Who Could The Gamecocks Face In The NCAA Tournament?
On Sunday afternoon, Dawn Staley and South Carolina's Women's Basketball team knocked off the Tennessee Volunteers to reclaim the SEC Tournament Title, avenging their shocking loss from the previous season almost a year to the exact date it took place. With their conference matchups now likely behind them, the Gamecocks are in wait-and-see mode in regards to finding out who they will compete against in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.
In terms of Aliyah Boston and the Gamecocks' overall positioning, they'll likely be the tournament's No. 1 overall seed based on the most recent bracket reveal that took place back on February 23rd, but who might they play in their regional? For the sake of this discussion, we're going to limit this to who the top four seeds in the regional might be, instead of looking at all of the sixteen slots.
According to ESPN Bracketologist Charlie Creme, after all of the action that unfolded on Championship Sunday, the Gamecocks are projected to have Utah, Ohio State and North Carolina fill out the group of top four seeds in their regional. The unique part about this hypothetical group is that South Carolina hasn't faced any of these teams this season, although they did face off against North Carolina in the Sweet 16 in this past year's tournament.
The Utah Utes' are currently putting together one of their best seasons in program history, having won four games against Top 25 teams thanks to the play of junior forward Alissa Pili, who's averaged 20.3 points per game in 28 games this season. The one critique to hold against the Utes' is the fact that each of their wins against Top 25 teams occurred on their home floor, with the Utes winning the score differential by the slimmest of margins in most of those contests.
Ohio State is a team fresh off a Sweet Sixteen exit from this past postseason, and started off this season 19-0, but were brought down to earth in their last 13 games, losing seven conference matchups by an average of 21.16 points per game. North Carolina's season has been a bit of a rollercoaster to say the least, as the Tar Heels lost their first three ACC conference games, then followed that up with an eight game winning streak, which was then followed up by a nine game stretch where they went 4-5, making the Tar Heels a bit of a mystery team heading into the tournament.
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