Thanks to Gordon, bballfan13, and Dave for the replies and information.

Dave and Gordon have a great time in Indy - I'm jealous.

There is a fun very short video of Breanna Stewart in a boxing ring last summer with Scott Rueck when he was an assistant coach with the USA PanAm games team. The end of the video is ominous, but in Scott's defense Breanna has a significant reach advantage.

To the D3 historians,
Have any other coaches taken a team to the Final Four at both the Division 3 and Division 1 levels?

Congrats to Scott Rueck who just accomplished it with Oregon State after previously taking George Fox in 2009. It is a great story. He held open try-outs when he went to Oregon State in 2010 in an attempt to find any talent he could to round out a depleted roster. He has since built the program using the same coaching philosophies and looking for the same character qualities in the athletes that he had at George Fox.

I hope a couple of you that will attend the championship weekend in Indy will get a chance to say hello to Scott and congratulate him in person.

http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/15088719/scott-rueck-coaches-oregon-state-beavers-first-final-four

Based on the last public regional rankings and won/loss record, George Fox vs. UT-Tyler is quite a match-up.
#1 from the West vs. #1 from the South with a combined record of 58-1. A neutral site game, so no homecourt advantage for either team.

Wow - I caught the last 8 minutes or so of the Whitworth-Whitman game. That was amazing. Both teams were making all kinds of shots. Too bad the NWC could only have one advance to next weekend. Congrats to Whitman.

I so wish that were true. But the NCAA saves a flight by sending UT-Tyler and GFU to St. Thomas.

Here is something I had not thought about before regarding the financial constraints and the cost of flights. Not all flights are created equal as far as cost depending on the destination. For example, it certainly costs a lot more for George Fox to go to Wisconsin then California. Now, whether or not it would ever balance out that flying two teams to California equates to one team flying to Wisconsin is highly unlikely - but it did make me curious.

The only road to the championship game this year for the Bruins is through the air to the midwest as many as 4 times depending on how many games they win.

+k Captain Joe - thanks for the start of the list.

West region:  I took a closer look today trying to justify a 2nd team from the Northwest Conference. I will be disappointed if Luther AND G. Adolphus get in and Puget Sound is left out.

Assuming Puget Sound needs an at-large bid, here is the data from the most recent regional ranking.

Luther (17-6); 2-3 against ranked opponents; .530 SOS; #1 seed in IIAC and lost in conference final
G. Adolphus (19-6); 0-4 against ranked opponents; .526 SOS; #3 seed in IIAC and lost in conference semi-final
Puget Sound (16-7); 1-3 against ranked opponents; .553 SOS; #2 seed in NWC and playing tonight in final

I guess it will be that one additional loss that will leave UPS out. I of course believe the NWC is strong enough to support a 2nd team in the NCAA tournament.  I will get my wish if the Loggers get the upset win. 

OK - a lot to catch up on as other priorities took my attention this week.

Week 8 in review
As detailed in a previous post, PLU took Whitman to 3 OTs! Other close games had UPS winning at home by 7 over Whitman and claiming the season sweep over both Whits. Pacific won by 5 at Lewis and Clark, LC won on Friday at Willamette by 9 and denying the Bearcats their quest to get to 5 conference wins for the first time in many years. GF won at Linfield by 10 with what appeared to be a record number of players either being DQed or finishing with 4 fouls.

A foreshadowing of the conference tournament semi-finals took place with GF and UPS being the only teams to go 2-0 during the final week of the season.

Conference Tournament Semis
Recently it seems like GF has been based on only 1-2 dominant quarters. Not so much on Thursday, as they stayed sharp most of the game and defeated Whitworth 95-64 in Newberg. Whitman had to travel back to Tacoma and play UPS again after losing to them by 7 on Saturday. This time it went to overtime and UPS prevailed 84-79.

Tournament Final
Takes place tonight at 7 PM with GFU hosting UPS for the AQ. GF will be in NCAA tournament win or lose, but UPS is likely a long shot to get in with an at-large bid and needs the victory tonight. The Bruins players and coaches will never say it, but there is some angst on campus outside the program that Coach Meek was not COY even though they went 25-0. Justine Benner made first team, but POY went to Emily Sheldon of UPS. So ... UPS comes to Newberg with the COY and POY honors and I think the Bruins will have a little extra motivation. Earlier this season this match-up started with a 33-6 lead by GF.

I personally think selecting POY can be a challenge and don't begrudge Sheldon receiving the honor. COY however is a bit of a head scratcher. Both GF and UPS repeated their conference records from last season (16-0 and 13-3 respectively), so you can't look to improvement. Both teams lost 3 starters from 2014-15. I would think that repeating a 25-0 campaign would still get you Coach of the Year. Oh well, I will take cutting down the nets tonight over the ups and downs of conference honors.

Congratulations to all the hard working players and coaches.
2016 All-NWC Women's Basketball Team Announced; Sheldon and Payne Take the Top Honors
http://nwcsports.com/sports/wbkb/2015-16/news (see Feb.23 release for list of all-NWC honors)

This post is getting long, so in my next one I will evaluate the conference predictions I made in December.

