While the men have been outperforming expectations but still languishing in the bottom third of the conference, the women have been having one of the best seasons in decades. They finished the regular season with a 22-7 record, 13-5 in the Big Ten, their most conference wins since 1985.
And with their win at Illinois on Sunday, the women secured 4th place in the Big Ten. The team has been improving throughout the season and currently have won 10 of their last 11 games with big wins over Iowa at Carver-Hawkeye
Arena and beating Ohio State at home.
So what does this mean?
First of all, this means the women have a double-bye in the conference tournament.
Looking ahead to Friday, the Gophers will likely be facing Ohio State in a game that has some pretty siginficant implications for NCAA Tournament seeding. The winner will lock in a 4-seed or higher while the loser, hopes to hang on to a 4-seed. And the 4-seed is significant.
In the Women’s NCAA Tournament teams with a top-4 seed host the opening two rounds of the tournament.
Currently the Gophers are projected as a 4-seed, both in bracket predictions as well as they are ranked 15th in the NCAA’s top 16 seed rank that came out on Sunday.
What makes this interesting is the fact that the teams around them in the seed rankings are all Big Ten teams.
13 – Maryland
14 – Michigan State
15 – Minnesota
16 – Ohio State
So you can see that this Big Ten tournament is going to have some significant impact on NCAA seeding. A quarterfinal win and a 3-seed is not out of the question. A loss to Ohio State and they may be traveling for the first two rounds.
This team has been very good and have earned themselves a secure NCAA Tournament bid, with a chance at hosting. It is a balanced team with five players averaging double-figures but they are led by sophomore guard Tori McKinney at 13.6 points per game. Additionally, this team has a couple of very good shooters in Grace Grocholski (12.5) and Mara Braun (11.7), point guard Amaya Battle (10.9) and center Sophie Hart (10.9) are your biggest contributors to this Gopher squad.
If you have not yet watched them play this season, you should check them out in the Big Ten Tournament before the bandwagon fills up for the NCAA Tournament. They play elite defense and this team is fun to watch.
Their initial game will be Friday afternoon on BTN.
