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Tuesday, March 13
A test for the NCAA Tournament
By Mechelle Voepel
Special to ESPN.com
NCAA Tournament pop quiz! Just four questions, one for each region! Sharpen your pencils, then test your wits as we take a look at the bracket on the March to the Arch! The Stroll to the Savvis! The Gallop to the Gateway!
West Region
Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer would have been MOST aghast Sunday prior to the selection show if you'd told her that:
A) In her next game, she would have to wear the same kind of "Clubbin' in Norman" getup that Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale busted out for the Big 12 championship.
B) She would have to hug Oregon coach Jody Runge.
C) The committee would send her team to Oklahoma's Lloyd Noble Center, site of what's known at Stanford as the "Susan King Hit."
D) All of the above.
Answer: This is a tricky one, because you may be compelled toward D. However, the correct answer is A.
|  | | VanDerveer has more than 500 wins. |
TVD could probably get through faking her way through hugging Runge, like some of the Duck seniors apparently did.
And she might well use the trip back to Norman, which Stanford visited in late December for the sake of Oklahoman Sarah Dimson, in a motivational way. King was hurt on a layup attempt, and TVD thought it should have been an intentional foul. Or perhaps even punishable by 5-10 years in the slammer. Instead, King's freakin' ACL was torn and Stanford's season was irrevocably altered.
One would assume the first words out of the mouths of the Cardinal coaches when they saw Stanford pop up in the Oklahoma subregional were ... blankety-blank-blank-blank.
Some idiot ESPN.com columnist even said something in January to the effect that the Winter Olympics would be held in Norman before Stanford would come back there. (Don't know how Salt Lake City is going to feel about losing them -- or how they're gonna get the mountains moved but ... actually, if they just substituted sliding down the freezing-rain-covered highway for alpine skiing, they could pull it off.)
But as for the outfit thing ... one can assume there isn't a lot of Erin Brockovich in TVD's wardrobe.
The rest of the West? There could be some tough second-round games here for the top seeds if they win their openers. Duke would get Baylor or Arkansas. Rutgers could find out how many Southwest Missouri State fans will follow Jackie Stiles to the ends of the earth, or at least New Jersey. Oklahoma would meet either George Washington, a proven good tournament team, or Stanford, a team that now hates the Sooners.
As for Florida ... well Old Dominion actually lost a CAA game this season (but not in the league tournament, of course) and Washington is coming off a loss to UCLA that appropriately ended that entire car wreck of a Pac-10 season. Think the Gators can book the Spokane Express?
Mideast Region
The path to the Final Four could be made easier for top-seeded Tennessee if:
A) The regional was held on Pat Summitt's driveway.
B) The regional was just played theoretically, based on past results.
C) Every other team in the regional had to alternate shooting left-handed and right-handed.
D) It couldn't be made easier.
|  | | Summitt and the Vols are a No. 1 seed. |
Obviously, we never know for sure how these things are going to turn out. This is not to say Tennessee cannot lose in the region. But ...
If you just want to talk about the path -- Tennessee's vs. that of every other No. 1 seed -- the answer is D. If seeds hold until the regional semis and final, Xavier would first try to stop the Orange steamroller. Let's just say that this would seem unlikely, although a lot of people also thought Duke stopping Tennessee in 1999 was unlikely.
Still ... then in the other semifinal, Purdue and Texas Tech would have to knock one another out. Both those teams have veteran leadership and some terrific freshmen. The rookies, in fact, might be the most interesting part of this regional. But does either Purdue or Tech have enough to match Tennessee?
Maybe we'll all be surprised, but ... we probably won't be.
Midwest Region
If seeds hold and the top four advance to the semifinals:
A) The national guard will be called out to the middle of Iowa to break up cornfield battle between enraged Hawkeye and Cyclones fans screaming, "Our Lindsey's better than your Lindsey!"
B) Stalker wearing "Big Girls Rock" T-shirt will be arrested in Denver after attempting to steal pillow cases from hotel rooms of Ruth Riley, Angie Welle, Chantelle Anderson and Randi Peterson.