Yep, I get it. I have zero expectation that George Fox will host a sectional should they get that far. Sad for the the Northwest Conference to have to live with the reality of it being a freak rare occurrence. To me it makes it all the more impressive that the NWC has had a representative in the national championship game in 4 of the last 7 years.

Totally agree. However, Whitman women did get to host in 2014.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on February 22, 2016, 09:18:24 PM

Quote from: Darryl Nester on February 21, 2016, 04:59:43 PM
How They Fared (Complete)

Top 25

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#1	625	Thomas More	25-0	won at Shawnee St., 87-63; won at Chatham, 90-42; def. St. Vincent, 94-46
#2	596	George Fox	25-0	def. Willamette, 78-46; won at Linfield, 71-61
#3	578	Hope	24-1	won at Kalamazoo, 83-47; LOST at #23 Calvin, 77-88
#4	531	Scranton	25-0	won at Merchant Marine, 56-42; won at Catholic, 84-59

Are there the 4 potential Sectional Hosts?

Let's keep this idea BRUIN in the minds of the committee as it would be a first for GF to host a sectional.

Pinecone, thanks for checking in. I think UPS is playing the most consistent right now. Whitworth, Whitman, and George Fox have looked vulnerable for at least 1-2 quarters a game over the last few weeks in games they should have dominated.

I say about 75% likelihood that top seeds will win out - but all of these teams are feisty with established coaches - so no guarantees. The odds are stacked against the Pirates because in six seasons Coach Meek's Bruins are 74-3 at home.

Northwest Conference

Thursday, February 25
#4 Whitworth @ #1 George Fox
#3 Whitman @ #2 Puget Sound

Saturday, February 27
Highest remaining seed will host

3 OT game last night between Whitman and PLU!
If you missed it Megan Abdo, a senior and leading scorer for PLU, hit a half-court shot at the buzzer to send it to overtime. Unfortunately for PLU, a pair of free throws were missed with under 3 seconds to play that could have broke the tie at the end of the first overtime.

PLU came so close. It will be interesting to see if Whitman has anything left at UPS today. UPS easily defeated Whitworth by 23 points and claimed the #2 seed and a home game for the conference tournament.

All that is left is to clarify seeds 3 and 4 between the Whits. Whitman plays at UPS and Whitworth plays at PLU. I think tonight's games may not change a thing - here's why:
If either both teams lose or both teams win - no tie and Whitman gets the 3 seed and a return trip to UPS next Thursday.
If Whitman wins, but Whitworth loses - same result as above.
If Whitworth wins and Whitman loses, so they both finish 10-6, they then have identical records against GF and UPS. The next team to measure against for the tiebreaker should be Linfield. Even if Linfield loses today and finishes tied with Pacific, Linfield is 2-0 against Pacific this year. Against Linfield Whitman is 2-0 and Whitworth is 1-1, breaking the tie in Whitman's favor.

So, I think we are all set for Thursday's conference tournament semi's
#4 Whitworth at #1 George Fox
#3 Whitman at #2 Puget Sound

UPS appears hot right now. I would love to see 2 teams make the NCAA tournament, and the best chance for a second team is UPS, either with the automatic qualifier or a strong enough finish to hopefully have the numbers needed to get in.

Week 7 Review
The home team went 2-7 this week with only Whitman and Whitworth each picking up a victory while hosting Willamette.  Congrats to GFU, UPS, and PLU for all going 2-0 on the road. Bruins had to work to come up with single digit victories (by 8 at Whitworth and then by 7 at Whitman). A tough conference.

Week 8 Preview
Senior nights for George Fox, Linfield, PLU, Lewis and Clark, UPS, and Willamette. Congratulations to all.

George Fox beat Willamette by 32 points on Tuesday, but if you look closely you will see the score was 10-4 Bearcats with about 4 minutes to go in the first quarter. The Bruins then went on a 17-0 run and never looked back.

GFU is the Northwest Conference champion, which secures the #1 seed for the 4-team conference tournament, and have a game at Linfield as the remaining obstacle to their second consecutive undefeated regular season. It is set that UPS, Whitman and Whitworth will be the other 3 teams in the tournament. However, it is far from clear what the seeding will be. If UPS were to drop both home games to the Whits this weekend we could easily see a 3-way tie at 11-5 and have to go to a tiebreaker format, because head-to-head has nothing but same records as well. The most simple solution that will not involve any tiebreakers is if UPS defeats just one of the Whits. That would make UPS #2, the losing Whit #4, and the winning Whit #3. (This is all assuming that PLU does not pull of an upset.) Should UPS win both games, a tiebreaker will still be needed to determine which Whit is #3 and which is #4.

I think Pacific has the best shot at finishing on top of the current 3-way tie in 5th place. They have really battled through the season ending loss of their point guard several weeks ago. They are on the road at Linfield and then at Lewis and Clark.

Willamette has a shot to finish with 5 conference wins for the first time in about 10 years if they defeat Lewis and Clark on Friday.

It is almost tournament time! Semi-finals will be on Thursday, February 25.