How does NC State’s region in NCAA women’s basketball tournament compare to others?
South Carolina (Greensboro Region) is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. N.C. State (Bridgeport) and Louisville (Wichita) — the class of the ACC the last few season — are also top seeds in this season’s field. The defending national champions, Stanford (Spokane), round out the No. 1 seeds.
Which has the toughest road to the NCAA Final Four in Minneapolis?
Toughest competition
N.C. State (29-3) will face the winner of Longwood and Mt. Saint Mary’s on Saturday in Raleigh. In the Bridgeport Region, there are 10 teams (State included) in the top 50 of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings, which were adopted ahead of the 2020-21 season to determine a team’s quality and overall resume for seeding.
N.C. State is No. 2 in the NET rankings while second-seeded UConn, which is also in the Bridgeport Region, is No. 4 in the rankings.
At a quick glance, some may say the Wolfpack’s region is the toughest of the four.
But there are also 10 top 50 NET teams in the Greensboro Region, 12 in the Spokane Region and 11 in the Wichita Region.
Familiar faces
What makes the Bridgeport Region interesting is the number of familiar faces N.C. State could possibly face.
After the brackets were released, Pack fans were in an uproar about UConn being a No. 2 seed and playing less than 80 miles from its campus in Storrs, Conn.
Duke athletic director Nina King, the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee chair, was asked about the decision to put the Huskies in Bridgeport.
“First and foremost, we start with the S-curve, and then we’ve got bracketing principles that we follow, to make sure that any conflicts are avoided, same conference match-ups, for example, in the first or second rounds, or games that have already happened between teams this year,” King told the media on a conference call. “A variety of conflicts we’re trying to avoid.”
What that comment did was open up another can of worms.
There are five teams in the Bridgeport Region that N.C. State has played this season. If the Wolfpack beats Longwood or Mt. Saint Mary’s, they will play either Washington State or Kansas State in the second round. N.C. State played the Cougars on Nov. 27 and the Wildcats on Nov. 19.
The Wolfpack could also potentially face ACC conference foe Notre Dame in the Sweet 16.
By comparison, there’s just one team in South Carolina’s region that it’s faced this season (Georgia), two in Louisville’s (Michigan and Belmont) and two in Stanford’s (Maryland and Utah).
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 6:20 AM.
