The Women’s NCAA Tournament has been pretty chalky thus far but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of storylines to talk about after the first-round games have finished.
The No. 1 seeds UConn, UCLA, South Carolina and Texas easily advanced. The ACC is also looking good in the early going, 8-2 through the first round. Mid-majors in the tournament, on the other hand, have not fared so well.
Advertisement
Clemson lost a game by a millisecond and, after being 14-0 earlier this season, Iowa State got eliminated got eliminated despite 37 points from Audi Crooks.
Here are the winners and losers from round one of Women’s March Madness:
WINNERS
TCU guard Olivia Miles
Miles brought a different level of intensity to the first round of March Madness and recorded 12 points, a career-high 16 rebounds and a program-record 14 assists in TCU’s 86-40 blowout win over No. 14 UC San Diego. It marked Miles’ sixth triple-double of the season and the 12th of her career. Only Sabrina Ionescu (23) and Caitlin Clark (17) have more career triple-doubles in women’s college basketball. It was also the first tournament triple-double by a Big 12 player. Miles’ 14 assists tied her career-high and set a new TCU single-game record.
Advertisement
TCU head coach Mark Campbell said it was Miles’ “best game as a Horned Frog.”
“To break our all time single-game assist record while having a triple-double during March Madness. Holy cow,” Campbell said.
MORE: Olivia Miles’ 12th career triple-double powers TCU to March Madness win
Texas Tech
Despite last appearing in the NCAA Tournament during the 2012-2013 season, the No. 7-seeded Texas Tech hadn’t won a tournament game since 2005. That changed March 20 after a gritty 57-52 against Villanova.
“So super proud of these kids, and first win in the NCAA Tournament in 21 years for the Lady Raider basketball program, and we’re super thrilled to have accomplished that,” head coach Krista Gerlich said.
Advertisement
The Lady Red Raiders advanced to the second round, where they’ll play No. 2 LSU on Sunday. Gerlich acknowledge playing against the No. 1 scoring offense in the country will be a tough task. Still, she was undaunted.
“I don’t think we’re going to be intimidated by any means. We’ve played on the road before in really great environments. This is what it’s all about,” Gerlich said. “We want that tall task and we understand it is one. We have the utmost respect for LSU and what they’ve done. We want to be where they are. We want to win a national championship.”
Washington guard Avery Howell
Avery Howell was borderline unstoppable in Washington’s 72-52 win over South Dakota State on Friday. Howell recorded 30 points, shooting 9-of-16 from the field and a career-high 7-of-13 from the 3-point line. Howell was one rebound away from a double-double with nine rebounds, in addition to two steals and one assist. Howell is the first Washington player to record at least 30 points in a NCAA Tournament game since Kelsey Plum.
Advertisement
“That’s crazy,” Howell said. “Obviously, (Plum’s) a really good player and has a huge legacy of Washington, so I just think that that’s cool to be in the same conversation a little bit.”
The ACC
Through the first two rounds of the tournament, ACC teams are 8-2 with Clemson and Virginia Tech suffering losses. The league went 2-0 against teams from the SEC, with NC State beating Tennessee by double figures and Virginia defeating Georgia in overtime.
The Cavaliers are the big winners from the league so far, as they’re just the second team since the Women’s NCAA Tournament expanded to 68 teams in 2022 to advance to the second round out of the First Four. Virginia defeated Arizona State in the First Four. After beating the Bulldogs, a matchup with No. 2 Iowa awaits.
Advertisement
On Sunday, the programs nestled in North Carolina’s Research Triangle will attempt to continue to carry the banner for the conference with matchups against teams from the Big Ten and Big 12. North Carolina gets to rekindle an old ACC rivalry by taking on Maryland, Duke faces Baylor and NC State plays Michigan.
“There’s just a physicality that we play with in the ACC that’s different maybe,” UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. “I give a lot of credit to the ACC. We’ve got nine teams into the tournament. We’ve played against really good guards night after night after night. And so, iron sharpens iron.”
LOSERS
Clemson
Clemson guard Mia Moore’s March moment was short lived.
Advertisement
No. 8 Clemson and No. 9 USC were tied at 61-all with four seconds remaining in regulation, when Moore took the ball up the entire length of the court and heaved up a desperation shot beyond the 3-point line.
Moore’s long-range 3-pointer went in as the final buzzer rang. Her teammates stormed the court while momentarily thinking Moore hit a buzzer-beating game-winner, but the Tigers’ celebration was cut short. The shot was waved off and a foul on Moore was determined to have come after the buzzer, sending the game to overtime. USC went on to win in overtime, 71-67.
“Initially, I thought it was good, but I guess it came off short,” Moore said after the game. “I really thought I was going to at least get the foul call there and be able to at least go to the foul line.
MORE: Clemson has would-be winning shot waved off USC women win in overtime
Tennessee
Tennessee’s free fall this season was hard to watch. The Lady Volunteers lost 11 of their last 13 matchups, including eight straight, to finish with a 16-14 record. The losing streak also included an ugly first-round exit during March Madness to NC State. Tennessee’s .552 winning percentage is the lowest the program has ever recorded, and its 16 wins tied a record for fewest victories of the NCAA era.
Advertisement
“There have been very few times that I have hit failure, and I have never hit failure to this extreme,” head coach Kim Caldwell said. “It’s a tough place to do it publicly, and I didn’t like who I was at certain times.”
Caldwell admittedly went to a “Plan B” to try to fix Tennessee’s problems, but it didn’t work. Her plans included seemingly abandoning the Lady Vols’ signature press defense at times, tightening the team’s rotation and walking the ball up the court before running sets.
“You can’t play this style of play and put it in a Plan B, and we put it in a Plan B,” Caldwell said. “I think when you do that, you lose your identity. … I did that in the middle of the season, and I know better than to do that, and it was the worst year of my professional career.”
Mid-majors
Zero mid-major programs advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Trendy upset picks like Rhode Island over Alabama, South Dakota State over Washington and Fairfield over Notre Dame failed to come to fruition. Even Princeton — the highest-seeded mid-major as a No. 9 seed — was defeated by double digits by Oklahoma State.
Advertisement
Richmond, the only mid-major program to receive an at-large bid, failed to make it out of the First Four after losing to Nebraska. Aside from top-seeded UConn, only teams from the Power 4 conferences are still dancing.
“Wish we could have shown out better for the league and for the mid-majors, to be honest with you,” Richmond coach Aaron Roussell said after losing to Nebraska. “That was a rough stretch right there, but there’s some really good basketball in the A-10, and there’s some really good basketball at this level.”
Iowa State center Audi Crooks
In three years with Iowa State, Audi Crooks has put up eye-popping scoring totals and shattered records. Saturday was no different for her 37 of her team’s 63 points against Syracuse.
Advertisement
But in the end, the Cyclones lost, bringing an end to a season that once looked incredibly promising for Iowa State and Crooks. They started the season off on a 14-game win streak and Crooks was being talked about as a National Player of the Year contender. When the calendar turned to January, they went 8-10 the rest of the way.
Crooks — who is second in the nation in scoring with 25.8 points per game — has never played in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament and is running out of time. She’ll be a senior next season and speculation is already starting about whether she’ll stay in Ames or hit the transfer portal. When asked Saturday if she planned to be back with the Cyclones next season, Crooks didn’t provide a definitive answer.
“Yeah, we’re all still processing everything and just being there for each other right now is the priority,” Crooks said. “That’s the main thing, making sure everybody is mentally OK through this tough time.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Women’s NCAA Tournament first-round winners and losers include ACC, mid-majors
