Usually, at the end of January, the female college basketball landscape begins to take shape. But Thursday’s results added only more questions for the 2020-21 season. NC State number 2 and third-placed UConn were upset when each suffered their first defeats of the season, meaning No. 1 Louisville is now the only team undefeated in the AP Top 25. ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel and Charlie Creme .com discuss the biggest conclusions and how the results impact Bracketology.
The Chelsea Dungee scored 37 points – the most any player against UConn since 1999-2000 – while Arkansas number 19 defeated the Huskies. What went wrong for UConn, and with the toughest stretch of the season coming up, is there cause for concern?
Voepel: This is more a case of what the Chelsea Dungee did right than what UConn’s defense did wrong in Arkansas’ 90-87 victory. She is one of the country’s top scorers and has accumulated at least 30 points 11 times in her career in Arkansas, against all kinds of defenses designed to stop her. Coach Mike Neighbors talked about how much Dungee wanted to embrace the moment of facing UConn, rather than being intimidated by it. She is a fifth year veteran who has had many notable performances, but considering her opponent, her victory and her contribution, this was the biggest.
That said, the Huskies are one of the best defenses year after year, but Arkansas’s 52% of pitches on the pitch are the highest percentage UConn has allowed since 2011. UConn also committed 23 fouls, his maximum since 24 in a 2014 defeat. for Stanford, and allowed 90 points, his maximum in a regulatory game since 2001. The Huskies must examine what they could have done better against Dungee and the Razorbacks, because they will face another challenging attack on Sunday at No. 17 DePaul.
“That’s what you’re going to train for, to try to figure out where you can make some adjustments defensively,” said Auriemma, whose Huskies have not lost consecutive games since March 1993 (1,003 games). “There were a few times when our big guys showed up to help cover the polka dot screen, and their guys just went around them as if they were standing still. That’s a problem.
“Can this be fixed? I don’t know. As long as the guys who are doing this want to fix it.”
Cream: Mechelle nailed it. I don’t think there are any major concerns for UConn to enter this game series that also includes South Carolina on February 8. But Arkansas raised some minor concerns.
Huskies do not have that one defender they can rely on consistently. Christyn Williams often faced Destiny Slocum and closed it (five points, 2 out of 7 shots), but it was not contested when Williams was in the Dungee. Olivia Nelson-Ododa must be that player on the edge, protecting against the type of drive on which Dungee thrived. But a combination of problems and inefficiency put Nelson-Ododa on the bench for more than half the game.
UConn will not play with a team like Arkansas or a player like Dungee again (assuming there is no rematch in the NCAA tournament), but they need Nelson-Ododa to be a reliable defender for 30 minutes per game against the best teams in the country .
Auriemma also chose to play against freshmen Mir McLean and Nika Muhl for more minutes than the average, perhaps throwing them into the fire against a good team on the road without as much concern for this result as for the benefits that these minutes could bring in post. -season. Combine that with the fact that Nelson-Ododa scored just two points, Aaliyah Edwards failed in the third quarter, the Huskies were again without Anna Makurat and the game was reduced to a ball possession, the Huskies are fine.
The fact that Williams did not fix his shooting problems last season is the only area that may be of most concern. After losing all five attempts at 3 points against Arkansas, Williams is now 4 out of 24 in the last three games and shooting only 28.1% in the 3-point range of the season (compared with 33.3% last season) ). She still goes to the basket as well as anyone and is scoring 15.6 PPG, but Williams’s shot abandoned her.
Evina Westbrook and Paige Bueckers combined to make eight of ten points out of 3, which helped to make up for it. But UConn needs Williams to find his reach again.
What does Virginia Tech’s historic victory over NC State No. 2 – the highest ranked team the Hokies have ever won – tell us about both programs?
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Camille Hobby sinks a tie trey at the buzzer in a broken play, but Virginia Tech regroups in overtime to disrupt the No. 2 NC State.
Cream: Each program in the country is experiencing its own version of difficulties related to COVID-19, trying to enter this season in the safest and most successful way possible. NC State was hit hard, and the loss in Thursday’s 83-71 overtime to Virginia Tech may have been the culmination of a month-long struggle to manage the virus.
After a three-week break for the program, Wolfpack returned to action on Sunday, but without its best player, Elissa Cunane, who was unable to return to the team due to the COVID-19 protocols. Without it, NC State was lucky to beat Virginia Tech on Sunday in Raleigh.
Both games illustrated how important Cunane is to Wolfpack. The offense can go through it in the mail. It protects the paint and allows defenders of the NC State perimeter to play a little more. Counting on her to deal with defensive recovery helps ignite the Wolfpack transition game. They need it back so that the team reaches its full potential. With Louisville approaching on Monday, the return of a completely healthy Cunane cannot come soon.
