68 teams have become 32 teams. A rather chalky first round has concluded and we now quickly pivot to the second round of the Women's NCAA Tournament.
Friday and Saturday's games gave us a window into who is a title contender, who has a shot at the Sweet 16 and who might not be for real. Here are the key takeaways.
Tennessee needs to think about its coaching situation
Note I said "think about," because I don't think Kim Caldwell has to be fired this offseason. It's just that the program needs to have a serious conversation about what it's trying to do at this point.
Caldwell's system, which emphasizes pressing on defense and features hockey-style subs and no set starting lineup, worked at Marshall, but I'm not sold it's going to work at the power conference level, and an eight-game losing streak to end the season amidst reports of discord in the locker room kind of proves that, right?
I'm not an insider here, but I'd be shocked if we didn't see a huge exodus of players in the transfer portal. I imagine this athletic department wiill give Caldwell a chance to put her own unique roster together, getting players who are ready to buy into her system. The problem is, like...are those players going to be SEC-level talents? I love thinking outside the box, but I worry that Tennessee is too prestigious of a program for Caldwell's brand of outside-the-box thinking to actually work.
Texas Tech can win close games
On the first day of the first round, we didn't see any lower seeds beat higher seeds, though No. 10 seed Villanova came close, taking No. 7 seed Texas Tech to the limit in a game that was, frankly, an ugly basketball game. But an ugly win is still a win, and Texas Tech marches on to the second round for the first time since 2005.
The Red Raiders had looked a bit shaky in recent weeks, plagued by a recent downturn in offensive production. Counting Friday's win over Villanova, Tech has scored under 60 points in four consecutive games. Before this stretch, the team hadn't been held under 60 since a Jan. 17 loss to Kansas State.
But the defense has been stepping up. Tech has won two of its last three games, and it held its opponent under 60 points in all three games. The team is perfecting the idea of an ugly win right now.
Do I realistically think they can manage this kind of game against LSU on Sunday? No. As much as I love the story of this Tech team, led by a head coach and a star player both from the Texas Panhandle who have both flirted with success over the past few seasons before finally putting it all together, I don't actually expect a Sweet 16 run with LSU up next. Still, I feel better about Tech's chances of keeping the game respectable, which is something, right?
The No. 1 seeds are rolling
No shock here, right? The best teams coming into the tournament look like the best teams still heading into the second round.
Just look at these scores:
No. 1 | Score | No. 16 | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
UConn | 90 | UTSA | 52 |
South Carolina | 103 | Southern | 34 |
UCLA | 96 | Cal Baptist | 43 |
Texas | 87 | Missouri State | 45 |
This season has seemed, at times, like the slow coronation of those four teams, like we're bound for a Final Four that just solidifies the way we've thought about the power structure of women's college basketball all season. It's just been one round, but it definitely feels like that's where we're still at.
Sure, LSU and Vanderbilt both showed they have what it takes to crash that party, and Texas might be vulnerable against Michigan in the Elite Eight, but there's no reason yet to think we're getting anything but chalk as far as the No. 1 seeds go. I certainly don't see any of them losing in the second round, though I do think there's a slight bit of intrigue in UCLA/Oklahoma State and Texas/Oregon. The better teams should prevail there, but those two games could be close for a bit, whereas I don't see USC hanging with South Carolina for long and I don't see Syracuse having anything for UConn, as the Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong duo is just too good.
Iowa just came really close to making history
But not good history! A 15 seed has never defeated a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but Fairleigh Dickinson took the Hawkeyes down to the wire.
Iowa went very cold from deep, going 1-for-13 while the Knights went 10-for-32. That shooting variance was almost enough, but Iowa was able to pull away late for the 10-point win.
What can we take away from this game re: Iowa? I think it's as simple as this: the Hawkeyes are beatable, and their path to the Final Four looks a lot harder than we expected. I think the lack of a true go-to outside scorer is an issue as the games get tougher and tougher. The Ava Heiden-Hannah Stuelke frontcourt is elite stuff — Heiden has 29 on 11-for-16 shooting and Stuelke was the only other player in double digits — but the guard play is too inconsistent. Chazadi Wright and Kyle Feuerbach were a combined 1-for-9 from deep, and that was enough to almost doom to Iowa to one of the biggest upset losses in tournament history.
You need someone else who is ready to step up from deep. Iowa doesn't need a Caitlin Clark, but this is where having Lucy Olsen for another year would have been huge. Instead, the team has to hope either Wright or Feuerbach has a big game, which could happen, but it's a risky thing to bet on.