[teejers1]

Some people like me might be wondering how Arizona beat UConn in the national semis last year. It was a lot of harassment of Bueckers and a h.u.g.e effort from Aari McDonald. Plus Arizona was aggressive offensively as a team. Arizona shot 31 FTs vs. 20 for UConn.

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/31185864

Some people like me might be wondering how Marty even stumbled across his 323 "knowledge."

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Article on ESPN ranking the top 25 players in the final 4  [SEE LINK AT END OF THIS POST] --  Has Boston as #1, Haley as #2 and Cam as #3. Bueckers comes in at #4 and Van Lith at #5. Of the 25, 7 are Stanford, each other team with 6.  In a bit of stat analysis on this ranking, for what the analysis is worth, which may be not much -- you get the  following:

Sum of player list on ranking // players ranked/ sum divided by number of players ranked

South Carolina --  64 // 6 ranked in top 25 // average rank of listed players = 10.7
Stanford -- 88 // 7 ranked in top 25 // average = 12.7
U Conn -- 81 // 6 ranked // average = 13.5
Louisville -- 92 // 6 ranked // average = 15.3

    This seems to suggest that South Carolina has the strongest group of players, then Stanford, then U Conn, and well behind, Louisville.  I do think that Louisville is the weakest team. 
     If you just limit each team to the same number of players, 6 each (dropping off Stanford's 7th player (Hannah at #24), then Stanford's total is 64 with the same average as South Carolina.

If you just look at the top 10 players on the list, both Stanford and U Conn have 3 players, the other two teams have 2, as follows

South Carolina #1, #8 -- sum 9   --> ave 4.5
Stanford #2, #3, #6  -- sum 11  --> ave 3.4
U Conn #4, #9, #10 -- sum 23 --> ave 7.7
Louisville $5, #7 -- sum 12 --> ave 6.0

Which suggests Stanford as the strongest, maybe. Probably not all that predictive, but to me as a stat nerd, interesting to contemplate

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bask...inneapolis

Louisville may well be the weakest team on paper and on the court.  But I suspect that other semifinal will be an absolute dog fight - two scrappy teams going hard all game long!  South Carolina should win, but would anyone be shocked if Louisville pulled the upset?

P.S.  Looks like UConn is favored by 1.5 points now.  At least that what it looks like per BR article.

[teejers1]

Some people like me might be wondering how Arizona beat UConn in the national semis last year. It was a lot of harassment of Bueckers and a h.u.g.e effort from Aari McDonald. Plus Arizona was aggressive offensively as a team. Arizona shot 31 FTs vs. 20 for UConn.

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/31185864

Some people like me might be wondering how Marty even stumbled across his 323 "knowledge."

---

Article on ESPN ranking the top 25 players in the final 4  [SEE LINK AT END OF THIS POST] --  Has Boston as #1, Haley as #2 and Cam as #3. Bueckers comes in at #4 and Van Lith at #5. Of the 25, 7 are Stanford, each other team with 6.  In a bit of stat analysis on this ranking, for what the analysis is worth, which may be not much -- you get the  following:

Sum of player list on ranking // players ranked/ sum divided by number of players ranked

South Carolina --  64 // 6 ranked in top 25 // average rank of listed players = 10.7
Stanford -- 88 // 7 ranked in top 25 // average = 12.7
U Conn -- 81 // 6 ranked // average = 13.5
Louisville -- 92 // 6 ranked // average = 15.3

    This seems to suggest that South Carolina has the strongest group of players, then Stanford, then U Conn, and well behind, Louisville.  I do think that Louisville is the weakest team. 
     If you just limit each team to the same number of players, 6 each (dropping off Stanford's 7th player (Hannah at #24), then Stanford's total is 64 with the same average as South Carolina.

If you just look at the top 10 players on the list, both Stanford and U Conn have 3 players, the other two teams have 2, as follows

South Carolina #1, #8 -- sum 9   --> ave 4.5
Stanford #2, #3, #6  -- sum 11  --> ave 3.4
U Conn #4, #9, #10 -- sum 23 --> ave 7.7
Louisville $5, #7 -- sum 12 --> ave 6.0

Which suggests Stanford as the strongest, maybe. Probably not all that predictive, but to me as a stat nerd, interesting to contemplate

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bask...inneapolis

Louisville may well be the weakest team on paper and on the court.  But I suspect that other semifinal will be an absolute dog fight - two scrappy teams going hard all game long!  South Carolina should win, but would anyone be shocked if Louisville pulled the upset?

P.S.  Looks like UConn is favored by 1.5 points now.  At least that what it looks like per BR article.