NCAA Reveals Final 8 Teams Considered for Women’s Tourney
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Creighton coach Jim Flanery doesn't plan on losing any sleep over being one of the final eight women's basketball teams under consideration for the NCAA Tournament.
After all, there's really nothing more he or his team can do now.
"The bricks have been laid. Now we have to wait regardless of where we end up," Flanery said in a phone interview Sunday night. "It set off a group chat of my coaches. What are we supposed to think of this? I talked to my staff enough about it."
Other teams under consideration for the last four in and first four out were Buffalo, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Purdue, Rutgers, Southern Cal and West Virginia.
Flanery thinks all eight of the teams under consideration got fortunate that there weren't too many upsets in mid-major conferences that could push someone off the bubble.
"It was pretty much chalk in the conference tournaments this week as far as non top-five or six league regular season champions," he said.
Women's basketball committee chair Rhonda Bennett said on ESPN that the committee had been discussing the final eight teams all day leading up to the reveal.
"We need to get these teams right," she said. "We spent pretty much the entire day on these teams."
The women's bracket will be revealed Monday night with the tournament tipping off on Friday. The top 16 seeds will host the first two rounds.
For the third consecutive year, the NCAA revealed its top 16 seeds over the course of the season. In the last reveal on Feb. 19, UConn, Mississippi State, Louisville and Notre Dame were projected as No. 1 seeds.