Women's Tourney Finally Producing Girl Drama
I've been hesitant to give any face time to the NCAA women's tournament on Technorati, largely because it's hard to ignore the inevitable.
It is often seen, and rightfully so, as the Geno Auriemma Invitational. It's a little less true these days, but you still see things like Connecticut winning their first two games over Southern and Temple by a combined score of 185-75.
Many teams can't help but wonder how you shut down a team whose most competitive tourney game so far was 55-12 at halftime, but other top teams are finding that their luck has run out.
If you heard that the men's tournament saw 12 of the top 16 seeds advance to the Sweet 16, it would likely be considered unusual that so many high seeds survived. For the women, it's a rather monumental occasion. Monday a No. 5 seed won in overtime, which is no real shock, but yesterday's drama was something to remember.
In the first completed game of the day, seventh-seeded Mississippi State got a rare opportunity, a second round game against the same team they faced in last year's second round, No. 2 seed Ohio State.
Add to that the minimal roster turnover for both teams, and something good was bound to happen - for MSU, apparently. The Bulldogs used a 20-2 run to close out the first half to turn a six point deficit into a 12 point lead and never looked back.
The 20-point final margin was the Buckeyes' worst since losing to Maryland by 24 in November of 2007, and worst tournament loss since falling to Tennessee by 32 points 14 years ago.
The telling moment came with four minutes left in the game. OSU's star point guard Samantha Prihalis drove baseline and her defender didn't give, driving Prihalis out of bounds. The referee called Prihalis out, at which point she bounced the ball off her defender and screamed at the ref. After the ensuing technical foul, Prihalis was inconsolable on the bench.
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