End of Year Forecast

[MSGRET]

No one hates UConn. Every game is one TV and most of those games are against horrible teams. UConn is like Caitlin Clark in that people say they are hated but anyone who want revenue knows they are the biggest draws. As far as seeding goes I could see a team like UCLA or South Carolina being the overall 1 seed based on schedule but in the end all Final 4 teams will need to be able to beat any of the other three to win the tournament.

If UConn has a weakness it is their post game. Right now their post players have trouble making a layup and against UCLA they will be a non factor on offense. UConn has Azzi and Sarah who are two of the top 5 or 6 players in the country and no team will be able to stop them both. They have a great support system to them in Ash and KK but to me the key will be what they get from the bench. If Blanca plays at a high level it gives UConn a huge advantage against any team even if the post can't score.

UConn handled UCLA last year in the Final Four 85-51, despite Betts getting 26 points. The refs allowed Betts to get away with so many fouls that it was laughable. Yana out rebounded her 8-5 while playing 13 minutes less.

 

[1974yankees]

I have a theory.. There have been a lot of people asking why Uconn has a series of games where they dont look their best...

I was wondering if maybe they are bored with their conference competition? Maybe they take it for granted that they are gonna win...

You almost never see Uconn slack/lack enthusiasm a little against really good teams.....

It's also not like they are slacking. It's more like they might be showing mercy to these weaker teams...

Maybe I am wrong.

 

[hussybulldog]

You gotta' beat whoever is in your way ...as Queen sang, "it really doesn't matter to me!"

Agree, if you are the champion , you should be able to beat everyone else. Just bring it on, nobody can say, oh they had the easiest path to win the championship ….

 

[hussybulldog]

UConn handled UCLA last year in the Final Four 85-51, despite Betts getting 26 points. The refs allowed Betts to get away with so many fouls that it was laughable. Yana out rebounded her 8-5 while playing 13 minutes less.

I loved that several times she was able to go around Betts and deflected the pass to Betts.

 

[Cuango]

If UCLA finishes with just one loss, a case could be made for them being the overall #1 seed. If South Carolina finishes with just two losses, a case could be made for them being the #2 one seed. Is all this speculation just a case of much ado about something we can’t control anyway? We won it all as a 2 last year, let’s just do it again! Committee decisions be damned.

Surely you’re not volunteering?😎

 

[Cuango]

If UConn gets edged out from the overall #1 seed it will be because they stumbled in the BET or UCLA or South Carolina edges them out in terms of overall resume which is very possible.

Difficult to see them discounting an undefeated, defending National Champion who’s on a 50? (Knock wood) game winning streak!

 

[hoopsfan22]

Difficult to see them discounting an undefeated, defending National Champion who’s on a 50? (Knock wood) game winning streak!

It's actually not that difficult. UConn hasn't looked great for stretches of this month for whatever reason, and has played what one ranked team since Christmas in Tennessee (maybe two if ND counts depending on the poll)? South Carolina for example has looked really good recently beating four ranked teams in just the last couple of weeks, with the SEC tournament to come where they can further pad their resume with more wins over ranked teams. If there's any sort of recency bias in the selection process, it's not unreasonable to think UConn could get bumped.

 

[my2cents]

Umm... the committee hates UConn?? Do tell?

After we beat South Carolina last year in SC, we were a 2 seed and SC was a 1. QED.

 

[my2cents]

First, (I just learned this from someone here on the Boneyard) apparently, they no longer do #1 vs weakest #2. Instead, they are required to avoid conference matchups. So, SC cannot have an SEC team as their #2 etc. This is infuriating to me as it makes it possible/likely that we will have to play the strongest #2! Two, Geno is not likely to make big changes to the lineup at this point. Three, I’d love to see Crooks, the ones to worry about are Betts, Okot, and Heiden! KK is not going anywhere! She is and will remain, our primary pg until she graduates!

The overall point is that seeding makes no sense. If overall #1 plays the true 5 and not eight, then there is no seeding at all.

 

[my2cents]

UConn handled UCLA last year in the Final Four 85-51, despite Betts getting 26 points. The refs allowed Betts to get away with so many fouls that it was laughable. Yana out rebounded her 8-5 while playing 13 minutes less.

Jana Al Alfy started that game as I recall.

 

[Skeets]

If conference doesn't matter when teams are selected for the NCAA tournament, why do they matter when the seeding and placement is determined?

I'll take that a step further. If an alien popped out of a flying saucer this is what he would see:

Very good teams willingly forming a super conference.
Said conference holds a tournament where teams willingly and enthusiastically try to beat each other's heads in.
Then comes the NCAA tournament where contortions are made so that teams from the super conference don't meet each other for as long as possible. Why? when a week earlier meeting each other was the whole point.

