New to women's college basketball? Welcome to the fun! This weekend is one of the most important times in the basketball season — Selection Sunday! On Sunday, the NCAA will release the brackets for the men's and women's March Madness Tournaments. As we have during funky weeks in the year, we are changing the format of our column to help you prepare to fill out your brackets next week.
3 tips for filling out a bracket
Don't always go with the higher seed: It may be easy to just go through your bracket and select all the higher-seeded teams to win games. Sounds logical, but if that was the way the tournament always worked out, it wouldn't be March Madness! It would be March SuperPredictable. Now, that's not to say (especially in the first few rounds) that the higher seed doesn't have a better chance of winning, but ultimately, there will be upsets. As you get to the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight stages of your bracket, it's not all about seeding, and more so about match ups and potential game plans. If you're planning to take your bracket SUPER seriously, take a bit of time before locking in your picks to do a bit of research. The two factors below are good places to start!
Look at regular season series between teams: Some teams just play differently against each other. For example, UCLA was the most dominant team in the country until mid-February, when USC came in and absolutely asserted dominance with two wins in just as many weeks against UCLA. Juju Watkins loves playing UCLA. UCLA then came in and won the Big-10 Tournament Championship game against USC. Obviously these two teams are so good it's hard to definitively say who has the upper hand, but there are many other matchups to keep in mind. USC lost a game to Iowa this season, Notre Dame to NC State as well as Duke. Some teams just have factors that make them strong against other particular teams. A team like Duke is super defensively-minded, so if they can break down a team that relies on their offense. A few years ago, UConn was stunned in the Sweet Sixteen by Ohio State and its full-court press. Factors like that come into play during the tournament. Also, make sure to check if anyone on the teams you're picking near the end of the bracket has announced any big injuries.
Keep conference match-ups in mind: Something fun about women's college basketball is the diversity of style among conferences. The SEC conference is where big, physical players thrive, as there is an emphasis on traditional frontcourt play, pick and rolls, etc. The ACC is a guard-heavy conference where you are going to see a lot of crafty backcourt players and shooters. The Big-10 has a lot of dynamic, multi-faceted players who can operate anywhere on the court. Keeping these little style differences in mind can help you try to predict winners. An SEC team with a very tall frontcourt may have the upper edge against an ACC team that doesn't have comparable depth in the frontcourt - especially if their shooters have an off day. Going back to seeing how teams overcame these obstacles in previous games can help.
2 underdog teams to watch
Nothing makes March Madness more fun then a good Cinderella story. A team that beats the odds, busts brackets, and has the time of their lives. Here are two teams that very well could go farther than seeding predicts them to.
Florida State: The Seminoles have been in and out of the top-25 all season long, but they are the kind of team you should be scared to go up against in March. Ta'Niya Latson is averaging 24.9 points per game on the season and is highly regarded as one of the best players in the country. Players like Latson thrive in big moments, and March is full of them. Florida State had their big upset game in North Carolina against UNC earlier in the year — on a HUGE buzzer-beater play by Latson. As a team that definitely has not gotten the national news attention they deserve this year, they will definitely come into March ready to prove some people wrong and bust some brackets.
Vanderbilt: Another team with star-power, Vanderbilt has a young duo in Mikayla Blakes and Khamil Pierre that have the talent to take the team far. Blakes has had multiple 50+ games this season, and it would not be shocking to see her bring that impact into the tournament. They had a great showing at the SEC tournament, eventually falling to the behemoth South Carolina Gamecocks, but could bust some brackets this month.
1 player made for March: Juju Watkins
Heading into her second NCAA Tournament, Watkins is going to be playing with a chip on her shoulder. In her first NCAA Tournament last year, her USC Trojans were eliminated by UConn in the Elite Eight. After winning the PAC-12 Tournament in her freshman season, USC came into the Big-10 conference this season and won the regular season but were defeated in the championship game against rival UCLA. Consider the bear, poked.
It's not like Watkins needs to prove her talent, as everyone knows she is the best player in the country this year. Yet, none of that matters to a player. Championships matter to a player. Expect Juju Watkins to turn it up in the NCAA Tournament because she wants a championship. She wants to beat UCLA if she gets the chance, she wants to get her rematch against UConn (who USC beat earlier in the regular season), and she wants to continue to prove herself. Watkins is the kind of player made for March.