed in the tournament, earning them a potential Final Four matchup against UConn and theoretically the toughest road to the Final Four for any #1 seed. Looking over the bracket, I am not totally convinced that it's the toughest run, but it may very well be the most entertaining region to watch.

The Other Regions

We can be short and swift about the non-Dayton regionals. UConn was handed a terrific gift by the selection committee: not only do they have the easiest road as befits a #1 overall seed, but the teams placed in their bracket are poorly built to handle the Huskies. Only #2 Duke really stands a chance at them, but UConn is already familiar with the Blue Devils from their earlier meeting in Storrs. Just pencil Connecticut into the Final Four; there's no real need to turn on the television to their games before then.

In Dallas, Baylor gets the top nod, and only Texas A&M appears to have a likely shot at taking down the Bears. It's unfortunate that they may meet up for the fourth time this year, as nobody outside of the local fanbases will have any interest in the re-re-repeat, but it could be a close game. The two teams obviously know each other well, and if anybody can anticipate Baylor's offense, it's the Aggies.

Meanwhile, Spokane is (in my opinion) the most difficult road for a number one seed. I don't see Stanford losing within the region, but they may meet a #8 Texas Tech team in the opening weekend - a team that is playing far better than their seeding but was hurt by a midseason slump to open conference play. From there, it's likely the North Carolina / Kentucky winner, and either team has the ability to play well enough to beat a top seed if they're sharp. (I'd love to see Kentucky's pressure against Stanford.) The region could end with a Xavier or UCLA matchup, which are two teams that Stanford has already faced. After their opening round, Stanford should get three no-nonsense games in a row, which is not the norm for the women's bracket.

But enough of that; let's take a look at the Dayton region where the Lady Vols look to take care of business.

Opening Weekend:

Tennessee will beat Stetson, so let's move on. Their next opponent will either be Marquette or Texas, and either matchup is at worst a half-step below Stanford's second draw in terms of 8/9 difficulty. Texas is probably overseeded, but they do have a fair amount of talent that probably needs one more year to really gel. Marquette is still stinging at what they perceive to be a slight by the committee. The point may be valid, so we'll see if Marquette plays inspired or deflated as a result. With Marquette the most likely winner, we should see Tennessee matched up against an 8 seed that could have been a 6 seed without much complaint by anybody.

In other pods of the bracket, the opening weekend will likely feature a 4/5 matchup of Georgia Tech and Ohio State. OSU is another team that ended below their potential thanks to a midseason slump, but are clicking well at the moment. Georgia Tech will have their hands full with Bowling Green to start the tournament (HINT: this isn't a bad upset matchup to pick if you're into women's brackets). But no matter how the Tech/Green game ends up, Ohio State is the most likely Sweet Sixteen team in the Columbus region. It's their home floor and they're honestly the best team in the group.

The #2 pod features Notre Dame playing in Salt Lake City, opening up on #15 Utah's home turf. (As an aside, the committee gave three matchups where the higher seed could play on an opponent's home court: ND @Utah, UCLA @Gonzaga, and Texas A&M @Louisiana Tech.) Notre Dame then faces the Arizona State / Temple winner, which is honestly a softer matchup than the Marquette / Texas game that Tennessee will face. Just pencil Notre Dame to the Sweet Sixteen, winning on #15's home floor and then winning the apology game afterwards.

Finally, the intriguing part of Dayton's opening weekend comes where #3 Miami and #6 Oklahoma face #14 Gardner-Webb and #11 James Madison, respectively. The favorites should roll, but Oklahoma is very well built to play Miami. The Hurricanes, like Kentucky, rely on defensive pressure to create turnovers, but Oklahoma has proven themselves against Baylor, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma State by playing well-composed ball against three very talented and very different teams. If you're looking for an opening weekend upset in the Dayton region, this is the best one to pick.

Once in Dayton...

We should see Tennessee, Ohio State, Oklahoma/Miami, and Notre Dame in Dayton in what is a locally loaded region. Tennessee will likely be playing a near-road game with the Ohio State campus so close to Dayton, and Notre Dame fans should outnumber anything that Oklahoma or Miami sends over. The upside is that Tennessee matches up well with Ohio State, and the ridiculous depth of the team should allow them to keep the pace and energy level of the game very high. The winner of the Notre Dame / whoever game won't have much time to prepare for Tennessee, and so long as the Lady Vols don't dig an early hole, they should be able to mix and match lineups until they find the combinations that work best. Both games have the potential to be very exciting, but Tennessee should be favored in each.

Glancing at the teams, the five-team order of likelihood for heading to the Final Four from the Dayton region should look something like this: Tennessee, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Ohio State, then Miami. Miami has the toughest run of these teams, but Ohio State has the toughest Sweet Sixteen matchup with Tennessee. All in all, it's a region that features about 6 really exciting games, which is as good as any other region in the bracket. (It's far better than the zero-game Philly bracket. Snoozer...)