The alien would get back in his saucer, fly off, and continue his search for intelligent life in the universe.

 

[Conndog]

To me, UCLA and South Carolina are the only teams that are capable of beating UConn- UCLA for their shooting, and South Carolina for their size. Azzi could have a bad shooting night and the rest of the team can’t compensate, or maybe their recent flirtation with double teaming and ball trapping will lead to too many open baskets for the other team if they break the press. The odds of this happening are probably low but it could happen. I think instead the rest of the country will see again how UConn just puts it all together & gets a chance to see how good a freshman UConn has in Blanca

 

[NycUcWbbFan]

It's actually not that difficult. UConn hasn't looked great for stretches of this month for whatever reason, and has played what one ranked team since Christmas in Tennessee (maybe two if ND counts depending on the poll)? South Carolina for example has looked really good recently beating four ranked teams in just the last couple of weeks, with the SEC tournament to come where they can further pad their resume with more wins over ranked teams. If there's any sort of recency bias in the selection process, it's not unreasonable to think UConn could get bumped.

Just like the novel Quad 1 quota theory of yours that didn’t pan out when the Committee reveal came out?

The 12 Selection Committee members are named with reputations on the line.

• I don’t think a NET (or other prior ranking system) #1 team that is also undefeated that is winning games by a margin of around 38 points with a very respectable OOC schedule, with an intact team, has ever not been voted as the overall #1 seed.
• That hot take will forever tarnish the NCAAT, a slap in the face of the #1 program (by far), the #1 coaching staff (by far), the most ardent and innumerable fans, and a double-take by at-large casual fans; and a slap in the face of smaller conferences everywhere.

 

[sun]

I'll take that a step further. If an alien popped out of a flying saucer this is what he would see:

Very good teams willingly forming a super conference.
Said conference holds a tournament where teams willingly and enthusiastically try to beat each other's heads in.
Then comes the NCAA tournament where contortions are made so that teams from the super conference don't meet each other for as long as possible. Why? when a week earlier meeting each other was the whole point.

The alien would get back in his saucer, fly off, and continue his search for intelligent life in the universe.

What if the top 2, 3 or 4 teams in the country were all from the same conference?
They should each have the best chance to advance to the highest stage possible without meeting & being eliminated too early in the tourney.
If Villanova were the 2nd best team in the country, why should they play UConn before the finals (or later rounds)?
IMO the NCAA tries to acknowledge how teams can improve over the course of the entire season and especially during crunch time in March.
And maybe that's why most pro sports have playoffs with a multiple game series being played between the same teams in order to advance in the playoffs or to win a championship.
Because the NCAAT is single elimination, they especially want to seed teams in a way to maximize what's best & most fair for each team and to help promote the popularity of each team & fan base as well as the sport in general.
This is just food for thought in answer to your question about "why."

 

[Phil]

I'll take that a step further. If an alien popped out of a flying saucer this is what he would see:

Very good teams willingly forming a super conference.
Said conference holds a tournament where teams willingly and enthusiastically try to beat each other's heads in.
Then comes the NCAA tournament where contortions are made so that teams from the super conference don't meet each other for as long as possible. Why? when a week earlier meeting each other was the whole point.

The alien would get back in his saucer, fly off, and continue his search for intelligent life in the universe.

Well done!

I would add to that:
Fans of said conference are giddy and looking down on fans of other teams exclaiming how great their conference is. That persists until conference play starts, then those fan start moaning and whining about how difficult their schedule is, and how unfair it is that they have to play so many strong teams while some other teams don't have to.

 

[Phil]

It's actually not that difficult. UConn hasn't looked great for stretches of this month for whatever reason, and has played what one ranked team since Christmas in Tennessee (maybe two if ND counts depending on the poll)? South Carolina for example has looked really good recently beating four ranked teams in just the last couple of weeks, with the SEC tournament to come where they can further pad their resume with more wins over ranked teams. If there's any sort of recency bias in the selection process, it's not unreasonable to think UConn could get bumped.

Being ranked is not a part of the selection committee criteria, so it's irrelevant whether Notre Dame is ranked or not. What is relevant is their Net rating, And they are up to number 24, which means they qualify as a quad one win for UConn. (Notre Dame has one game left against Louisville. I don't think even a loss to Louisville dropped their Net ranking, but I don't know enough about the mathematics of the neck formula to say that with certainty.)

