Third Time's A Charm

I won’t touch on the regular season awards too much, but JuJu Watkins was named Player of the Year within the conference to nobody’s surprise. Her coach, Lindsay Gottlieb, won Coach of the Year, while UCLA’s Lauren Betts earned Defensive Player of the Year. The toughest battle to choose, Freshman of the Year, ultimately went to co-winners Jaloni Cambridge and Olivia Olson.

All of these were totally valid choices! You can see the full selection of Big Ten honorees here. I only have a few complaints within the All-Big Ten lists, specifically with Julia Ayrault missing first-team and Syla Swords not being a unanimous selection for the All-Freshman list, but I digress.

My Award Picks

Last Hoopla:

A look again at **my predictions** from the Hoopla above:

• Wednesday: 3-0 on picks

• Thursday: 2-2

• Friday: 3-1

• Saturday: 2-0

• Sunday: 0-1

Overall, I went 10-4 throughout the week, which I’m willing to accept! I started strong and ultimately did get the championship game correct, but I fell victim to recent history on the winner choice.

After two failed attempts to take down their in-state rival, UCLA got it done, beating USC with a comeback 72-67 victory that saw the Bruins completely shut down the Trojans attack in the second half.

USC led this one 45-35 at half, 18 points of which were by Watkins. Talia von Oelhoffen hit a three to open the third quarter, and I thought a 13-point advantage might be enough for the Trojans to win the mental battle and start to secure the 3-0 sweep. But UCLA really started to put a lid on the basket from there. It took nearly nine minutes in the fourth quarter for USC to make a basket, and while Watkins had some heroics to make it interesting late, the Bruins controlled the pace of the game to comeback and close out this one in impressive fashion.

Lauren Betts had a quiet first half, but finished with 17 points, four steals and four blocks in a performance that proved why she won Defensive Player of the Year. Watkins had 29 points, 10 rebounds and four steals, but was 9 of 28 from the field in the defeat.

UCLA like, way outshot USC in this game, 52.3% to 34.3%. The Trojans could have comfortably won this game if the two teams were even close to as efficient: USC had 21 offensive rebounds and forced 24 UCLA turnovers. The shot attempts on the afternoon were 70 for USC and 44 for UCLA, and yet the Trojans made just one more shot — 24 to 23 — than their opponent.

I think fatigue also played a role here. As we will get to, USC had a much more intense battle in the semifinals than UCLA, and that may have resulted in some fresher legs on the third day of a back-to-back-to-back schedule. But that is not meant as any sort of discrediting to the Bruins, if anything it’s even more credit to them that they dispelled a tougher opponent with such ease in the round prior.

Betts was a deserving Tournament MVP, specifically for her performances both here and against Nebraska, but credit also should go to Londynn Jones and Gabriela Jaquez, who I thought had terrific tournaments as well for UCLA.

NCAA Tournament wise, both of these teams should be 1-seeds, and it will be interesting to see if UCLA will earn the No. 1 overall seed over South Carolina. Notre Dame’s loss to Duke likely drops the Irish below the Trojans, who are also battling with UConn and Texas for that 1-seed line.

Other Winners

UCLA is obviously the big winner from the bracket, but this year’s tournament feels like it did more overall harm than good to the Big Ten’s NCAA Tournament hopefuls.

Iowa and Nebraska each earned two victories before falling on Friday, winning a blowout matchup in the opening day before earning an upset victory apiece against Michigan State and Illinois, respectively.

The Hawkeyes looked especially strong in the tournament, continuing their hot play they ended the regular season on with a 13-point victory over the Spartans. Lucy Olsen continues to play excellently, and the Hawkeyes appear set to be a Top 6-7 seed on Sunday.

The Cornhuskers likely erased any final doubts on their Selection Sunday status, dominating Rutgers before beating a very good Illinois team in what was my favorite game of the whole tournament. Britt Prince continues to look like a star in the making, and this team’s three-point ability gives them a chance to upset just about anyone they run into.

Indiana left the week with a 1-1 record, but still feels like a clear beneficiary from the tournament. The Hoosiers took care of higher-seeded Oregon with relative ease, then scared USC to death with an 84-79 nail-biter. Yarden Garzon had an awesome tournament, and this team’s guard play plus awesome free throw shooting could matter in a big way next week.