Bonus

Swish Appeal's Nate Parham projects the entire first round. He gives considerable (and justifiable) love to Bowling Green and is not yet completely sold on Tennessee's improvement over the last few weeks. I give a little more creedence to Ohio State than he does, largely due to their conference championship and 9-game win streak.

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Comments

If OSU has problems on the glass like that, I'm not worried about them at all.

Glory will eat them for lunch.

With that being said, Notre Dame will be the toughest matchup the Ladies face in months; I feel fairly confident, but Nate seems to know what he’s about, too. (Although I doubt he’s seen as much of the Ladies as we have, I also doubt I’ve seen as much of other teams.)

Formerly 'snail. You get used to it after a while.

by Chris Pendley on Mar 17, 2011 8:23 AM EDT reply actions

I thought so too.

My one question is: how much has OSU improved over the last few games? Are they rebounding better now but have a lowered average due to earlier season malaise, or is it still a big problem?

by David Hooper on Mar 17, 2011 9:28 AM EDT up reply actions

Another way to look at it

According to the NCAA’s own RPI the absolute toughest 2 SEED is DUKE and the easiest is Notre Dame
does that sound like we have the toughest bracket?

The toughest three seed is UCLA and Stanford got them
We got by far the toughest 4 seed ROFLMAO – Foster’s Ohio State
Our three seed Miami is the second easiest next to FSU.

Baylor got the 2nd toughest 2 seed but a #15 rpi 3 seed FSU
Stanford’s 2 seed is easier than their 3 seed and both are tougher than Notre Dame

Ohio State is not a contender for the Final Four PERIOD
they have 9 losses including a 31 point loss at home to the reigning champs – a loss to Duquesne and two losses to Northwestern and Michigan and those 3 teams aren’t even in the tournament. The only team they seem to beat is Michigan State. Ok they did eek out an early season win by 4 at LSU – a team we just beat by 20 and Ohio State is the only seed in out bracket that is the toughest on their 4 seed line.

I like Miami’s chances to beat ND and we get to send them home from Dayton along with OSU if OSU can get past Georgia Tech – which I would doubt if it weren’t on OSU’s court since Tech’s losses were to Tenn, GTown, MD, FSU, and DUKE + Miami twice. Teams in a much tougher conference than the Big 10 – they also beat UNC twice and MD along with UGA and the Northwestern team that beat OSU twice.

So Ga Tech could eliminate OSU and Miami will give ND one heck of a fight and we’ve already beaten Ga Tech and Miami has already beaten them too. None of the teams in our bracket will cause undue concern to our Lady Vols. We have the players to match up great vs ND, Miami, Ga Tech or OSU.

by aurabass on Mar 17, 2011 7:01 PM EDT reply actions

Miami / ND would be an interesting game, but I'm not sold that Miami will be Oklahoma.

That’s the best place for a modest upset in the bracket, IMO. I’m also not worried about OSU or Georgia Tech. If Tennessee loses to either of those teams, it’ll be because Tennessee let themselves lose, and they’d deserve every bit of that loss.

by David Hooper on Mar 17, 2011 7:41 PM EDT up reply actions

Looking at a potential ND vs TN match up

ND Record

UNH W99-48
MORE W91-28
#15 UCLA L86-83 2OT
@ #10 UK L81-76
IUPU W95-29
WAKE W92-69
BUT W85-54
@ #3 BAY L76-65
PUR W72-51
@ PROV W79-43
CREI W91-54
VALP W94-43 GONZ*W70-61 @ LMU W91-47 SEMO W97-21 @ MARQ W73-55 #2 CONN L79-76 LOU W80-60 @ PITT W82-50 #17 GTWN W80-58 SJU W69-36 @ VILL W58-43 SYR W71-48 @ USF W76-68 HALL W89-38 RUTG W71-49 @ #2 CONN L78-57 @ WVU W72-60 CIN W66-48 #11 DEP L70-69
LOU*W63-53
#13 DEP*W71-67
#1 CONN*L73-64

Interesting season for the Irish.
They did get a couple of good wins vs GTown 5 seed and DePaul 3 seed at HOME and in the tournament.

Their ROAD wins were vs MARQ, WVa, USF, VILL, PITT, and PROV. That’s one 8 seed and one 9 seed and a string of wins vs the bottom

The Irish did beat Purdue 9 seed, Louisville 7 seed, Rutgers 7 seed, and Gonzaga 11 seed at HOME.

ND is a competent top 8 or 10 team that caught a break with an undeserved 2 seed over UCLA – a team that won at ND and had a better record.

The win vs DePaul in the BEast tourney is interesting
ND got off 65 shots to DePaul’s 92 and ND shot 23 of 29 FT’s to 8 of 12 for DePaul WOW can that be right? ND got 15 more points off free throws?

A similar discrepancy showed up vs GTown in South Bend
13 more points off a dozen more FT’s

I guess whoever faces the Irish should be aware of the FT discrepancy problem.
They shot 250 more FT’s than their opponents
that doesn’t sound much like a team that wins on in your face defense.

