The selection committee blew it.
Not by putting UCLA as the overall No. 1 seed over South Carolina. That was the right call because of their head-to-head matchup, regardless of what Dawn Staley says.
No, where the committee erred was in making USC the No. 1 seed and UConn the No. 2 seed in the Spokane 4 regional, setting JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers on a collision course that would end short of the Final Four. Just like last year.
‘There was no consideration of that,’ Derita Dawkins, who is the chair of the selection committee, said Sunday night after the 68-team bracket was announced.
Well, there should have been.
Interest in women’s basketball has skyrocketed the last few years in large part because of star players who appeal to both the diehard and casual fans. There’s a legion of new women’s basketball fans because Caitlin Clark knocked down 3s like she was playing Pop-a-Shot on her way to breaking Pete Maravich’s all-time major college basketball scoring record last year. There’s also a considerable number who got hooked because Angel Reese kept popping up on their TVs.
With Clark and Reese now in the WNBA, it’s Watkins and Bueckers who have taken center stage. And the appetite for them is huge. When they played in December, a 72-70 USC win, 2.23 million tuned in to watch the game on Fox. It was the most-watched women’s basketball game this season.
Both Watkins and Bueckers have incredibly high basketball IQs, and can flip a game in an instant. (Just ask UCLA and South Carolina.) They’re exciting to watch and it’s a given they will make at least one, jaw-dropping play each game.
But you don’t have to be a hoophead to be captivated by them.
Watkins has a commercial portfolio to rival any big-name athlete — her State Farm commercial is already on heavy rotation and Fanatics announced Friday that Watkins was the first female athlete to sign an exclusive deal with them — and little girls sporting the ‘JuJu bun” have been a fixture at home and road games all season. Bueckers has a standing invite to the ESPYs, and her back-and-forths with UConn coach Geno Auriemma are comedic gold that will lead SportsCenter at some point during the tournament.
To have them meet in a game that isn’t even in the Final Four is a waste of a ratings goldmine. Again, see the numbers for that December game. Not to mention squandering what is likely to be one of the best games of the tournament, a chance to showcase why the women’s game is a growth stock these days.
‘I never thought I’d be a 1 seed and feel disrespected. But I thought the committee — I thought there was very little chance we’d be the (fourth) No. 1. You tell me if you think the bracket we got should have been the one that it was,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.
‘It’s not an arrogance of any kind. I think there’s a lot of really good teams, and you’ve got to play the first game in front of you and earn your way from there and that’s what we’ll do,” Gottlieb added. ‘But sometimes I don’t understand people who make decisions in women’s basketball and why they do what they do. And certainly with this committee, I’d love to ask some questions.”
Dawkins, who is the assistant vice chancellor and deputy athletics director at Arkansas, said the committee made Texas the third No. 1 seed over USC because it felt the Longhorns were more competitive in their one game against a common opponent, Notre Dame. USC’s worst loss, to Iowa, was also worse than Texas’ worst loss, to Notre Dame, Dawkins said.
But there comes a point when subjectivity enters into the committee’s decisions. The men’s selection committee knows that.
Oh, they won’t admit to tweaking the brackets to get games that will draw eyeballs. But come on. Rick Pitino starting the tournament in Providence? And possibly facing John Calipari in the second round? That doesn’t happen by accident.
There was a case to be made for making Southern California the third No. 1 seed. Two wins over UCLA, both of them decisive, along with that win over UConn. The loss to Iowa being on the road. There also was a case to be made for making UConn a No. 1 seed rather than Texas. That thumping of South Carolina last month. At South Carolina, no less. Ten consecutive wins, all by double figures. The Huskies’ No. 1 NET ranking.
Point being, the committee could have seeded USC and UConn in a way that would have been good for fans, good for ratings and, most importantly, good for women’s basketball. Instead, it lacked vision.
Sometimes, the people holding women’s sports back most are the very people who are supposed to be championing them.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.