– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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UNCASVILLE, CONNECTICUT — Surprisingly enough, the landscape of women’s college basketball is such that it may take rattling off a few teams on the list of favorites to win the national championship before the team that has won the most titles, and most recently made the Final Four less than one year ago, finally appears on the tips of many observers’ tongues.
The Connecticut Huskies, winners of a record 11 national championships, have raised the expectation bar so high year-after-year, that making it to the Final Four now seems like a basic requirement to deem any campaign even just moderately successful. But with the Caitlin Clarks and JuJu Watkins and Hannah Hidalgos of the world commanding many inches on the college basketball bulletin these days, as well as the dynasty that Dawn Staley has built at the University of South Carolina, the absurd notion of “is college basketball too boring because of UConn’s annual dominance” that used to exist in sports talk has given way to the oddity of the Huskies not being on the shortest of short lists for national championship favorites.
As the quarterfinals of the Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament commence with the top-seeded Huskies taking on No. 8 St. John’s, Connecticut is arguably playing the best basketball of any in the nation, and if one hadn’t had it on the radar recently, its 87-58 drubbing of the two-time defending national champion Gamecocks in Columbia on February 16, a result that snapped South Carolina’s 71-game home winning streak, certainly woke up the echoes of the Huskies’ not-too-distant past. While the Huskies’ march to a fifth straight Big East Tournament crown — and a 12th straight conference tournament title overall, going back to the seven years the school was in the American before rejoining the Big East — seems fait accompli, another dominant showing while coming out of their time in Mohegan Sun with full health could earn the Huskies a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and some extra air time about their prospects at a run at another national title.
After the Huskies and Red Storm, a pivotal 4/5 matchup follows as No. 4 seed Marquette takes on No. 5 Villanova, two teams who are projected to be two of the final few teams under consideration for an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament, and the best hope for at least three teams from the Big East making it to the Big Dance may come from the winner of this game.
In the evening session, second-seeded Creighton looks to get revenge from last year’s semifinal defeat against Georgetown when it faces the No. 10 Hoyas in the quarterfinal round. To wrap up, No. 3 Seton Hall takes on No. 11 Xavier, who matched its entire win total in league play this season with a tournament victory in the first round yesterday against DePaul.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday’s quarterfinal round, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Robert Cole. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are eight pictures in total.
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