Assists Tenn 459 ND 571 Turnovers TN 521 to 588
That’s for the season and it’s not that wide a difference
40 for TN and 17 for ND – that’s less than 1 per game difference
1357 rebounds for ND 1517 for TN or a mere 160 or 5 per game
I will take 1 more TO vs 5 more rebounds against the fields.
Our turnover problem is diminishing and our rebounding is improving as the season progressed and our freshmen and sophomore guards got better with the posts getting healthier.

Our SOS is 5 ND’s is 12. These differences aren’t really that important.
What is important is match ups and the ND Roster
11 Achonwa, Natalie 6-3 Forward FR
14 Peters, Devereaux 6-2 Forward SR
44 Braker, Ariel 6-1 Forward FR
32 Bruszewski, Becca 6-1 Forward SR
41 Forr, Mary 5-11 Forward SR
4 Diggins, Skylar 5-9 Guard SO
22 Mallory, Brittany 5-10 Guard SR
23 McBride, Kayla 5-11 Guard FR
12 Miller, Fraderica 5-10 Guard JR
21 Novosel, Natalie 5-11 Guard JR
2 Badway, Veronica 5-7 Guard JR
15 Turner, Kaila 5-8 Guard SO

52 Kelley Cain C 6-6 RS-Jr.
21 Vicki Baugh F 6-4 RS-Jr.
25 Glory Johnson F 6-3 Jr.
33 Alyssia Brewer F 6-3 Jr.
40 Shekinna Stricklen G-F 6-2 Jr.
15 Alicia Manning G-F 6-1 Jr.
13 Taber Spani G-F 6-1 So.
5 Angie Bjorklund G 6-0 Sr.
4 Kamiko Williams G 5-11 So.
10 Meighan Simmons G 5-9 Fr.
12 Lauren Avant PG 5-9 Fr.
1 Briana Bass PG 5-2 Jr.
20 Sydney Smallbone G 5-10 Sr.

So right off the bat we notice the height advantage and we know the difference between the ratings and awards of our recruits. ND is a very competent and savvy team but they just don’t have the depth or height or pedigree that matches up with Tennessee.

Diggins v Simmons and Williams/Avant
Novosel v Bjorklund
Peters/Anchonwa v Johnson/Cain/Brewer/Baugh
Bruszewski v Stricklen
Mallory v Spani/Manning

I like our match ups. We may be even at the guard positions with Diggins and Novosel but the post is pretty tough and I don’t see ND winning the battle with anyone but Diggins and Novosel, Even that isn’t a dramatic difference.

As 3point shooting UT’s 38% average has been altered by Angie’s 6 game absence and Alicia’s recent emergence as a scoring threat. The percentages for Kinna 44% conference vs 39% all games show her improvement. With Angie, Kinna, Meighan, Taber, and Alicia all being 3 point threats it’s tougher to find a game where they all are cold. But vs ND we will be going inside early and often where we have the bigger advantage.

I’m sure ND will make a respectable showing in the tournament and against the Lady Vols if we both get that far. But ND just isn’t a scary team as far as I can see and they will have a tougher time with either Miami or Oklahoma than TN should have with GaTech or Ohio State.

by aurabass on Mar 17, 2011 7:25 PM EDT reply actions

Don't know why the schedule results part of the above post is fubar

some problem with the page script

by aurabass on Mar 17, 2011 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Let's see if we can fix that schedule a bit:

ND Record

UNH W99-48
MORE W91-28
#15 UCLA L86-83 2OT
@ #10 UK L81-76
IUPU W95-29
WAKE W92-69
BUT W85-54
@ #3 BAY L76-65
PUR W72-51
@ PROV W79-43
CREI W91-54
@ VALP W94-43
GONZ*W70-61
@ LMU W91-47
SEMO W97-21
@ MARQ W73-55
#2 CONN L79-76
LOU W80-60
@ PITT W82-50
#17 GTWN W80-58
SJU W69-36
@ VILL W58-43
SYR W71-48
@ USF W76-68
HALL W89-38
RUTG W71-49
@ #2 CONN L78-57
@ WVU W72-60
CIN W66-48
@ #11 DEP L70-69
LOU*W63-53
# 13 DEP*W71-67
# 1 CONN*L73-64

by David Hooper on Mar 17, 2011 7:34 PM EDT up reply actions

'twas the @ symbols that got you

They have to have spaces around them or SBN thinks you’re trying to use sarcasm font.

by David Hooper on Mar 17, 2011 7:34 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks for the fix Dave

by aurabass on Mar 17, 2011 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions

With the LV's it's never a question of talent or athleticism,

it’s always a question of mental toughness. So the question against OSU/ND is do they have the mental tenacity to bring it in a no-holds barred regional, a situation they have not excelled in previously.

Marquette/Texas will not upset the LV’s in Knoxville. They will reach Dayton. If they can put together four halves of tough basketball then they will go to the Final Four, otherwise not.

Pre-SEC tournament, I felt that the LV’s would lose in the regional. Their tournament performance has given me hope. I think their best shot at a national championship remains next year, though, when they will be peaking, I think, and practically impossible to stop.

by Lvnnville on Mar 17, 2011 10:18 PM EDT reply actions