SPORTS
Top 16 teams prove to be the Sweetest
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Sunday, December 2, 2001
This year’s women’s NCAA tournament bracket could not have been more perfectly laid out.
With the first two rounds over and 48 teams now eliminated from action, only 16 teams remain. The Sweet 16 will be comprised of the top 16-seeded teams in the tournament.
Undefeated No. 1 Long Beach State (30-0) has run through the first two rounds virtually untouched, sweeping both of its opponents. No. 3 Stanford and No. 4 USC also swept their first two opponents 3-0.
No. 2-seeded Nebraska is the only one of the top four seeds that needed more than three games to fend off its opponents. After sweeping Oral Roberts 3-0 in the opening round, the Huskers needed to go four games before disposing of conference foe Kansas State.
When the initial bracket was set last Monday, the NCAA opted to regionalize the tournament as much as possible due to the Sept. 11th attacks. Now, of the 16 teams left, all but Region Four will have to travel to the state of California in hopes of an NCAA championship.
Six of the 16 teams left hail from California, including regional hosts Long Beach State, USC, and Stanford. The only California school that will have to travel away from the beaches will be No. 7 Pepperdine, who will be playing in the cornfields of Nebraska next weekend, where they will face off with No. 10-seeded Florida, the only East Coast school left standing.
Florida was one team who benefited from the regionalization of the tournament, as they swept both Florida A&M and Florida International.
Nebraska, who traveled to Kansas State for the first two rounds, will make its home debut in the tournament against No. 15 Colorado State, who needed five games to end the University of Colorado’s season.
No. 14 Utah and No. 11 Texas A&M also faced off with an in-state rival in the opening rounds. The Aggies ousted Massachusetts based Northeastern University before defeating Texas 3-0.
A&M will face off with No. 6 Wisconsin next weekend in Palo Alto, Calif. Utah got past Texas Tech in the first round before defeating the familiar face of Utah State. Utah will also head to Palo Alto where they open up the regional semifinals against host Stanford.
On the other side of the bracket, Long Beach State will take on No. 16 Northern Iowa, a team that beat Wisconsin early on in the season. No. 9 Hawaii will play No. 8 UCLA, while No. 5 Arizona will go head-to-head with No. 12 Pacific.
Big Ten-wise, only two of the six schools that made the tournament remain. The Badgers will be joined by No. 13 Ohio State in the Sweet 16. The Buckeyes defeated Robert Morris 3-0 before taking care of Cincinnati 3-1. They will take on No. 3 USC next weekend.
The only way UW and OSU could meet from this point on would be in the championship match.
The other four conference rivals that bowed out early were Minnesota, who fell to Northern Iowa; Illinois, who lost to Arizona; Penn State, who lost at home to UCLA; and Michigan State, who fell at the hands of the Badgers.
Tournament play will continue next weekend where regional semifinals and finals will conclude at the respective host schools, before the Final Four convenes in San Diego in two weeks.