Michigan would be my largest non-UCLA winner of the week. The Wolverines earned two wins against very strong competition, battled with USC for the vast majority of the semifinal and look like a team that is ready to make a run. The Wolverines handled a veteran Washington group and then completely throttled Maryland, thoroughly dominating the fully rested Terps in three out of four quarters. Their run ended at the hands of the Trojans, but that game was tied with 6:29 to go, so don’t let the final score fool you into thinking USC won with any sorts of ease.

Finally, though Washington fell to those Wolverines, I think the Huskies likely did enough to make the NCAA Tournament, so that constitutes a win. They won what felt like a must-win contest over Minnesota, and did so by double digits. Ending the season winning five of its last six is a huge deal for Selection Sunday, and while this group is by no means a lock, it is far more comfortable than it was even two weeks ago.

The Not Winners

I’ll start this one off where the other leaves it, and that’s with Minnesota.

The Gophers lost 79-65 in their last chance to prove to the committee that they deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament. They will likely be the 13th Big Ten team in decision-making which, to me, means that they probably needed a more enticing case than they ultimately gave.

This was a closer game than it’ll get credit for, as Minnesota trailed by only six entering the fourth, but Washington’s core four combined for 65 points on their own in the win. It was Minnesota’s third straight loss, as well as their eighth defeat in the past 10 games, as well as their 10th defeat in the last 14.

A 20-11 record with eight Big Ten wins is certainly still worth considering, and the Gophers continue to find themselves right around the bubble in various projections, but I am going into Selection Sunday assuming that they will be on the wrong side of that line.

Michigan State’s loss to Iowa didn’t change much for me about their outlook, but I am including them here because the Spartans are now 0-3 in postseason play over the past two seasons. A NCAA Tournament win this year will immediately take this narrative away for me, but it feels worth noting at the least.

Maryland and Ohio State didn’t have as much to lose as Minnesota, but they did both enter with legitimate chances at NCAA Tournament home games, and both squandered the opportunity to get any security on that front.

The Terps left this tournament as quickly as they entered it. One solid run in the second quarter aside, Maryland was thoroughly outplayed by the Wolverines in what was, to me, a shocking performance. Sarah Te-Biasu did what she could with some great shotmaking, but this was a lackluster performance that needs to be learned from ahead of next week.

It’s not quite fair to compare Ohio State’s shortcomings, as the Buckeyes took down a red-hot Hawkeyes team thanks to a solid defensive effort. That said, Ohio State never looked like it was on the same realm of existence as UCLA on the way to a 75-46 loss. That’s not a great thing to say about a team trying to make its case in the Top 16.

Ohio State remains a 4-seed on ESPN’s Bracketology, ahead of the Terps, as well as Alabama, Kansas State and Tennessee on the 5-seed line, so it may not ultimately matter. Still, the game felt like, at the least, a moment where the Buckeyes failed to show the potential their roster feels like it has.

Wisconsin Starts Anew

Marisa Moseley is out as Wisconsin’s head coach after four seasons at the helm. Wisconsin has announced it as a resignation.

Moseley’s tenure started with some promise and had bright moments, and taking the Badgers to the WNIT last season is worth celebrating. But I have also discussed topics on Wisconsin that, if the allegations are true, would not be worth celebrating. 

It’s often felt like the Badgers were operating under a fog with the amount of players leaving or not playing for unknown circumstances during Moseley’s tenure, and with the first season of win regression under her belt, it felt like this program was in need of a change, and that’s before considering the allegations above.

Some great players have been in this program the past four seasons. Ronnie Porter has had another really solid season for the Badgers, and Maty Wilke continues to impress, just on Utah, where she’s shooting comfortably above 40 percent from deep this season. And of course, there’s Serah Williams, who has proven to be, without a doubt, one of the most impressive interior players in the conference each of the past two seasons.

As for a replacement, SB Nation’s Mitchell Northam listed out three intriguing options, and I hope that Wisconsin at least goes in this realm of thinking for their next hire. Picking a coach like Carrie Moore at Harvard, someone who is an established winner looking to make a leap into a Power conference, that makes the most sense with where the Badgers are at currently, especially when looking at the success Shauna Green has had at Illinois, a program that was in a very similar spot to Wisconsin not long ago.

Photo Credit: UCLA Women’s Basketball (@UCLAWBB), Twitter/X

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