Upsets upcoming at Stanford on Saturday?
By Alex Simon
But that’s not even the more likely upset chance in the building on Saturday. That’ll happen right before Stanford-Gonzaga, when 5-seed Missouri faces off with 12-seed Florida Gulf Coast.
In the highly-competitive SEC, the Tigers had their best season in decades, winning 24 games (most since 1983-1984) and going 11-5 in the conference, with notable wins over South Carolina and Tennessee. Missouri’s led by junior guard Sophie Cunningham,who was named to the All-SEC First Team for the second-straight year after averaging 18 points per game.
“Offensively they execute at a real high level — they can shoot the 3 and still score inside,” said Florida Gulf Coast head coach Karl Smesko. “Defensively, they’re very physical, even though they don’t play as many passing lanes. They’re not afraid to bump you a little bit when you cut and they’re not afraid of contact.”
The Tigers have earned the 5-seed with their play on the season, but for their troubles, they get to face the nation’s top outside-shooting team in the Eagles, who have made 407 3-pointers on the season. It’s something Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton hasn’t seen in a while.
“It’s a completely different look than what we’re used to defending, so it’s definitely going to be a challenge for us,” Pingeton said. “There’s a few teams I think we’ve faced, not necessarily within our conference, but over the years [like them]. But really, I’m so impressed with their offense and their spacing and their movement. Just high basketball IQ kids. Really do a great job creating confusion for the defense and being able to take advantage of it.”
There’s only three teams in the nation who entered the NCAA Tournament with more than 1,000 3-pointers attempted on the season: Saint Francis (PA) shot 1,095 times, DePaul heaved 1,104 shots from deep, and Florida Gulf Coast led the nation with 1,126 attempts. The Eagles have also made 407 of them, which is good for a respectable 36.1-percent (42nd in the nation).
“I feel like we shoot the 3-ball a lot, but that fails to compare to how much they shoot the 3-ball,” Pingeton said with a laugh. “They really spread you out and they’re a hard guard.”
There’s only been two games all season where Florida Gulf Coast has made five 3-pointers or fewer in a game, but they won both games, an 89-84 win over DePaul in November when they shot 2-of-14 from deep and the Atlantic-Sun Conference championship game, defeating Jacksonville 68-58 while only going 5-of-15 from beyond the arc. Those wins give the team’s leading 3-point shooter Taylor Gradinjan confidence.
“I like to think our team is pretty versatile,” the senior said. “We have a lot of girls that are very talented and they can shoot, they can also drive and with that comes a defense where you have to take away the 3 and when you have to take away the 3 you can’t be as good at helping on drives and that, so I think that the way our offense is set up, as long as we’re high and wide and we have space that our drivers can do their job to beat their person, even if the 3 is not open as often.”
And while they do hold the higher seed, Pingeton’s experience as a mid-major coach (seven years at Illinois State, including two NCAA Tournament trips) give her a unique perspective on what the mid-major school is feeling and how her team will approach Saturday’s game.
“We’re looking at it as a first-round game in the NCAA Tournament that’s going to be a battle for forty minutes,” Pingeton said. “I think it’s a chess match a little bit. We might have more size. but they’re awfully quick and athletic, they do a great job defensively. They’re not afraid to play physical and obviously I think they can exploit you with the way they can spread the offense with their 5-out motion. Like I said from the start, I think it’s going to be a tough challenge for us.”
Even with all of the talk about the possibility, the reason why college basketball fans hold upsets in such high regard is the rarity of them, and that’s even more true in the women’s tournament than in the men’s. Even if it’s not likely to happen, if you’re looking for a double-digit seed to root for, there’s two good chances for it at Stanford on Saturday.