COLUMBUS, Ohio — The search for a rare species — an upset in the first week of the women’s NCAA tournament — led to the Ohio State campus Monday. Maybe one would be spotted here, like the quest to find a Siberian tiger.
No. 6 seed Notre Dame vs. No. 3 Ohio State. Notre Dame has long shown a flair for survival with 19 trips to the Sweet 16 this century. Plus, the Irish had won 10 of 12 games. Plus, there was the uniquely close relationship between the benches. It’s not every tournament game where one coach is godmother to the other coach’s daughter.
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So why not here? It had been a cold, hard world for the lower seeds in the first weekend of the women’s tournament. They were 0-16 the first day, 3-13 the second, 0-8 the third. The dominance of higher seeds is hardly a shocker in either the men’s or women’s brackets, but this year seemed a particularly virulent case, especially among the elite. Witness the carnage of the high seeds.
By Monday afternoon, Connecticut had won by 38 points, Texas by 42 and 42, South Carolina by 69, UCLA by 53, LSU by 58 and 54, Michigan by 35 and 29, Vanderbilt by 41. Any evidence of an improving parity between the haves and have-nots was a little hard to see with the naked eye.
“I can't give you examples on the women's side of that happening, but I honestly do see the gap closing a little bit,” LSU coach Kim Mulkey had said. “The Power Four schools are getting what, football money, right? Revenue share. That's going to make the rich get richer. I don't have the answers.”
South Carolina’s Dawn Staley pondered the issue as well, mentioning how the top teams schedule so many arduous non-conference tests now against opponents of varying styles, it prepares them for any insurgents with different ideas.
“I think the men's game has been very, very competitive. Our game has been mainly the top seeds advance. It's tough. I think the Power Four conferences, we've seen so (many) levels of basketball, to where the mid-major style of play, they don't affect us as much as it used to affect us.
“So when it's time for tournament time, we have that and nothing will really catch us off guard.”
But surely there could be unrest a little further down the seed food chain? Say a No. 6 over a No. 3? Say, Notre Dame over Ohio State?
There was an unusual history to this match. Buckeyes coach Kevin McGuff was on the Irish staff in 2001 when Notre Dame won the national championship. So was his future wife Letitia. So was a player named Niele Ivey. McGuff was young enough back then to take part in team scrimmages so it’s possible he even had to guard Ivey.
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They all became close friends, and Ivey now is godmother to Lily, one of the six kids for McGuff and Letitia. Ivey was in town Monday as coach at Notre Dame, trying to knock McGuff’s team off the road.
“Obviously, yeah, we love Niele and we're both competitive people, who take very seriously the job that we have,” McGuff had said the day before. “It’s going to be unfortunate, because one of us isn't going to win. We know that. Once we get past the game, we'll be back to kind of the relationship that it is.”
It began at 4 p.m. In two minutes, the Buckeyes led 11-0. So much for that upset idea.
But there was encouraging news of messiness from elsewhere. No. 3 seed Louisville barely scraping by No. 6 Alabama by one point. And this just in from Iowa City: 10-seed Virginia over the No. 2 seed Hawkeyes in double overtime. There it was, the breakthrough. Now the tournament was cooking a bit.
Back here, Godmother Niele’s Notre Dame team had rallied in a big way. The Irish went from 11 down to 13 up to giving nearly all that back to pulling away and winning 83-73, doing all that with just seven scholarship players. It was the kind of roller-coaster ride with a twist that a tournament needs.
ACC player of the year Hannah Hidalgo had 26 points and also the customary eight steals. She seems to always have eight steals, or sometimes more. She had 16 in one game this season. The season total of this master thief is 189, more than 35 entire Division I teams.
So let headquarters know another upset — by seed, anyway — had been spotted and confirmed.
“Obviously, it was a magical game for us,” Ivey said. “I think just having this type of upset — we don't feel it's an upset, but having the lower seed team win — especially on the road, I think is great for the game. It just shows all the parity that's in women's basketball.”
It also left her emotional. This has not been an easy season with roster issues and losses by scores such as 93-54 to Michigan and 85-47 to Connecticut. But the 24-10 Irish are in the second week of the NCAA tournament, same place they usually are.
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“I think that's where I'm more emotional, because it has not been easy,” Ivey said. “So when you know that you've gone through the fire, you've gone through the storm, and you still come out on top is the reason why I'm just so grateful.”
The rest of Monday evening would be taken by the second round games of such heavyweights as UConn, UCLA and South Carolina. Might be more poundings to come. Matter of fact, this halftime score just came in: Connecticut 65, Syracuse 12. Oh, dear.
But Virginia had its moment at Iowa and Notre Dame at Ohio State, and while that wasn’t good news for the Big Ten it may have been a boost for the tournament at large. The scoreboard no longer was quite so heavily connected to the seed line.
Back to something Staley had said. “I don't think the Cinderella thing is dead. I think it's probably a little bit dormant. I'll say that for right now just in case we run up against someone that we didn't expect.”
So as of Monday, there was at least some uncertainty in the women’s bracket. As there should be by this time in March.
