WBB Watch Guide: 5 teams to watch during conference tournaments

Keep an eye on these women’s college basketball teams, whose conference tournament performances could shape the March Madness field.

The women’s college basketball regular season is behind us now and it’s time for the conference tournaments, which will help shape the final field ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

Today, let’s take a look at five teams (or, in the case of one tournament, teams) to keep an eye on this week. These are teams whose spot in the tournament field still feels tenuous and who need good showings this week to lock up a spot in the 68-team field, or teams that could really shake things up if they don’t win their conference because they have a resume that could get them an at-large bid.

Which women’s college basketball teams will play pivotal roles this week?

5. West Virginia

There’s no team more fascinating this week than West Virginia, which ESPN’s Charlie Creme currently has as the final team in the field. Theoretically, all it takes is one bid steal in a conference where the regular season champion should be locked in — I’ll highlight a couple of those teams farther down — and the Mountaineers are out, and a quarterfinals loss to Oklahoma State would probably doom WVU as well.

The Mountaineers ended the season strong, winning three in a row. They’re kind of the opposite of most of the Big 12 — offense has defined a lot of these teams this year, but WVU is ninth in the conference in offensive rating. But they can make games ugly — they’re second to Texas in defensive rating and rank 31st in the country in steal rate.

The problem for West Virginia and why they need at least one, but probably two wins to get an at-large bid is that they’re just 61st in the NET, behind teams like Virginia, Oregon State and Clemson, all of whom aren’t going to get in. The 19-10 record looks good, but the team’s best non-con win was against Georgia.

4. Columbia/Princeton

Right now, ESPN has the Ivy League as the only non-power league with multiple teams in the tournament. Both Columbia and Princeton went 12-2 in conference play, while the Lions were 23-4 overall and the Tigers were 21-5.

Both teams are in the top 50 in the NET, with Princeton at 41 and Columbia at 45. If both teams advance to meet in the Ivy League championship game, then I think both are in, but things get interesting if either team loses early in the conference tournament. The women’s committee has historically seemed to have hang-ups with mid-major programs, so could an early exit also knock one of these teams out of the field?

3. Toledo

The top of the MAC has been really strong this season, but it’s still likely to be a one-bid conference, so the Rockets are going to need to keep their 13-game win streak going. The team’s biggest competition is from Bowling Green, and the two teams are extremely close in the NET rankings, with Toledo at 69 and BGSU at 72. (Note: as a BGSU alum, I have some bias here, but I think it’s cool that the MAC auto-bid might come down to two teams that are 25 miles apart. They’re so close that I used to know someone who lived down the block from UT but attended the MFA program at BG with me.)

If you’re rooting for a team getting in that can upset someone in the tournament, you should want the Rockets to win the MAC. They went 25-4 this year, with one of those wins coming against Michigan, and the team hasn’t lost since Jan. 18, when they fell 88-76 to BG. Quinesha Lockett’s the kind of player who can dominate a game.

2. Middle Tennessee

Now we get to one of two mid-majors that could really shake up the bracket if they lose in their conference tournament. If West Virginia’s getting in, for example, then it needs MTSU to win Conference USA. Right now, Creme has the Blue Raiders as an 11-seed after they went 25-4 this season and were 18-2 in conference play. They have a plus-25.9 net rating on the season and have been one of the top offenses in the country, with their 109.8 offensive rating ranking in the 97th percentile per CBB Analytics.

Maybe an early exit knocks them out, but the Blue Raiders are 28th in the NET, so theoretically they should still be in play for an at-large with a loss, especially if that loss came in the conference title game against Rice, which is in the top 100 in the NET. The team’s non-con win over Louisville — by 18 points! — is a better resume builder than a lot of teams vying for an at-large would have too. It’ll be interesting to see what happens here.

1. South Dakota State

The Jackrabbits ran through the Summit League with an 18-0 record, winning the regular season title by six games. That’s…not normal. Last year, the Jackrabbits and in-state rivals South Dakota both went 17-1 in conference play. The Summit is historically a really competitive year, but a down year from the other Dakota teams helped the Jackrabbits run away with it.

At 26-5 and with non-conference wins over Mississippi State, Rutgers, Louisville and Kansas State, the Jackrabbits should be in no matter what. They’re 37th in the NET. Even though the rest of the Summit is buried in NET — North Dakota is second among Summit teams and is way down at 175 — the Jackrabbits should have built a good enough resume to get in even with an upset loss. They aren’t like Gardner-Webb, which went undefeated in conference play but has no shot at the tournament without a Big South tournament title.

A few other teams to keep an eye on that are in the Middle Tennessee/South Dakota State boat: Gonzaga, UNLV and South Florida — all teams that should be in no matter what, but who would shake up the tournament if their automatic bids are stolen.

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