INDIANAPOLIS — Have fun with this, selection committee.
Chaos reigned in the major women’s conference tournaments, just as it did in the final weeks of the regular season. Three of the No. 1 seeds in the NCAA’s last projection lost, with Notre Dame not even getting to the ACC title game. Two of the No. 2 seeds also went down. Unranked teams wreaked havoc on the top 25.
It’s glorious! Just glorious. Except for those trying to determine the 68-team tournament field and their seeds, that is.
But this kind of mayhem is further sign of the growth of the women’s game. Gone are the days of one or two schools dominating. There’s at least six teams that can make a legitimate case for winning the national title, and just as many who have serious bracket-busting potential.
So, yeah, ought to be a fun week for the selection committee before the NCAA field is announced Sunday.
Here are the winners and losers from the major conference tournaments:
WINNERS
Big Ten
USC and UCLA have drawn much of the attention in the Big Ten, and rightfully so. UCLA spent much of the season as the country’s No. 1 team and won the conference tournament Sunday while USC won the regular-season title.
But don’t sleep on the rest of the conference. Particularly the teams in the second tier. The Big Ten could get a dozen teams in the NCAA tournament, and anyone drawing Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska or Indiana is not going to be happy.
“The fact that we have teams that are 10, 11, 12 seeds here who might be a better seed in the national tournament is wild,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the Trojans held off Indiana 84-79 in the quarterfinals.
Michigan had USC on its heels for much of their semifinal game Saturday night. The Trojans ultimately prevailed, thanks to both Kiki Iriafen’s big third quarter and the Wolverines’ foul trouble, but Michigan showed it can play with anybody.
Iowa has won 10 of its last 13 games, and those three losses were by a total of 11 points and to ranked teams. Indiana gave USC a scare until JuJu Watkins did JuJu things. And Nebraska freshman Britt Prince showed she’s more than ready for the big time, matching her career-high with 24 against UCLA in the quarterfinals.
“The Big Ten has a lot of great teams, and I think just throughout the season we’ve gotten a lot better handling the really good teams. Especially the new additions,” Prince said after the Cornhuskers fell 85-74 in the quarterfinals.
“Being this close to UCLA, they’re one of the top teams in the country, and I think we showed how we can hang with them. I think that’s really important for us, and a big momentum booster heading into the rest of the season.”
Paige Bueckers
It takes a lot to set yourself apart at UConn, but Paige Bueckers has managed to do it.
Bueckers was named Most Outstanding Player of the Big East tournament Monday, making her the first player to win it three times. Bueckers had 24 points, eight rebounds, three assists, two blocks and two steals in UConn’s 70-50 win over Creighton.
“You work entirely for this moment,” Bueckers said.
Bueckers was the first to win national Player of the Year honors as a freshman, when she also led UConn to the Final Four. Injuries derailed her next two seasons, and she played just 17 games. But she has been outstanding the last two years, leading UConn back to the Final Four last year and putting them in position to make another deep run this year.
“It was a dream since I was a kid, and it’s been everything I could dream of,” Bueckers said of her UConn career. “I can’t be grateful enough.”
LSU
LSU caught a break when Aneesah Morrow’s injury wasn’t as bad as initially feared.
Morrow couldn’t put weight on her foot and had to be helped off the floor after getting hurt in the third quarter of LSU’s SEC tournament semifinal loss to Texas. But coach Kim Mulkey said afterward that Morrow had aggravated the foot sprain she’s been dealing with the last few weeks.
“She can go for the (NCAA) tournament. Everything is good,” Mulkey said, adding that Morrow was lobbying the training staff to go back in the game against the Longhorns.
Morrow has often worn a walking boot since spraining her foot in the Feb. 16 game against Texas. But she’s continued to play, and the Tigers need her if they hope to make a run in the NCAA tournament. Morrow is LSU’s top rebounder, with 13.6 boards a game, and the Tigers’ second-leading scorer with 18.5 points a game.
Mulkey also said leading scorer Flau’jae Johnson, who missed the SEC tournament with a shin injury, will be ready for the NCAA tournament.
Arkansas State and George Mason
What turnarounds Arkansas State and George Mason have made, resulting in first-ever trips to the NCAA tournament for each school.
Arkansas State was picked to finish 13th in the 14-team Sun Belt Conference. But it won 21 games and on Monday upset James Madison in overtime to win the Sun Belt tournament title. James Madison came into the championship game with a 20-game winning streak, including a perfect 18-0 record in conference play.
George Mason was winless in the Atlantic 10 four years ago. On Sunday, the Patriots beat St. Joseph’s to win the conference tournament. It also was George Mason’s 28th win, extending the program’s single-season record.
“We asked these players, four years ago, to believe in something that was nowhere near present,” Patriots coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis said, according to The Washington Post.
North Carolina
The whole state is dancing! OK, maybe not the whole state. But a whole lot of it.
Duke, N.C. State and North Carolina are all projected to be top-four seeds in the NCAA tournament, which would make it the first time since 1998 that the three schools all hosted host first- and second-round games. UNC-Greensboro and High Point also locked up spots over the weekend by winning their conference tournaments.
There’s still a chance another North Carolina school could to join the party, too. North Carolina A&T won the regular-season Coastal Athletic Association title and is the top seed for this week’s conference tournament.
LOSERS
Notre Dame
Was it really only three weeks ago that the Irish were atop the rankings and in line for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament? My, how times have changed.
Notre Dame skids into the NCAA tournament having lost three of its last five games, including a 61-56 loss to Duke in the ACC tournament semifinals. It was a season-low in points for the Fighting Irish.
More: Why has this season entered a danger zone for No. 6 Notre Dame women’s basketball?
“Defensively we’ve been lacking,” coach Niele Ivey said Saturday night. “Just having that intensity defensively is part of the reason for the last three losses, and that’s frustrating because that’s something we work on every day; it’s something we’ve been working towards the entire season.”
Saint Joseph’s
Despite 23 wins in the regular season, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Saint Joseph’s to make the NCAA tournament.
After finishing fourth in the Atlantic-10, with six losses, the Hawks needed to win the conference tournament. They came close, upsetting regular-season champ Richmond in the semifinals. But they lost to George Mason in Sunday’s final, and are projected among the first four teams left out.
Tennessee
Tennessee’s hopes of playing the early rounds at home ended in the SEC tournament.
The Lady Vols were a No. 3 seed in the NCAA’s last projection, which would have meant they’d host first- and second round games. (Unlike in the men’s tournament, which uses neutral sites for all games, the women play first- and second-round games at campus sites.)
But a loss to Georgia at home in the regular-season finale dropped Tennessee out of that group of top four seeds, and it needed to make a run in the SEC tournament to get back in there. That did not happen, with the Lady Vols losing to Vanderbilt in the second round.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Big Ten, Paige Bueckers rise, Notre Dame falls before March Madness