 

[Vowelguy]

After we beat South Carolina last year in SC, we were a 2 seed and SC was a 1. QED

By this logic Tennessee should’ve been a 1 seed because it beat UConn

 

[OldSchooler]

In 2013, Stewie's freshman year and UConn's last season in the old Big East, the Huskies lost at home to Notre Dame by one point, then lost the regular season finale at Notre Dame in triple overtime, then lost to Notre Dame by 2 in the Big East final. They met for a FOURTH time in the national semi-finals at New Orleans, with UConn crushing the Irish by 18. (And then destroyed Louisville for the championship two days later.)

 

[hoopsfan22]

In 2013, Stewie's freshman year and UConn's last season in the old Big East, the Huskies lost at home to Notre Dame by one point, then lost the regular season finale at Notre Dame in triple overtime, then lost to Notre Dame by 2 in the Big East final. They met for a FOURTH time in the national semi-finals at New Orleans, with UConn crushing the Irish by 18. (And then destroyed Louisville for the championship two days later.)

That was the year three of the final four teams were from the Big East. I don't think we've seen one conference get three teams into the final four since, but could be wrong about that.

 

[trisailin]

[td]
743,726.98

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Being ranked is not a part of the selection committee criteria, so it's irrelevant whether Notre Dame is ranked or not. What is relevant is their Net rating, And they are up to number 24, which means they qualify as a quad one win for UConn. (Notre Dame has one game left against Louisville. I don't think even a loss to Louisville dropped their Net ranking, but I don't know enough about the mathematics of the neck formula to say that with certainty.)

To some degree, this again shows how silly the quad idea is. Does it really make any difference between if a team is 29th or 31st? Are they really that different? Treating a win against #5 as the same as #29 (especially on the women's side) doesn't make lots of sense.

 

[my2cents]

Difficult to see them discounting an undefeated, defending National Champion who’s on a 50? (Knock wood) game winning streak!

By this logic Tennessee should’ve been a 1 seed because it beat UConn

My logic was UConn was a better team than South Carolina and should have been seeded ahead of them.

 

[fomalhaut]

This is infuriating to me as it makes it possible/likely that we will have to play the strongest #2!

Unless UCLA gets pushed off the top line and three SEC teams get #1 seeds, there will be two SEC teams on the second line and Connecticut will get the weaker one.

If UCLA finishes with just one loss, a case could be made for them being the overall #1 seed. If South Carolina finishes with just two losses, a case could be made for them being the #2 one seed. Is all this speculation just a case of much ado about something we can’t control anyway? We won it all as a 2 last year, let’s just do it again! Committee decisions be damned.

No chance of being anything other than the top #1 seed as long as they go into the NCAA tournament undefeated. Your second point is right, though: you could put Connecticut into a First Four game and they'd be favored to win the tournament anyway.

 

[The CDR-Ret]

This is a good point, although I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

Before the idiotic conference realignment, there was a regular season, the second half of which in conference games, and the NCAA tournament was a way to find out the best overall teams among all the conferences. It would be very discouraging to be the second or third best team in a conference, go through an entire season, get invited to the tournament, and then find yourself replaying a conference opponent you've already played and lost to during the regular season.

The selection committee understandably decided to keep theseunfortunate meet ups to a minimum, resulting in the current rules. However, those rules will put together when it was not likely that nine or 11, or 12 members of the same conference would be in the season-ending tournament.

While you still might have the same desire to play somebody other than a conference team, it becomes much tougher to slot all those teams and avoid meet ups without creating the potential of unfair slotting of one of the teams without so many conference members in the tournament. The unfairness of having to meet a conference following an early round needs to be balanced against the possibility that a team is moved away from the natural spot, either seed or region or both simply because there are so many members of a single conference.

The ideal situation would be to rethink the stupidity of the conference makeups but I recognize the folly of tilting at that windmill, so maybe the conference meet up rules need to be relaxed.

Which ever is done, it's one more black black mark on the conference realignment debacle

The "best" example was when UConn lost to Notre Dame 3 times (+ a loss to Baylor with Kim as coach), UConn knocked off Notre Dame as Louisville knocked off Baylor. Then UConn whipped Louisville. Yes, it was the FF for the fourth meeting that year.

(Edit: I had not read Oldschooler's post #43, or hoopsfan22"s post #44 before writing this, but brilliant minds come to similar conclusions (they usually don't think alike in my experience))

Nothing like winning when it counts!!

Go Huskies!!!

 

[BBallF]

I doubt Geno cares much about the seedings. More about the logistics of the locations and the timing. But us fans can feel a bit miffed if the #1 over all seed doesn’t have the easiest path to the NC game.

And you can bet the ranch we will not.

 

[Geew1992]

After we beat South Carolina last year in SC, we were a 2 seed and SC was a 1. QED.

So who would you have uconn replace?