Postseason musings, etc.

March 19, 2019

So here we are, with the conference tournaments over and another national postseason beginning this week, so I thought I would post some thoughts and information on things related:

1. In case you haven't heard, the entire NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament bracket was revealed by mistake on ESPNU yesterday prior to the official announcement. It was just before 3pm Central Time when someone who covers women's college basketball posted screenshots of the brackets on Twitter. It's assumed that someone at ESPN put them up thinking they were the men's brackets instead, but that's just an assumption, but how ridiculous and embarrassing for ESPN. And then the NCAA pushed the selection show broadcast up an hour for whatever reason, and I didn't watch, but I read somewhere that a couple of the commentators didn't look pleased, obviously because none of the brackets were technically a secret anymore.

2. SDSU and USD both got into the NCAA Tournament, SDSU by automatic bid and USD as an at-large. USD beat Iowa State and Missouri (on the road) this season, and they've won 28 games, but TCU or Arkansas should've been an at-large team instead, in my opinion. Both from power conferences, and Arkansas beat us... well, that didn't mean much, but they did win 19 games and won two games in the SEC Tournament, including one against top-15 ranked South Carolina. TCU has 20 wins and finished 10-8 in the Big 12, which is ranked 3rd nationally in conference RPI, while the Summit is 19th (according to RealTimeRPI).

3. Denver made the WNIT. Enough said. And they are an 'automatic qualifier' as the next highest seeded team in the Summit that didn't get picked for the NCAA, obviously after SDSU and USD. Silly system to not weight a team's quality more on RPI and how the team did in the conference tournament when two teams finished tied in the conference standings. Denver won the tiebreaker for the third seed in the Summit tournament over ORU, but Denver lost to sixth-seeded North Dakota in their only game in the tourney, while ORU beat fifth-seeded Western Illinois, and ORU's RPI is higher than Denver's (ORU- 160, Denver-167, according to the NCAA. ORU also missed out on the Women's Basketball Invitational (WBI).

4. I don't know if playing non-qualifiers (non-Division 1 teams) hurt ORU in consideration of the WNIT or the WBI, since those games don't count towards RPI, but ORU's record against D-1 teams this season was 16-13, which still should've been good enough for the WBI at least. ORU didn't have any really good wins this season though, unless you count the win over Denver, but otherwise, wins came against average to below-average D-1 and non-D-1 competition.

5. It might be comparing apples to oranges, but I don't consider Missouri State to be at that much of a higher level in terms of mid-majors than ORU, and their women's basketball team won the Missouri Valley tournament, beating Drake, who was ranked in the top 25, by 15 points in the final, so they are in the NCAA Tournament. Oh, and their head coach is in her sixth season there, and she's 116-78, and she's taken them to two NCAA Tournaments now and three WNITs.

6. Have I said that I hate postseason conference tournaments? Yes, and I will keep saying it. If all you play the regular season conference schedule for is to get a certain seeding in the postseason conference tournament, and you win the conference regular season, and then you lose in the conference tournament, then what is winning the regular season title worth? Nothing, expect a potential bid to a lesser postseason tournament. I'm speaking of course mainly about non-power conferences, especially those that end up with one bid almost every season, or every season, but even with power conferences we've seen issues with teams with losing records or teams that finished lower in the regular season standings winning the automatic bid by virtue of winning the conference tournament, and it hurts the seeding of that team, which represents the conference. Look at the Summit in men's basketball this year, with NDSU winning it, and they are a 16 seed. If SDSU had gotten the automatic bid by virtue of winning the regular season conference title, they likely would've been seeded higher than NDSU is, and that would've afforded them an opportunity, or more probability, to advance. And for those that say that the best team in the conference in the regular season should win the conference tournament, it is true that it happens a large majority of the time, but in a one-game to win or lose scenario, anything can happen. A key player could be hurt, or a team doesn't play well, and they lose, and they are in the NIT (hello, SDSU MBB) instead of the NCAA. The regular season conference champion should be the conference's representative and get the automatic bid automatically to the NCAA Tournament. It will likely never happen since money is being made through the conference tournaments and money rules over equity and fairness. End of rant.

7. Where do we go from here, for ORU WBB? Lakota Beatty's team-leading 15.1 ppg and prolific three-point shooting prowess are gone, and the team is maxed out at 15 players, at least as of now, and there's no wiggle room unless a player or players leave. Two players are coming in for next season as freshmen, Macy and Karly Gore of Seiling HS in Oklahoma, and they bring with them good skill sets offensively and defensively, and decent size for their positions, with Macy at 5-9 or so at guard, and Karly at 5-10 or so at forward/guard/post, and both are physically strong, and both bring winning with them, as Seiling won four state championships in a row during their four years there, although they are in Class A, which is the second-lowest classification in Oklahoma. Good players play at every level, though, so hopefully they'll come in and do some good things starting next season. And we have Jentry Holt eligible and ready to play next season, and she's got the height (6-3) and the skill around the basket that we need, and she comes from a power 5 team at OSU. I did see improvements from Keni Jo Lippe and Regan Schumacher, in particular, this season, but I saw a couple of players that regressed somewhat, and a couple that didn't perform near my expectations for them, and there are at least 4-5 players that are simply filling spots on the roster and not contributing, and that hurts roster depth and flexibility, so we'll see what happens with the roster as the spring and summer come.

8. Year seven in the books for this head coach, and her record is 109-106, 43-35 in the Summit, but no Summit titles at all, and two postseason appearances, including an NCAA in her first season when ORU was in the Southland. The other was a WBI appearance in 2015, for the 2014-15 season. I've just expected more success and more forward progress for the program at this point.