To Texas for the Tournament
Nebraska women's basketball earned a 10-seed and a first-round matchup against Louisville. Not a terrible draw based on some of the numbers.
How about a waltz across Texas? Or at least Forth Worth?
Nebraska women’s basketball (21-11, 10-8) earned a 10-seed in the NCAA Tournament where it will face 7-seed Louisville (21-10, 13-5) in the first round Friday.
By NET rankings—which the committee uses to inform tournament selections—it’s not the worst draw for the Huskers. Nebraska (40th NET) is seeded right where it should be1 based on the NCAA’s official comparison measure.
The Cardinals, however, finished 36th in NET, a low 9-seed if the committee went by rankings alone. Neither team was good against the top-end teams this season, but the Huskers hold a slight edge in the big wins department. Nebraska went 4-10 against Quad 1 teams, Louisville 2-9.
The Cards were better against Quad 2 teams (with more opportunities), going 7-1 to NU’s 2-1. Neither team lost a Quad 3 or Quad 4 game.
The teams had a pair of common opponents. Louisville lost to UCLA 66-59 in its season-opener, played in Paris. Nebraska faced the Bruins, a 1-seed in the Tournament, twice, losing 91-54 in Los Angeles in December before challenging UCLA for four quarters in an 85-74 loss in the Big Ten Tournament.
Nebraska also dropped a game at Georgia Tech, 72-61. Louisville beat the Yellow Jackets, a 9-seed in the Tournament, 69-60 in Louisville.
Further evidence of the nearness of these two teams: Louisville’s national-title odds were sitting at +25,000 Sunday night, Nebraska’s +30,000. A line for the game wasn’t available at press time.2
The Cards are a young team—eight freshmen on the roster—that found its stride midseason. They played without leading scorer Jayda Curry (13.4 PPG) over two games in the ACC Tournament, and her availability is one of the bigger storylines this week.
In terms of matchup, I’d highlight three for NU:
The Huskers were the second-best 3-point shooting team in the Big Ten and 12th nationally at 37.3%. Having Alexis Markowski’s power down low and Britt Prince’s court vision resulted in a lot of open looks from 3. Louisville ranked 281st nationally in 3-point defense at 33.0% on an average-ish 17.8 attempts allowed. Nebraska’s used to taking 22.2 3s per game (81st nationally, 1st B1G), so that might be key No. 1 this week: Are the Huskers getting enough looks from deep and are they hitting at something close to their season percentage?
If Nebraska’s not, there still might be a path here. Louisville ranked 315th nationally at 22.3 defensive rebounds per game. The Huskers are above-average (slightly) on the offensive glass, ranking 143rd nationally at 11.8 per game. If the shots aren’t falling, Nebraska might at least expect to have an above-average day in offensive rebounds, providing opportunities for second-chance points.
NU’s Achilles’ heel this season was its 3-point defense (32.7% allowed), which ranked 269th. Louisville isn’t aces from beyond the arc (32.0%, 145th), but decent enough to keep an eye on this category. If both teams largely play to form, this is probably fine for Nebraska, but how often do things play out the way they look on paper? Just a few extra 3s above expectation can become a problem.
The winner of Nebraska-Louisville will face the winner of 2-seed (and host) TCU and 15-seed Fairleigh Dickinson. The Horned Frogs (31-3, 16-2) won the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles, and are appropriately seeded, ranking 8th in NET, though their +6500 title odds are only 10th-best, behind the other 1- and 2- seeds plus 3-seeds LSU and Notre Dame.
Game time and TV info for Nebraska-Louisville will be announced later this week.
Odds & Ends
Nebraska baseball headed to LA needing to get its season back on track against UCLA (which was admittedly a tough putt). Instead, the Huskers got swept. They’re 1-5 in the Big Ten, the worst start to conference play since 1997. Nebraska will stay on the West Coast for a pair of midweek games at Pepperdine before three with USC this weekend.
Was gazing at the Big Ten football win totals in my notebook last week—not proud to admit you can find me doing this many days of the year—and what if I told you many (though not all) oddsmakers had Iowa at 6.5? You’ll have to pay (-185) to take the over, a bet that would have to hit 65% of the time just to break even. The oddsmakers know it feels low and have it priced accordingly. A few other win-total thoughts…
Poor Purdue. The Boilermakers are at 3.5 with plus-money (+150) to the over. That’s with two FCS games (Ball State, SIU) on the schedule. I have a slight inclination to just back new head coach Barry Odom here: Win the FCS games, get one against Northwestern (also 3.5) or Rutgers (5.5) and then surprise somebody. He can do that, right?
USC (7.5)3 is at minus-money on both sides of the bet, which feels about right for a pivotal season for Lincoln Riley. The Trojans seem like the most likely team to exceed or fail to meet their total by 2.5 games. Anything between five and nine wins would feel relatively normal.
Though NU is the second-highest-rated 10-seed in the field, trailing Harvard (34 NET). Underestimate the under-seeded smaht kids at your peril.
Though it’s probably available now. As a thank you for reading the footnotes, here’s a potentially useful fact if you’re filling out a bracket: Every NCAA Women’s Tournament has been won by a 1-, 2- or 3-seed.
That’s the same total as Nebraska’s, but as a Counter Read reader, particularly one who reads the footnotes, you knew that’s probably what the number was going to be long ago.
Honestly, I feel like when we talk about Nebrasketball, the qualifier should be on the men's team, not on the women's. So if you're just talking about Nebrasketball, you mean the women and if you want to talk about the men you have to say Nebraska's men's basketball.