C) Vandy's Jim Foster will look grumpy.
D) Media will have to bring own Diet Coke to the Pepsi Center.
Actually, D is true regardless of which seeds advance to the semis, so that's not the right answer. Tricky, eh?
|  | | Megan Taylor and Iowa State are a No. 2 seed. |
The correct answer is C, although both A and B could happen. We know, though, that Foster always looks at least a little grumpy no matter what's going on.
But his Commodores go into the season playing very well. They knocked off Tennessee in the SEC tournament (some idiot ESPN.com columnist made an obtuse reference in January to Vandy having already lost every game it would ever play against Tennessee) and played Georgia to the wire in the title game.
Colorado, which would especially like to make the Sweet 16 in nearby Denver, looked very good in the Big 12 tournament and would be Vandy's second-round foe if seeds hold.
Can Notre Dame, Iowa or Vandy make a second trip to the Final Four? Or will Iowa State make its first? Loud and proud Cyclone fans, who took over Kansas City, Mo., last week and helped their beloved bunch win the Big 12 tournament, will hit the road in droves for the Mile High City if Iowa State is there.
Elsewhere in this region, Oregon was probably thrilled to hear that No. 4 seed Iowa couldn't host due to a conflict with the NCAA Division I wrestling championships. The Ducks probably wanted to make another NCAA visit to the state of Iowa about as much as they'd like a nice, long encounter session between players and staff. Instead, they go to the state of Utah, which reportedly is in shock
after losing the Winter Olympics to Norman, Okla.
East Region
If Georgia and Louisiana Tech meet in the regional semifinals:
A) Some folks will say it's all Pat Summitt's cronies' fault.
B) Some folks will say it's all Gail Goestenkors' cronies' fault.
C) Some folks will say it's all Muffet McGraw's cronies' fault.
D) Some folks will wonder why the supposed anti-male coach conspiracy continues to be given weight when there has been at least one male coach at all but two Final Fours.
The correct answer is A and D. The conspiracy theorists probably won't pin this on Goestenkors or McGraw. But they will say it has something to do with Summitt, since Tennessee is the bane of existence for many Georgia and La. Tech fans.
Georgia's presence in this region was somewhat surprising, but it would seem to have more to do with problems putting this team someplace else than it would with the idea that the committee intentionally wants UConn's Geno Auriemma, Georgia's Andy Landers and La. Tech's Leon Barmore to eliminate each other.
|  | | At least Andy's not in the West. |
Obviously, the selection committee denies this anti-male coach thing emphatically. And the people who think it always happens just as emphatically insist that they are right.
Looking at the brackets, some suggest that Duke and Georgia should have been in the same regional. But did Georgia want to go to the West Region again? If not, obviously it wasn't going to be sent to the same region as Tennessee. That leaves being paired with Notre Dame or UConn. Neither is a very pleasant thing.
The 1996 pairing of Georgia and Louisiana Tech in the same region was an obvious selection goof up. This year, it's easy to see where the committee really ran into some difficulty with how to distribute the top-16 seeds. Maybe it made the East too hard for the No. 1 seed and the Mideast not hard enough.
But take a gander at the men's bracket every year, and you can find the same sorts of things. Last year, for instance, why were Iowa State's and Michigan State's men in the same regional? That ended up being one of the best matchups of the tournament, if not the best, and it wasn't a Final Four game.
The point is, these things happen even without conspiracies to blame.
How will UConn respond without Shea Ralph? Consider that as difficult as a potential matchup with Georgia in the final might be, it would appear no one will get in UConn's way before that. Sure, N.C. State beat UConn in the 1998 East final, but the Wolfpack wouldn't appear to have the firepower to beat the Huskies this season if they meet.
So how did you do?
Four correct answers: You are my long-lost identical cousin.
Three correct answers: You just guessed well.
Two answers correct: You weren't really paying much attention.
One answer correct: You're not entirely sure how you ended up reading this.
No answers correct: You know a lot more about all this than I do.
Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached via e-mail at mvoepel@kcstar.com.
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