Mar 16th, 2010
There will be no NCAA Tournament for the Cal women this year. In fact, only two Pac-10 teams, Stanford and UCLA, got into the 64-team field, which was announced Monday, which suggests the conference’s reputation in women’s basketball is no better than it was on the men’s side. The Big 12 and Big East each got seven teams into the women’s NCAA Tournament.
For followers of Stanford women’s basketball, the only game that matters is one against Connecticut. Not surprisingly, however, the Cardinal could not play Connecticut until the national championship game because UConn received the No. 1 overall seed and Stanford got the No. 2 overall seed.
The fact that Stanford is the No. 1 seed in the Sacramento regional comes as no surprise, but it is a bit of surprise that it’s the first time since 1998 that the Cardinal earned a No. 1 seed in one of the four regionals. Stanford will begin its bid for a women’s national championship against UC Riverside on Saturday, but it is a team that won the Big 12 tournament that may be the Cardinal’s biggest obstacle on its way to the Final Four.
(See entire women’s NCAA bracket here.)
UC Riverside (17-15) does not figure to give the Cardinal (31-1) much of a challenge in the first-round game, which begins at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, especially since the game will be played on Stanford’s home court, Maples Pavilion.
And the Cardinal will have the homecourt edge again for a second-round game on Monday against either No. 8 seed Iowa or No. 9 Rutgers. Stanford has already beaten Rutgers this season and would be favored against Iowa, which finished tied for third in the Big Ten.
If the Cardinal gets through the first two rounds, it would not need to travel too far for its next two games, which would be played in Sacramento.
In the third round, the Cardinal could face Oklahoma State, although the Cowboys will be without star Andrea Riley and her 26.6 points a game in their first-round game against Chattanooga because of an incident in her last NCAA Tournament game. She would be back in the second round and for a potential third-round matchup against Stanford.
Waiting in the regional finals might be Texas A&M, the No. 2 seed in the region. The Aggies only finished fourth in the Big 12, but they are one of the hottest teams in the country, as evidenced by their 10-point win over previously unbeaten Nebraska in the Big 12 tournament. Texas A&M would be a tough matchup for the Cardinal, because the Aggies’ strength is their backcourt, which is where the Cardinal is vulnerable. Texas A&M forces opponents into an average of 21.2 turnovers a game, and that kind of pressure defense is probably the best weapon against Stanford.
Nebraska, the No. 1 seed in the Kansas City regional, could be Stanford’s opponent in the national semifinals. UConn and Tennessee are the other two No. 1 seeds and they could meet in the semifinals.
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