March Madness: Five Bold Predictions for Women’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16

Who could surprise as the tournament nears its halfway point?

Expect Joyce Edwards and South Carolina to keep the dance going against Oklahoma. | Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

After fanning out across the country during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, women’s college basketball fans will descend on two cities Friday: Fort Worth and Sacramento.

These sites will play host to a bracket that has deviated ever-so-gently from its traditional chalk so far. While all four No. 1 seeds will be present, so too will No. 5 Kentucky, No. 6 Notre Dame, and this year’s Cinderella—No. 10 Virginia, making its first Sweet 16 appearance since 2000.

With that in mind, let’s take a stab at five bold predictions for what is sure to be an intriguing middle weekend.

Notre Dame beats Vanderbilt...

The Fighting Irish are only 5.5-point underdogs to the Commodores. They’re playing their best basketball of the season—not to mention that their second-most recent loss, to the Cavaliers on Feb. 8, looks better and better in hindsight. And they will have on Friday, by multiple measures, the best player on the floor (more on that in a minute). Notre Dame seemed to find an identity against Ohio State Monday, forcing the Buckeyes into 21 turnovers—nearly eight more than their season average. Bank on that trend continuing, and the Fighting Irish continuing their bid to become the first No. 6 seed in the Final Four since 1997.

...but Mikayla Blakes outscores Hannah Hidalgo

Wait a minute—didn’t we just establish that Hidalgo will be the best player on the floor Friday? She will be—Hidalgo has Blakes beaten in advanced metrics like win shares, box plus/minus, and player efficiency rating. However, against an attack as powerful as Notre Dame’s, Vanderbilt will need Blakes to be a scorer first. Of her 10 highest-scoring games of the season, six came against NCAA tournament teams: Alabama (35), the Kentucky (37 and 35), Oklahoma (34), Tennessee (34), and Texas (34).

South Carolina locks in and detonates in its rematch with Oklahoma

How did the Sooners upset the Gamecocks 94–82 in overtime on Jan. 22 in one of the most impressive wins of the college basketball season? A combination of a bad South Carolina shooting day (its second-worst of the season by percentage, in fact), a victory in the rebounding war, and dumb luck. It’s a safe assumption that the Gamecocks won’t shoot 13 percentage points below their season average again, and South Carolina dominated USC on the boards 39–21 in the second round. That leaves dumb luck, which favored Oklahoma on its own floor but likely won’t in Sacramento.

Virginia summons one final miracle

In the first round of the tournament, Fairleigh Dickinson threw a massive scare into Iowa, and the Cavaliers eagerly preyed on the vulnerable Hawkeyes in the second round. Could we see a repeat in the Sweet 16? TCU needed overtime to down Washington in the second round, and the Horned Frogs’ nerve center—guard Olivia Miles—has gone 13-for-34 from the field over the past two games. Against the Hawkeyes, Virginia stifled a good shooting team, holding a team with an effective field-goal percentage north of 50% to a 39.9% clip. If it can limit TCU on the glass, it’ll join Oregon in 2017 and Creighton in 2022 as No. 10 seeds to make the Elite Eight.

LSU crushes Duke in the most lopsided game not involving UConn or UCLA

When a No. 2 seed peaks at the right time—as the Tigers are doing right now—it tends to fly under the radar. Here are the results of LSU’s games since winning by six at Mississippi State on March 1: an 112–78 win over the Sooners, an 83–77 loss to the Gamecocks (forgivable), a 116–58 win over Jacksonville, and a 101–47 win over Texas Tech. Coach Kim Mulkey’s squad is currently in the obliteration business, and that’s bad news for a Blue Devils team that “only” has won NCAA tournament games by 17 and 23.

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