A little premature as we have todays games and who knows what madness lurks! But a good start.
We all had some preconceived notions about the committee work and the relative strength of teams entering this tournament. What 2 1/2 rounds of the NCAAs have shown is that the season really was pretty reflective of what was out there - a number of good but inconsistent teams with flaws.
1. TN and Washington are on runs that are reminiscent of Louisville's from 2013 and Stanford and Syracuse have seemingly made their paths easier.
2. OSU, Maryland, ASU, Louisville, and KY have proved that the flaws they exhibited during the season were real and that their inconsistency of results was the norm.
3. ND and SC have proved that less than dominant performances by teams that seemed to have separated themselves by their record from the pack were emblematic of competitive weaknesses that could be exploited by teams that played well and were cohesive.
Four seeds and above have always been 'suspect' so MSU, TAMU, Miami, FL, and higher losses are more expected though perhaps a little more frequent this year.
The issues everyone had with identifying seedings beyond the #1 seeds were real this year - arguments could be made for and against every single teams all along the 's' curve - MD sure looked strong, but really had a weak list of wins (the only team they beat this year and made it to the second weekend is Syracuse!) TN was ranked 4th in preseason and beat four teams in the S16, but went 8-8 in conference play with terrible losses. Washington lost to every NCAA team they played except UCLA and Stanford with whom they split games. KY and TAMU records look exactly like TN with fewer good wins but with a lot fewer losses.
Who knows how the games today play out, but with Stewart Jefferson and Johnson graduating even if Uconn and Baylor play to their seedings, next year is likely to be even less certain than this year has proven to be. This will be a WNBA good draft year, and while strong programs have good recruiting classes coming in at this remove from the games, I see a even less settled tournament next year.
