We are down to the end of the season. The Final Four is almost here!!!!!
And what an amazing Final Four we have!!!! This is a women’s focused post – so we will congratulate these great women’s teams.
Before we get to the main event, lets recognize the NIT finalists – Buffalo (29-7) will play Troy (24-13) on CBS Sports Network on Saturday at 5 pm.
On Friday night, the women’s Final Four kicks off in Tampa, FL. In the 7 pm game, we have the two SEC regular-season co-champions play a fourth time to see who gets to play for the championship as South Carolina (35-3) plays Texas (35-3). In the regular season, each team won the game played on their home court, but South Carolina claimed the third game at the SEC conference tournament championship.
In the 9 pm game, we have the Big 10 tournament champion UCLA (34-2) against the Big East regular-season/tournament champion Connecticut (35-3) as Paige Bueckers tries to end her amazing college career with a championship.
These four women’s teams have been dominating all season. It is impressive that these four teams have only lost 11 times all season, but it might be even more impressive of the only teams that beat them.
South Carolina’s only losses were to UCLA, Texas and Connecticut – the other 3 Final Four teams (that doesn’t necessarily make them the underdog – remember they beat Texas twice and the UCLA game was in Los Angeles.
Texas only losses were the two games to Texas and an overtime loss at 3 seed Notre Dame in South Bend.
UCLA has only lost to one team this year – the last 1 seed USC – the Trojans swept the regular season against the Bruins before getting beat by UCLA in the Big 10 tournament.
Connecticut went undefeated in the Big East and so their only losses were during their brutal non-conference schedule to 1 seed USC by 2 points, 3 seed Notre Dame (at ND) and 5 seed Tennessee (at Tennessee).
Think about that for a second – the only teams that beat the Final Four teams were each other, USC (who might be in this list if JuJu Watkins had not gotten hurt), and road games against two Sweet 16 teams in Notre Dame and Tennessee. Total dominance!!!!
It should be a fantastic Final Four leading to a well-deserving champion!!!
I also need to do a special call-out to Geno Auriemma and the Connecticut Huskies. I have always known how dominating the Huskies were but it never occurred to me until I heard this piece of information.
Geno Auriemma has now coached the Huskies to 16 of the last 17 Final Fours. That means he has now coached in 24 Final Fours, and has managed to finish those final weekends with 11 national championships. What the UConn Huskies have achieved is so incredible – it is an amazing accomplishment to make a Final Four, to do it every year for basically 17 years is legendary.
Good luck to all of these four great teams on Friday night!!!