Minnesota Could Be the Most Disrespected Team in Women's Basketball

What more do the Golden Gophers have to do to gain some respect? It was stunning enough when a win over the No. 10 Iowa Hawkeyes didn't vault them into the AP Top 25 earlier this week, but ESPN's latest bracket projection kept them as a No. 7 seed despite being the only team in the country to win in Iowa City this season.

ESPN's last two bracket updates came on Feb. 6 and Feb. 10. They were a 7-seed in both versions, which suggests that Charlie Creme thinks there are between 24 and 27 teams better than Minnesota.

"I'm not caught up in any of those things. None of that at this point in time matters," head coach Dawn Plitzuweit said Wednesday when asked about being excluded from the top 25.

Since no one else is giving the Gophers the respect they deserve, we'll do it right here.

For starters, the Gophers are 18-6 overall and 9-4 in the Big Ten. Yes, the Big Ten. The same conference that Creme thinks will have 12 teams make the tournament. Despite being tied for fifth place in the Big Ten, Creme has six teams with much better seeds than Minnesota: UCLA (1), Michigan (2), Ohio State (3), Iowa (3), Michigan State (3), and Maryland (4).

Not only are the Gophers fifth in the Big Ten and riding a five-game win streak, but they're also 10th in the NET rankings, which are meant to serve as a primary indicator for how good a team is and how deserving they are to make the NCAA Tournament.

Take a look at the top 20 in the NET and their corresponding seed in Creme's bracketology:

UConn (1)
UCLA (1)
South Carolina (1)
Texas (1)
LSU (2)
Michigan (2)
Vanderbilt (2)
Louisville (2)
Duke (3)
Minnesota (7)
Michigan State (3)
Oklahoma (4)
TCU (4)
Maryland (4)
Iowa (3)
Kentucky (5)
Ohio State (3)
Ole Miss (4)
North Carolina (6)
USC (8)

Minnesota sticks out like a sore thumb. That's absurd, especially when you do a deep dive on the six games they've lost: Kansas, Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, UCLA, and Washington.

The loss to Kansas was just a bad game. The loss to Alabama was on a neutral court, where they rallied from a 22-9 deficit and played without Tori McKinney, who is a starter and one of their best all-around players.

Minnesota had then-No. 7 Maryland dead to rights, only to blow a 99.9% win probability and lose 100-99 in double overtime. The Gophers led by five points with 19 seconds left in the first overtime, and then held a 99-90 lead with 44.3 seconds left in the second overtime, only to watch the Terrapins score 10 straight points to win. It was a disastrous loss, but a game where the Gophers proved they are talented enough to beat a top-10 team.

The loss at then-No. 9 Michigan was in Ann Arbor, and the Gophers were in the game from start to finish.

They were simply overmatched against UCLA, and they lost by double digits at Washington thanks to a brutal third quarter. But again, McKinney was out with an injury for both games.

One could easily argue that the Gophers would've beaten Alabama, a current No. 6 seed in Creme's bracket, had McKinney been available. Minnesota is 17-3 when McKinney plays this season, and 1-3 without her. That's a big deal, and it is another feather in the cap of a Gophers team that, when fully healthy, can hang with some of the best teams in the country.

All of this screams top-five seed, but Creme has them down at No. 7, and the AP Top 25 continues to ignore them.

Minnesota hosts Nebraska Thursday night and then plays at Wisconsin on Sunday. They could be 20-6 overall, and 11-4 in the Big Ten ahead of two top-25 matchups in mid-February at Williams Arena against No. 8 Ohio State (Feb. 18) and No. 13 Michigan State (Feb. 22). They close the season at Illinois on March 1.

Context matters when judging teams, and there's no reason Creme and others can't dig a little bit deeper to see why Minnesota deserves more respect and a higher seed.

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