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Charlie Creme, ESPN.comNov 14, 2024, 01:00 PM ET
- Charlie Creme projects the women’s NCAA tournament bracket for ESPN.com.
In a women’s college basketball season that’s so highly anticipated, it’s easy to get carried away. The season isn’t quite two weeks old, and most teams have played two or three games. But assessments are constantly being made.
Can South Carolina repeat? Are Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins the player of the year front-runners? How have stars Olivia Miles and Rori Harmon looked in their returns from injuries?
When do those evaluations become declarations? Are trends already forming that will shape the rest of the season?
Teams and players evolve, and what we are seeing now shouldn’t necessarily cause long-term worry (or excitement).
So what’s real and what’s an overreaction? What are we seeing today that might still hold true in February and March? We look at the young season.
Too much 3-point shooting will cost South Carolina
Even some of Dawn Staley’s best teams had one flaw: outside shooting. The 2022 national championship team went 35-2 and dominated around the rim on both ends of the floor. But those Gamecocks made 30.6% of their 3-point attempts. That remained a drawback in 2023 when Iowa dared South Carolina to shoot in the Final Four — and the result was a 4-of-20 night from behind the arc and the lone loss in a 36-win season.
That all changed a season ago when the Gamecocks ranked third in the country at 39.5% in 3-point accuracy. While size and inside dominance remained strengths, Te-Hina Paopao, Bree Hall and Tessa Johnson were game-changers as shooters, and South Carolina never lost en route to the 2024 title.
But could the Gamecocks fall too much in love with the jump shot?
In the season opener against Michigan, they took 26 3-pointers, one fewer than their single-game high in attempts last season. South Carolina struggled to put away the undersized Wolverines and did not look like the best team in the country. The Gamecocks won by six.
Verdict: Overreaction
Michigan is better than expected and defended South Carolina well inside and out. In the Gamecocks’ first two games, they were missing a key experienced frontcourt player. Taking more 3-pointers might have seemed like a prudent strategy.
Most importantly, though, the South Carolina players learned. After the game against the Wolverines, Staley addressed the 5-for-26 shooting from deep. In the next game against NC State, she implored her team to be more assertive in the paint. The result was an easier victory. Having 6-foot-3 Ashlyn Watkins back after missing the Michigan game helped remind the Gamecocks how important dominant inside play is.
On Thursday against Coppin State, Watkins and 6-4 Chloe Kitts will be on the floor together for the first time. That should be enough to remind everyone in Columbia where South Carolina’s true advantage lies.
This is the deepest UConn team ever
Last season, six UConn players averaged over 30 minutes per game as injuries mounted. This season? Through two games, nine Huskies are averaging at least 12.6 minutes and none are playing over 30 each game. And this is with Caroline Ducharme, Azzi Fudd and Aubrey Griffin — all UConn starters at one point in their career — still sidelined from offseason ailments.
Geno Auriemma likely wouldn’t go 12-deep with his rotations if this roster was fully healthy, but it appears he could.
In games against Boston University and South Florida, the Huskies are sharing minutes well but also putting up staggering efficiency numbers. They lead the country in offensive and defensive rating, according to HerHoopStats. Led by Bueckers’ 84.6% shooting on 2-point attempts, UConn is making 69.4% of those attempts as a team and 60.4% of all its shots, which also tops the country.
Verdict: Slight overreaction
This could turn out to be the deepest team Auriemma has ever had. Even some of his best teams, such as the ones that went undefeated in 2009 or 2016, didn’t have this many players playing this number of minutes. That’s especially true if Ducharme, Fudd and Griffin return as their old selves.
However, UConn’s 2000-01 team had Diana Taurasi coming off the bench for half the season. Taurasi alone might be enough depth for any team. Ten players on that team averaged double figures in minutes, and the Huskies might have won the national title if Svetlana Abrosimova hadn’t gotten injured in February that season.
The minutes for sophomore KK Arnold and freshmen Allie Ziebell and Morgan Cheli are sure to be cut if any or all the veterans return, but what these first two games have shown, albeit against Boston University and South Florida, is that if the injury bug doesn’t return, Bueckers won’t have to play as much for the Huskies to be one of the best teams in the country. She should be fresher come March.
The SEC and Big Ten will each get 12 teams into the NCAA tournament
The college sports landscape is a whole new world with conference realignment and the demise of the Pac-12. The ACC and Big Ten are now bicoastal, 18-team conglomerates. Regional rivalries aren’t just gone, regions themselves have vanished. But it might make for some interesting basketball.
The SEC has more depth than it has had the past two seasons. The league received seven NCAA tournament bids in 2023 and eight in 2024. Kentucky and Auburn look improved. Tennessee might be better than expected, averaging 93.3 points per game in new coach Kim Caldwell’s run-and-shoot offense.
It was a good week for the Big Ten. Maryland upset Duke. Oregon shocked Baylor. Penn State is 3-0, and all 18 teams have combined for just seven losses.
Verdict: Not an overreaction
The latest addition of Bracketology projects 12 teams from both the SEC and Big Ten to make the 68-team field. Come March, that could be real, or at least something close to it. Not only are the old Pac-12 teams now spread out across the country, including some of the best (USC and UCLA) and most surprising (Oregon) in the Big Ten, but other factors make room for those extra bids. The Big East, for example, put three teams in the NCAA tournament last season but might not have another tournament-caliber team after UConn and Creighton.
The pool of possible at-large mid-majors also seems smaller this season. And some of those contenders, such as Middle Tennessee and UNLV, have already missed opportunities for resume-building wins. The Blue Raiders lost to Tennessee and the Lady Rebels fell at Arizona. The circumstances appear lined up for double-digit bids for both the SEC and Big Ten. Even if the SEC got 11 teams in the field, 11 of 16 teams in a conference making the tournament would be unprecedented.
Early-season blowouts have hurt the momentum women’s basketball built last season
Oklahoma spent Wednesday afternoon beating Western Carolina by 66 points. USC has an 85-point win. LSU has yet to allow 50 points in a game. Notre Dame, with starters missing, has won its three games by 44, 44 and 46 points. With only a handful of top-25 matchups in the first two weeks, too many games for the country’s best teams have looked like an extension of the exhibition season. Teams in the current top 10 have won their 26 games by an average margin of nearly 40 points per game.
That doesn’t exactly create the exhilaration of Caitlin Clark or South Carolina’s unbeaten championship run of a year ago.
Verdict: Overreaction
Just wait. Sure, the scheduling to start the season has been suspect, and the tune-up games have been especially one-sided. There are also some more mismatches to come, but the attention-grabbing contests aren’t far away. Notre Dame visits Lafayette Leopards on Sunday but then plays USC, TCU, Utah and Texas in succession. A conference game against Syracuse is followed by a matchup with UConn.
The Huskies play North Carolina on Friday and then hit a December with Louisville, Iowa State and USC, in addition to the Irish. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, South Carolina and UCLA collide in a top-five showdown in Los Angeles.
The November schedule was decidedly better a year ago (UConn-NC State, Maryland-South Carolina, Indiana–Stanford all took place on a single day in mid-November in 2023) and it’s unfortunate this month’s schedule didn’t reach that level of competitiveness. But powerhouse matchups are on the way, and the momentum will start anew.
