SEATTLE – June Daugherty couldn’t resist a little jab at the press.
For 21/2 weeks, the University of Washington women’s basketball coach had listened to questions about whether her team had done enough to get into The Dance. The Huskies had lost their past three games by 57 points, including a first-round bow-out to USC in the Pac-10 Tournament.
That was after the Huskies fell 100-69 at Stanford and 81-58 at Cal to finish the regular season.
So, moments following the announcement Monday that Washington (18-10) would travel to Nashville as the ninth seed in the San Antonio region to play eighth-seeded Minnesota (19-9), it was Daugherty’s turn for a little payback.
“To be frank, I thought the media made more out of it than it was,” she said. “There were only two teams that went to the Bay Area and didn’t get swept. It was unfortunate, maybe, the way our scheduling was at the end of the year.”
OK, point taken. Then what would be wrong in addressing the situation when asked instead of declining to publicly speculate? Coaches constantly make cases for their programs at this time of the year. Maybe it works; maybe it doesn’t. But silence breeds conjecture from the outside and may well project a lack of confidence from within.
And the conjecture was that Washington was one of the bubble teams. The Huskies had an RPI of 57, a power ranking of 38, had finished 3-5 against top 25 teams, 1-3 against teams ranked 26 to 50 and were 2-1 against teams ranked 51-100.
Those are numbers worthy of a tournament team. Yet, we are bombarded by the importance of the way a team finishes the season. Example on the men’s side:
Syracuse, a bubble team with a 7-9 mark in the Big East, 19-11 overall, yet the Orange shot up to a No. 5 seed by winning the Big East Tournament with a stunning four-game run.
While the Huskies didn’t have that on their side, they did benefit from a 7-2 preseason record, a mark that included a win over tournament-bound Utah and road victories at Alabama, Florida State and Michigan. The two losses came against powerhouses Baylor and Texas A&M, both on the road.
They also played in a conference that, obviously, the selection committee looked at fondly. The Pac-10 got six teams into the tournament. Just the ACC and Big 12 had more, with seven. The SEC also managed to get six in.
An 11-7 mark in the Pac-10 along with the regular season record was enough to offset the late-season swoon. Taken as a body of work, yes, the Huskies deserved an invitation.
“As things went on, whether it was preseason or the conference tournament, I felt more and more confident about us being in and what kind of seed we were going to get,” Daugherty said Monday. “But these guys took care of business, getting us 7-2 in preseason and that, in itself, weighed very heavily on the committee.”
Yet, crazy things happen in the selection process. Just ask most teams in the NIT or WNIT, any one of which may have a legitimate gripe. The fact is that the Huskies’ finish left a lot to be desired. Yes, most Pac-10 teams were swept in the Bay Area, but we’re looking at a 54-point deficit in two games. Not only that, but Washington lost four of its past six.
Daugherty can say she was confident, but her players didn’t think a tournament appearance was certain.
“We knew we shot ourselves in the foot at the end,” senior guard Kristen O’Neill said. “We were given the opportunity that we’d deserved all season, but we didn’t solidify that as well as we could’ve.”
So now, the Huskies face the Gophers, a team that finished third in the Big Ten and beat Stanford early in the season. The winner likely gets to play top-seed LSU, a “prize” to any victor of a No. 8-9-seeder.
If the Huskies pull off two straight upsets to begin the tournament, we can’t wait to see what material that gives Daugherty.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
