Tulane's RPI was 73 -- along with UConn and Central Florida the only AAC teams in the top 100 of the RPI. UConn had to score 23 in the 4th quarter to get to 75 points -- and they shot 46.6% from the field and 29% from three. They only made 56% of their free throws.
And, it wasn't the bench missing shots that dragged the percentages down. Their bench players made the only shot attempted by a non-starter all night on a tip-in of a Christyn Williams miss with 2:38 left in the game. The bench (Nelson-Ododa) did chip in a free throw with just under two minutes left. She went 1-4 from the line, but the starters were still only 13-21 (61.9%).
Thankfully, things will ease up a bit for UConn as they wind their way through their rugged conference -- their next game is at Temple, currently 251 in the RPI -- so maybe the starters can get a bit more rest.
If Geno loses to Louisville in a couple of weeks, they may fail to earn a one seed in the NCAAs, which probably is why he kept front line players in to score in the fourth quarter. UConn's problem is their non-conference schedule is usually packed with more top teams, but a number that are usually ranked aren't this season. They will have played only five ranked teams by the end of the regular and conference tournament season -- the current #1, 2, 4, 15 and 24 teams. They're currently 2-1 against ranked teams -- so the best they can finish is 4-1.
The Louisville game will be crucial for the Huskies, who currently sit at 7 in the RPI with a strength of schedule of 23. If they end the season with two losses and 3-2 against the top 25, it will be interesting to see how they're slotted into the tournament. If they win at Louisville, they'll be set up to run the table and snag a one seed.
Lets see how much uconn's sos jumps from that ONE game.
The rest of their remaining schedule will drag them down in SOS. Here is a listing of some of the upcoming UConn opponents with today's RPI ranking:
Temple #254
SMU #232
East Carolina #208
Temple (again) #254
Memphis #273
Wichita State #271
For comparison, the worst RPIs of remaining opponents for various teams from various conferences:
ND: UVA (#104, next worse is #86 BC (twice), then it jumps to #50 Duke!)
Stanford: Colorado (#123, then #110 UW (twice), then #95 WSU (twice))
Baylor: Texas Tech (#144, then #143 OK (twice) and #107 WVU (twice))
Syracuse: UVA (#104, then #101 Wake Forest, then #86 BC (twice))
Oregon: Colorado (#123, then #110 UW and #95 WSU).
Miss St: UF (#203, then #190 Miss (twice), #173 Vandy)
Iowa: Illinois (#160 (twice), #111 PSU, #82 tOSU)
Here's the highest teams each of the above plays in the remaining schedule (to compare to UConn's #7 Louisville):
ND: Syracuse (#4) and NC St (#8)
Stanford: Oregon (#5)
Baylor: ISU (#11) twice
Syracuse: ND (#1)Louisville (#7) NC State (#8)
Oregon: Stanford (#2)
Miss St: South Carolina (#23)
Iowa: Rutgers (#17)
Yes, you read the above part about ND's schedule correctly. 9 of the remaining 12 games on their schedule are against teams with an RPI ranking of #50 or better.
The rest of the order has #3 Big 12, #4 Big 10, #5 Big East, #6 SEC, #7 WCC, & #8 MAC. So it turns out Gonzaga has a tougher conference challenge than UConn. Not sure why Gonzaga at 16-1 (RPI 11) who lost to #1 RPI team (ND) but beat the #2 RPI team Stanford is only ranked 13 & 14 in the two polls while UConn (14-1) who beat #1 but lost to #3 RPI team Baylor is ranked #2 in both polls. I do hope they lose to Louisville so we can start the slide.
My other peave is how does the SEC with the lowly #6 in RPI get 8 teams in the NCAA bracketology when their #7 RPI team Auburn is #48 while the PAC 12 has 7 teams with RPIs at 42 or better and only get 6 teams in. Creme has #39 UCLA (with the ## toughest RPI schedule so far) out while #87 RPI Georgia is in the NCAA tourney. There is definitely a bias against the two top west coast conferences in the voting polls and in bracketology. Hopefully the selection comittee follows RPI like they are supposed to.