Voepel: Virginia Tech is probably the last program you would want to face without your starting center, because Elizabeth Kitley, a sophomore in the Hokies, is very difficult to stop. She and Cunane grew up in Summerfield, North Carolina, and are good friends who played ball together. Everyone was eager to see the two elite centers clash, but Cunane failed to play in either game, and Kitley had 47 points and 24 rebounds.
Senior Aisha Sheppard scored 28 points, including 16 in overtime, to lead on Thursday. This victory was so great for the Hokies, because they had more than their share of heartbreakers. Arriving on Thursday, they lost five games in January by an average of 3.2 points. This includes a 71-67 loss to current Louisville No. 1 on January 7. It was almost as if all Virginia Tech’s frustration had been exorcised in that 26-point overtime, which was a Division I women’s record for points in an OT.
Coach Kenny Brooks was about to make his first NCAA tournament trip with the Hokies last year (they were 21-9 overall and 11-7 on ACC) before the event was canceled. Now in his fifth season in Blacksburg, Brooks can take advantage of this victory for a race in this year’s tournament.
Which other team or player impressed you on Thursday?
Cream: Ohio State is the best team in the Big Ten. After an impressive victory in Indiana on Thursday, the Buckeyes have now defeated Michigan, Maryland and the Hoosiers – the other three teams in the league with just one loss – in a row and moved up to 6-1 in the league game.
But the more the Buckeyes earn, the more significant the self-imposed post-season ban is – and the more likely the Big Ten will not have its top team in the NCAA tournament. It also means that the league will not have a # 1 or # 2 seed. If eligible, the state of Ohio would likely be a 2-seed in this week’s Bracketology. But the losses that the Buckeyes are passing on to the other important teams in the conference are affecting their profiles.
The state of Ohio has great balance, with five players averaging double digits. That was how the Buckeyes won on Thursday, despite scorers Jacy Sheldon and Madison Greene having combined 11 points from 1 to 15 shots.
Voepel: Georgia Tech (9-3) is calmly sitting third in the ACC at 7-2. But watch out for the Yellow Jackets, whose 70-56 victory in Miami was the fifth consecutive victory. Lorela Cubaj, Italy’s senior striker, led Georgia Tech with 14 points and 14 rebounds. The Jackets’ next stop is Syracuse on Tuesday; Orange is 5-3 at the conference.
How did Virginia Tech defeat NC State and Arkansas and UConn impact Bracketology? Who are the No. 1 seeds now?
Cream: Despite playing an uncharacteristic game against Arkansas, UConn remains No. 1 seed, dropping from No. 2 overall to No. 3. Sometimes the prospect is lost when a top team loses, but the Huskies entered the game first overall. NET rankings. Remember, this was just their first loss. More importantly, there is simply no worthy candidate to take UConn off the front lines.
UCLA? The Bruins have two defeats and a weaker schedule. Certainly not Baylor, who also lost twice, including to Arkansas. Maryland lost its second game four days ago. Texas A&M is only 17th on the NET and has fought in two of its last three wins and lost a game before that. There are no four other teams with better credentials than UConn. South Carolina, Louisville and – again – Stanford are the other No. 1 seeds.
NC State was dropped from the top line. Yes, it was just Wolfpack’s first defeat, and they were playing without Cunane. But because of a long break in COVID-19 and perhaps because of the residual impact of the break, the NC State has done nothing significant in a month. Considering that Wolfpack was lucky enough to beat Virginia Tech on Sunday, Thursday’s defeat came as no surprise.
The victory was a major breakthrough for the Hokies, who went from “Next Four Out” to “First Four Out” in the bubble. The 8-7 record is still a problem for the curriculum, but six of his seven losses were by small margins against NCAA tournament caliber teams. The Hokies look like a possible tournament team. A victory on Sunday against North Carolina and they can go back to the field.
Incredibly, Arkansas has a history of losses at the SEC. If the regular season ended after Thursday’s games, the Razorbacks would be ranked tenth in the SEC tournament. Even so, they won two of the top five teams in the country. And that’s why Arkansas moves from No. 6 seed to No. 5 seed.
A 2-5 SEC mark along with wins against two of the best teams in the country is an anomaly that should not be missed by anyone trying to predict the NCAA tournament. Razorbacks may be fighting in the SEC against teams that play all the time, because opponents are more familiar with their uptempo style characterized by spreading the ground, relentless impulses to the edge and a relentless amount of 3-point attempts.
Preparing for the Neighbors approach is an intriguing adventure in normal times, but especially for non-conference opponents who face even less practice time than usual in this unpredictable season. Baylor and UConn are in the top five of almost all important defensive metrics, but with 83 and 90 points, respectively, for Razorbacks.
Thursday’s turnaround with UConn, which followed a defeat on Monday to Georgia, indicates that because of its distinctive style in the most unusual of seasons, Arkansas may be a common SEC team and a real Final Four threat, all at the same time.