04-29-2024, 01:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2024, 01:48 PM by ColoradoTree.)
The NCAA women's selection show is this afternoon at 3:30pm PT. The suspense won't be in whether we host a regional (we will) or what our seed will be (we'll be #2) or whether there will be a dangerous team at our regional (I mean, define dangerous, but it would take a truly horrendous effort to lose to whoever the 2 seed in our regional pod will be). Rather, it'll be in how the rankings fall in the top 16 and what our potential Super Regional and quarterfinal opponents could be.
We'd be in line to play the 15th seed in a Super Regional, and based on the latest results, the #15 team in the ITA rankings looks like it'll be Florida, who we beat 4-0 back at Indoor Nationals in February. But while the NCAA generally defers to the ITA rankings, the committee also looks at head-to-head wins among neighboring teams in the rankings, as well as records against common opponents and Top 50 wins. And Florida has more Top 50 wins than #14 NC State and a better record against common opponents, so it's likely that the NCAA committee will depart from the ITA rankings here and move Florida to 14 and bump NC State down to the 15th seed. (In theory, this same practice could have kept us from being the 2 seed, but we had a better record than Michigan against common opponents, so we're the #2.)
As for a potential quarterfinal opponent, SEC champion Georgia looks like they'll end up ranked and seeded 7th. The SEC is a very deep conference, but they ate each other alive this season--in the next ITA rankings, they should have the #7, #13, #15, #16, #17, and #19 teams.
So, my predictions for tonight are as follows:
* We're the 2 seed
* As for potential future opponents, UGA is the 7 seed and NC State is the 15 seed.
* If you went straight chalk for teams 17-32, we'd get #31 Notre Dame as the 2 seed in our regional, but that would mean a conference rematch between Michigan and #30 Wisconsin, so they probably just swap those two and we get Wisconsin.
* We'll get one of the teams who got an automatic qualifying spot by virtue of winning their weaker conference tournaments. None of the several lowest-ranked ones are on the West Coast, so we'll get someone like Fairfield, Chicago State, Alabama State, UMass, etc. But they'll also try and fit most of those programs with regionals that are within driving distance, so there's no way of knowing exactly who we'll get. Only one West Coast team in the bottom quarter of the 64 qualified teams, and that's Sacramento State, so they'll probably land with Cal, UCLA, USC, or Pepperdine.
* As for our 3 seed, the only West Coast teams in that 33-48 group (that's seeding, not ranking--the lowest-ranked team to make the field as an at-large selection will likely be #42 Harvard, with everyone after that being automatic qualifiers from weaker conferences) are San Diego State and Cal Poly, so perhaps Cal Poly to cut down on travel? (You could send them to Cal, too, of course.) I would guess our seed would mean they'd try and give us one of the six worst teams in that group, which are Grand Canyon, Denver, SDSU, Old Dominion, ETSU, and Cal Poly. I'll say we get Cal Poly and SDSU goes to the only other CA team in the top 6, Pepperdine. (That said, that would be a regular season rematch, albeit a nonconference one, so if the committee decides to avoid those, maybe they send SDSU to USC or UCLA instead.)
We'll see in a couple of hours!
Singles and doubles selections for the individual NCAA championships will be announced tomorrow, but Ma will likely be the Pac-12's automatic entrant and Yepifanova and Blake look to be pretty safe bets with their rankings and recent results.
We'd be in line to play the 15th seed in a Super Regional, and based on the latest results, the #15 team in the ITA rankings looks like it'll be Florida, who we beat 4-0 back at Indoor Nationals in February. But while the NCAA generally defers to the ITA rankings, the committee also looks at head-to-head wins among neighboring teams in the rankings, as well as records against common opponents and Top 50 wins. And Florida has more Top 50 wins than #14 NC State and a better record against common opponents, so it's likely that the NCAA committee will depart from the ITA rankings here and move Florida to 14 and bump NC State down to the 15th seed. (In theory, this same practice could have kept us from being the 2 seed, but we had a better record than Michigan against common opponents, so we're the #2.)
As for a potential quarterfinal opponent, SEC champion Georgia looks like they'll end up ranked and seeded 7th. The SEC is a very deep conference, but they ate each other alive this season--in the next ITA rankings, they should have the #7, #13, #15, #16, #17, and #19 teams.
So, my predictions for tonight are as follows:
* We're the 2 seed
* As for potential future opponents, UGA is the 7 seed and NC State is the 15 seed.
* If you went straight chalk for teams 17-32, we'd get #31 Notre Dame as the 2 seed in our regional, but that would mean a conference rematch between Michigan and #30 Wisconsin, so they probably just swap those two and we get Wisconsin.
* We'll get one of the teams who got an automatic qualifying spot by virtue of winning their weaker conference tournaments. None of the several lowest-ranked ones are on the West Coast, so we'll get someone like Fairfield, Chicago State, Alabama State, UMass, etc. But they'll also try and fit most of those programs with regionals that are within driving distance, so there's no way of knowing exactly who we'll get. Only one West Coast team in the bottom quarter of the 64 qualified teams, and that's Sacramento State, so they'll probably land with Cal, UCLA, USC, or Pepperdine.
* As for our 3 seed, the only West Coast teams in that 33-48 group (that's seeding, not ranking--the lowest-ranked team to make the field as an at-large selection will likely be #42 Harvard, with everyone after that being automatic qualifiers from weaker conferences) are San Diego State and Cal Poly, so perhaps Cal Poly to cut down on travel? (You could send them to Cal, too, of course.) I would guess our seed would mean they'd try and give us one of the six worst teams in that group, which are Grand Canyon, Denver, SDSU, Old Dominion, ETSU, and Cal Poly. I'll say we get Cal Poly and SDSU goes to the only other CA team in the top 6, Pepperdine. (That said, that would be a regular season rematch, albeit a nonconference one, so if the committee decides to avoid those, maybe they send SDSU to USC or UCLA instead.)
We'll see in a couple of hours!
Singles and doubles selections for the individual NCAA championships will be announced tomorrow, but Ma will likely be the Pac-12's automatic entrant and Yepifanova and Blake look to be pretty safe bets with their rankings and recent results.