Pac-12 is respected at the top (#4 Stanford, #12 Cal), but doesn't look positioned to get 5 or 6 bids (much like the Men).
One way the Pac-12 Women may be different than it is for the Men from a CU perspective is our Men's team has already staked its flag at the top of the conference mountain. There's work to do to make sure it wasn't a blip in a down year, but there's confidence that the program is now good enough that a strong conference yielding a lot of bids only helps.
With the Women, this may be more a matter of looking for a down year and hoping that our program can take advantage of it by finishing in the top 3 or 4, parlaying that into an NCAA tournament berth. We can't afford a completely awful conference RPI because the odds of getting past Stanford to get the auto-bid are painfully thin, but we don't want the competition to be too good either. It's a balance for WBB. Lose OOC to top teams but beat the teams they should. Basically, be a solid conference that isn't so good that our team can't overcome it and distinguish itself.
So far, it's been a bad start to the year for the Pac-12 at the bottom.
Wazzu is 0-2, losing in overtime at Minnesota and then dropping another OT game to South Dakota State.
USC is 0-1 after getting handled at home against Gonzaga.
Oregon is 0-1 following a home loss to St. Mary's.
Arizona State is 0-1 after losing at home to Texas Tech.
Not really bad losses, but nothing good happening there either.
With the other teams, there's a long list at 1-0 (Arizona, Cal, Colorado, Oregon State, UCLA, Utah, Washington) and Stanford sits at 2-0... with none of the conference wins likely to impress a selection committee.
The big opportunities in the next week:
UCLA vs #11 Oklahoma on the 14th
Stanford vs #1 Baylor on the 16th
Tonight, Oregon State hosts Cal-Poly and needs to get a win. We can't have more losses to lower-tier teams, so the Beavs need to win this one.
One way the Pac-12 Women may be different than it is for the Men from a CU perspective is our Men's team has already staked its flag at the top of the conference mountain. There's work to do to make sure it wasn't a blip in a down year, but there's confidence that the program is now good enough that a strong conference yielding a lot of bids only helps.
With the Women, this may be more a matter of looking for a down year and hoping that our program can take advantage of it by finishing in the top 3 or 4, parlaying that into an NCAA tournament berth. We can't afford a completely awful conference RPI because the odds of getting past Stanford to get the auto-bid are painfully thin, but we don't want the competition to be too good either. It's a balance for WBB. Lose OOC to top teams but beat the teams they should. Basically, be a solid conference that isn't so good that our team can't overcome it and distinguish itself.
So far, it's been a bad start to the year for the Pac-12 at the bottom.
Wazzu is 0-2, losing in overtime at Minnesota and then dropping another OT game to South Dakota State.
USC is 0-1 after getting handled at home against Gonzaga.
Oregon is 0-1 following a home loss to St. Mary's.
Arizona State is 0-1 after losing at home to Texas Tech.
Not really bad losses, but nothing good happening there either.
With the other teams, there's a long list at 1-0 (Arizona, Cal, Colorado, Oregon State, UCLA, Utah, Washington) and Stanford sits at 2-0... with none of the conference wins likely to impress a selection committee.
The big opportunities in the next week:
UCLA vs #11 Oklahoma on the 14th
Stanford vs #1 Baylor on the 16th
Tonight, Oregon State hosts Cal-Poly and needs to get a win. We can't have more losses to lower-tier teams, so the Beavs need to win this one.
