On Sunday night, the bracket for the Women's NCAA Tournament was revealed. It was a reveal that was relatively free of surprises, though there were some questionable seed-line decisions.
While the No. 1 seeds went about as expected, surprises quickly followed, like Notre Dame dropping down to a No. 3 seed. But was that a big-enough surprise for the Irish to qualify as a team "seeded too low?" You'll just have to read on to find out.
Here are two teams seeded two high and two seeded too low in Women's March Madness.
Too Low: Grand Canyon
I usually have a lot of issues with how the committee ranks mid-major teams. It just seems like you can have as good a year as possible, but if you're in a conference like the WAC, you're not going to do better than a No. 12 seed.
GCU is 32-2 on the season and is currently riding a 30-game win streak after a 16-0 mark in conference play. The team's losses were to a very good Middle Tennessee team and an Oregon team that made the tournament. The Lopes beat both Arizona and Arizona State over the course of the season.
Head coach Molly Miller looks poised to turn this performance into a power conference job, but any chance at a deep playoff run was likely dashed when the team only landed a No. 12 seed, pitting the Lopes against Baylor in the first round in a game that will be played in Waco.
Too High: Maryland
This was the shock of the tournament. We'd spent days wondering how the final No. 4 seeds would go. Alabama had a shot. So did Ole Miss. No one had really brought up Maryland, but the Terps wound up as the No. 4 in the Birmingham region.
I'm not saying Maryland shouldn't have been in the conversation, but it just seems like a slight miss by the committee. The Terrapins went 23-7, but the team struggled against good teams. Maryland went 1-4 against other teams to earn a top four seed and ended the season with a 27-point loss to Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament.
That loss to the Wolverines made this especially questionable. The last thing the committee saw from Maryland was a blowout loss in their conference tournament opener to a team it gave a lower seed. It's just...I know it was just one game and we shouldn't read too much into one game, but with the battle for a No. 4 seed so tight, it's surprising something like that didn't knock the team out.
Too Low: Notre Dame
Look, did Notre Dame struggle down the stretch? Yes. But if we look at the season as a whole, Notre Dame deserved a No. 2 seed more than Duke did. (Note: Duke's not on this list because I do think it had some argument for the seed it got — it's a shame we couldn't just have five No. 2 seeds.)
Notre Dame had some of the biggest wins in the country this season, beating USC, Texas and UConn in non-conference play, and defeating Duke in the regular season before losing when the teams met in the conference tournament.
The team was ranked No. 8 in the last AP Top 25, and ranked outside the top eight in just one poll all season, dropping to No. 10 on Dec. 2 after a shocking upset loss to Utah.
With all five losses coming to tournament teams and a star-studded roster built for a deep tournament run, the Irish should have been a two.
Too High: Iowa
Iowa landed a No. 6 seed in the tournament, but did the Hawkeyes deserve it?
Iowa has 10 losses this season, double what the team had last season. Of course, that was to be expected now that Caitlin Clark is in the WNBA and the Hawkeyes also had to replace their glue player, Kate Martin. Lucy Olsen did her best to replace Clark, but it's tough to replace a legend.
One of the reasons I'm lown on Iowa is that the team just didn't really play that well in Big Ten play. That includes a five-game losing streak in January and a record of 5-9 against conference opponents with a top 50 Her Hoop Stats rating.
The team's marquee win was a home victory over USC, but I struggle with how to make sense of that game. It was Clark's jersey retirement game and her aura cast some kind of spell on the Hawkeyes that day in Iowa City.