SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Do the NCAA women’s national basketball rankings committee know something that we don’t?
It has already declared once-beaten South Carolina (24-1) number one, and even penciled in the other top four seeds that totals the sweet 16. Now if that holds steady, what about the conferences tournaments yet to be played?
But as of Wednesday, the odds makers have the Gamecocks checked off as the 7-5 favorite, and second, all of a sudden, is the soaring-hot University of Connecticut team that is 22-5 and played its last 24 games without sophomore All-America Paige Bueckers, last season’s Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year.
The reason the Huskies have hung in there is that they are better now. Bueckers is back after a lengthy recovery from knee surgery. Back after being sidelined for two months and two weeks. And without her, head coach Geno Auriemma’s record 11 national championships program slipped from No. 3 to No. 8, to No. 11, and now sits at No. 7.
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The reason the Huskies have hung around is that they are much better. Now Buekers joins a roster that has brought a pair of blue chip freshmen in National High School Player of the Year in guard Azzi Fudd and versatile 6-foot-2 wing Caroline Ducharme.
Then add 6-5 graduate senior Dorka Juhasz, a two-time Big Ten player while at Ohio State and hails from Pecs, Hungary.
Senior guard Christyn Williams joins Bueckers and Fudd as national players of the year. And senior guard Evina Westbrook went from a starter to the key reserve with lots of experience after leading Tennessee in scoring her sophomore year.
Blend these in with 6-3 sophomore Aaliyah Edwards, 6-5 senior post Olivia Nelson-Ododa, sophomore point guard Nika Muhl, and can’t forget the other two 6-5ers in freshman Amari DeBerry and sophomore Piath Gabriel.
So now that’s UConn has looked the part as the No.2-ranked team chosen lately by the national committee, it’s the Big East tournament that no doubt has it as the top seed, and that starts play Saturday at the XL Center in nearby Hartford.
If the Huskies sweep through the conference it annually wins, it might not play outside Connecticut until the Final Four. Ahead of them at this time is Stanford, Louisville, Arizona, North Carolina State, and Baylor, but via the current rankings, they could go from a present 3rd seed to a first or second seed.
UConn gets a first round bye and faces the winner of 8th-seed Providence and 9th-seedeed Georgetown. The other pairings have No. 7 St. John’s taking on No. 10 Xavier, and No. 6 Seton Hall versus No. 11 Butler.
No. 4 DePaul and No. 5 Marquette take the court for the quarterfinals, 2nd-seeded Villanova plays the St. John’s-Xavier survivor, and Creighton