Well, Dawn believes that RPI helps a team out, for sure. Witness her reaction to losing to Mississippi State last night (even though the SEC is not rated that highly).
"It helps us," Staley said. "This road loss helps us, even though we lost. It helps us in the RPI, it helps strength of schedule and that's what playing in the SEC does."
Domerduck. I think I've commented on Creme's SEC fixation...perhaps with you? And the cynic in me unfortunately attributes this somewhat to the fact that ESPN (ESPNw) have a vested interest in the SEC Network. Unfortunately, this is an instance where a sports entertainment company's interests can possibly get in the way. It could be subconscious: Creme stuck in a studio with all those SEC network games. But my gut says that when there's a coin to be flipped on who is the 7th or 8th team in, he favors the familiar.
There's a good reason why this has never happened in any of the 6 Power Conferences (I include the Big East in bball), men's or women's teams, this millenium. All these coaches have class as well as better competition. UConn lost that when they left the Big East to try to become a football school in the AAC,
Nothing to be proud of here.
Catholic schools left to create a non-football conference after the ACC poached the Big teams with good (or historically good) football teams. That left UConn and a few other schools as the last teams in the conference. UConn would have gladly joined the ACC at that point (and still probably would if they received an invite). UConn and the remaining Big East teams did the best they could under the circumstances. They sold the Catholic schools the Big East name and then formed a new conference with the remaining BE football teams and some teams lured from Conference USA.
And now they sit in purgatory. Their football team is probably the worst in the American, making them an undesirable target for P5 conferences. They need to be P5 so they can finance their other sports programs. In men's basketball, they are in a tough conference (which is good for them). In football, it's not that bad. But in WBB, the conference is bad. If UConn wasn't in the conference, no one would even talk about the American Conference in WBB circles. It would just be an upper (not top) mid-major conference.
would have loved to have kept UConn if they would have focused on basketball (men's and women's) as well as the other sports they are great at (soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, etc.). They were one of the original members of the Big East who started with Catholic and non-Catholic schools (UConn, Cuse, Pitt). Currently they have Butler so you don't still need to be Catholic.
It's not like going back to the Big East doesn't make sense for UConn now. The attached article was written a day ago and a day after my post. (Maybe SBNation writers follow the Bench). They would have saved a lot of money if they had made that decision back then, although that certainly is hindsight. I do think they should consider it now and I am sure the Big East would take them.
One of the IU players scored 31. We went 6-20 that year as Shumate was out with leg issues and a lot of the best players were ineligible as frosh.
I was a sophomore, and was at the old Chicago Stadium for an ND hockey game that night. All of the ND fans were thrilled because we thought the PA announcer has made a mistake and we lost 93-92 to mighty IU in Bloomington!
According to STATS, she is the first Division I player -- male or female -- to outscore the entire opposing team in a conference game since Cincinnati's Steve Logan outscored Southern Miss 41-37 on Feb. 15, 2002.
I suspect the dinkasaurous coach could have removed her from a blowout win
Walker scored 6 of her 34 points by hitting a 3-pointer with 5 minutes in the game and UCONN up by 31 points; and then hitting another 3-pointer with 3 and 1/2 minutes in the game and UCONN up by 38 points. Perhaps Walker is a selfish player and wanted to pad her stats at the end of the game at the expense of UCONN's bench players who play very few minutes; and/or Geno was trying to run up the score because UCONN had only scored 52 points in the first 3 quarters. The fact that Walker played 37 minutes and Samuelson played 35 minutes leads me to believe Geno wanted to run up the score for the sake of UCONN's season scoring average, which has dipped in the last few games, and Walker was happy to oblige.
will prepare the team the way he believes is most beneficial and Muffet will do it her way. You cannot argue with Geno's success. I don't believe he is running up the score. There is no benefit to that in college basketball because we have a tournament. Maybe he thought Megan could use the ego boost to improve her confidence going forward. I truly believe that his eyes are on the prize, not on any margin of victory trophies or individual player accolades.