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Women’s basketball bracketology: What to do with the teams falling fast?

By Russell Steinberg

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SPOKANE, WA – MARCH 28: Head coach Lisa Fortier of the Gonzaga Bulldogs directs her players from the sidelines against the Tennessee Lady Vols during the first half of the game in the 2015 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena on March 28, 2015 in Spokane, Washington. (Photo by William Mancebo/Getty Images)
SPOKANE, WA – MARCH 28: Head coach Lisa Fortier of the Gonzaga Bulldogs directs her players from the sidelines against the Tennessee Lady Vols during the first half of the game in the 2015 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena on March 28, 2015 in Spokane, Washington. (Photo by William Mancebo/Getty Images) /

Palo Alto:

1. Stanford (Pac-12)
16. Southern (SWAC)

8. Tennessee
9. Purdue

Des Moines:

5. South Dakota (Summit)
12. James Madison (CAA)

4. Drake (MVC)
13. Middle Tennessee (CUSA)

There’s a reason I still have Drake hosting despite being a mid-major that suffered an unfortunate string of losses in December. The Bulldogs played the third-best non-conference schedule in the country and used that to rack up wins over South Dakota, South Carolina, and Rutgers. And their four losses are all against the RPI top 25, with their “worst” coming on the road. Drake just can’t slip up moving forward.

Spokane:

6. Kentucky
11. Boise State (Mountain West)

3. Gonzaga
14. UC Davis (Big West)

Raleigh:

7. California
10. Michigan

2. NC State
15. FGCU (ASUN)

I’m sure I’ll be asked to defend Gonzaga here as well, so before you start accusing me of pro-mid-major bias (though is that ever a bad thing?) here we go: Like Drake, Gonzaga has a great record and its losses are to good opponents (No. 1 Notre Dame and projected 9 seed BYU). They’ve also beaten Stanford and Rutgers. One could argue that the BYU loss should knock them down a little bit and I’m not sure how hard I’d fight against that. But here’s the thing: If you’re going to look at BYU’s win and say “wow, the Cougars must be good because they beat Gonzaga,” you can’t then turn to Gonzaga and say “well maybe the Zags aren’t that good after all.”

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