NCAA: UCLA, South Carolina, USC and Texas lead women’s tournament
UCLA, South Carolina, USC and Texas will be the standard heads in the University Basketball Tournament.
The UCLA Bruins, the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Texas Longhorns, programs that occupied the first place this season in the Top 25 survey of Associated Press, joined the USC Trojans this Sunday as the four teams with the best classification in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, which begins this week and will conclude with the final Four in Tampa, Florida.
The Bruins obtained first place a week after securing the Big Ten tournament championship in Indianapolis. In that tournament, the Bruins beat their Trojans rivals at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in the opening season of both universities in the League.
Ucla lost for double digits in the two previous clashes of the regular season against USC, the only two losses of the Bruins. The competition between them seems to have strengthened mutual respect, while making the possibility of a new encounter more real. And now, to meet again in the NCAA tournament, it would have to be under the spotlights of Tampa. Derita Dawkins, president of the Selection Committee, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Athletic Deputy Director of Arkansas, spoke with Holly Rowe, of AM850, after the announcement of the complete picture and was immediately asked about the decision to place the Bruins instead of the Gamecocks in the first general position.
“There were two key factors between UCLA and South Carolina,” Dawkins said. “One was the direct confrontation. And the other was one of our criteria, which is competitive in the defeats. South Carolina suffered a defeat for 29 points against Uconn.”
The Gamecocks secured first place after a season with a 30-3 record that culminated with a victory over the Longhorns in the match for the tit title of the SEC tournament last week. In the face of that tournament, South Carolina occupied fifth place at the national level and was projected as second place.
Although Texas lost that game for the title, the Lonhorns secured a shared title of the regular season in its first season at the SEC. They have a 31-3 record and finished 15-1 in the regular conference season.
The powerful Uconn Huskies, who won the Big East tournament convincing last week, is the second head of the series after a regular season in which the Huskies had an 18-0 record in the League and closed with a streak of 10 consecutive wins.
“I think the fans want to see good basketball,” Dawkins said when asked about the possibility that the four number one teams meet in Tampa. “And they will see it. I think the teams deserve to be classified and classified according to the work they have done throughout the year on the court. And that is what we did.”
For the first time in the history of NCAA, there will be a financial incentive for women’s teams. They will receive a payment for their results in the NCAA tournament, as are the male teams for years.
The so -called performance units, which represent a part of the income, will be granted to women’s teams for each victory. A team that arrives at the Final Four could contribute approximately 1.26 million dollars to rewards for their financial yield over the next three years.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
