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Message: [QUOTE="Fairfield Fan, post: 2639443, member: 6911"] Nope. And all of those half-bright "journalists" who've been moaning about UConn "dominance" of WCBB will now have to go back and rethink (did they think much in the first place?). WCBB, with Central Michigan, Buffalo in the Sweet Sixteen, and Quinnipiac, Florida Gulf Coast, and Creighton having beaten Power 5 conference representatives, and with other unknowns like Drake, American and Mercer having made strong showings against other power conference entries, a reconsideration is definitely in order. And it's not the traditional powerhouses from the traditional power conferences who are taking the top spots in the Sweet Sixteen. South Carolina, Oregon, Mississippi State, UCLA, and Oregon State are only recent arrivals in the highest echelon of WCBB. Perhaps they're there because of the arrival of recent great recruiting classes (Mississippi State, Oregon, Oregon State), or a great recruit (South Carolina). Or perhaps it's due to the arrival of a new up-and-coming coach (Oregon). In any event, there are few traditional decade-after-decade teams in the Sweet Sixteen this year: Tara's Stanford, Muffet's Notre Dame, and a surprise reappearance by Duke. And look at the conferences represented. There are four- count 'em: four!- teams from the Pac 12, a conference that for so many years was nothing but Stanford and the Eleven Dwarfs. There are three teams from the ACC. But look closer, and you see that one of them is a surprise entry- NC State, while one of them was until recently a Big East Team. No UNC, no Maryland, either as a Big 10 entry or an ACC entry. Gone from the SEC entries is Tennessee, gone is LSU. The two SEC teams are relatively recently emerged. But of course, there is Connecticut and Coach Geno Auriemma. Those two are the one constant. No matter what else happens in women's basketball, his coaching genius leads him to devise winning strategies in games, train his players, as he once put it, "so that we can't get it wrong," and to recruit just the right kind of athlete with the right kind of attitude. Let's hope that Connecticut wins the national championship again. But when the inevitable blow-hard sports writer laments once again that Connecticut is "bad for women's basketball," send him this post. Then celebrate the dramatic changes in the women's game that has Buffalo and Oregon and Central Michigan and Oregon State and NC State fighting in the Sweet Sixteen. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach