Women's Hoops Blog

Inane commentary on a game that deserves far better


Sunday, March 22, 2009

More on day one's upsets: Voepel isn't surprised; at Full Court, Matthew Zemek appears to be in Seattle. Jayda certainly is: she watched the twelfth-seeded Zags baffle Xavier for the Spokane-based school's first-ever NCAA tournament win.

The AP leads with the Zags, too. The WCC underdog won every category except boards, and led for both halves: Xavier didn't know who or what to defend.

Of last night's three big upsets, two (XU and the Longhorns) involved teams that had faded in February: XU came into the A-Ten tournament as its top seed, but lost in the quarterfinals.

And two of those same three involved top seeds from Eastern or Central time zones (XU and DePaul) shipped to the West Coast to play lower seeds on those lower seeds' home floors. Expect some complaints-- but don't listen to them, unless you've got a better, and a realistic, idea of how to play the games without empty arenas (everything I saw yesterday had fans in seats).

And do listen to people (Helen included) who have been praising the Aztecs of San Diego State, where Beth Burns' high-energy squad outran seventh-seeded DePaul, sank more threes than the visitors, and came away with the win.

Burns was the MWC coach of the year, and she has a great backstory too: a coach who led SDSU to success in the 1990s, she left for Ohio State, didn't do so well there, and has now returned to general acclaim.

Mechelle also points out that UVA were in a similar situation against Marist, though the Hoos' second-half adjustments and their superior stamina let the top seed win, and that Arizona State, beating Georgia in Georgia without Dymond Simon, pulled off a de facto upset of their own.