Tag: Her Hoop Stats

Notre Dame earns No. 2 seed in NCAA Tournament, hosts Kent State first

Did you expect them to be seeded this high?

Not long ago, Notre Dame was seen as nothing more than a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Some bracketologies had the Irish as low as a No. 6. Since then, the Irish have won eight straight games and the ACC Tournament championship. That was enough for the selection committee to make them the No. 2 seed in Albany Regional 1., the highest seed for any ACC team.

The result is the Irish will get to host the first two rounds of March Madness. They’ll begin their run to a national championship against No. 15 seed Kent State. The winner of that game will face the winner of the other first-round game in South Bend between Ole Miss and Marquette. The Irish’s only previous meeting with the Golden Flashes was a 66-41 victory in the first round of the 1996 WNIT.

While the seeding isn’t a complete surprise, it’s an improvement from most bracketologists’ final projections. One of, if not the only one that had the Irish as a No. 2 seed was College Sports Madness. ESPN, CBS Sports and Her Hoop Stats all projected the Irish as a No. 3. Needless to say, the Irish did everything they needed to be a tournament host and then some.

The one hiccup for the Irish is that they were seeded in the same bracket as South Carolina, the top overall seed and heavy favorite to win the national championship. Perhaps seeing the Gamecocks in the season opener in Paris will give them an advantage for what to expect. But they have a few other games to win before it gets to that point, and that’s why they play them.

So make your plans to be in South Bend this coming weekend. The Irish will need all the support they can get as they begin that national title run.

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Notre Dame moves up to No. 3 seed in latest ESPN bracketology

You want want to start making plans to be at Purcell Pavilion in a couple of weeks.

Notre Dame has become impossible to ignore during its seven-game winning streak late in the season. Because of it, all signs point to the Irish hosting the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament as a top-four seed. Now, simply getting to the ACC Tournament championship game appears to have helped them even more.

ESPN’s Charlie Creme updated his bracketology before the title game and bumped the Irish up to a No. 3 seed. The move was noticeable enough that Creme devoted his paragraph at the top of his bracket to them:

“Notre Dame looks like the best team in the ACC and has reached the championship game of the ACC tournament. With wins over Louisville and Virginia Tech in Greensboro, Notre Dame has jumped to a No. 3 seed. The Irish were just outside looking in during the NCAA tournament selection committee’s two reveals of the top 16 seeds. But now, they’ve won seven in a row since losing to NC State – their opponent in Sunday’s ACC tournament title game. Notre Dame was the biggest mover on a Saturday that saw most of the remaining favorites win and hold their spots.”

For what it’s worth, Her Hoop Stats projected the Irish as a fourth seed in the update it published before the Irish won their semifinal game. Regardless, it would be a shocker at this point if the Irish aren’t an NCAA Tournament host. In that case, there needs to be a serious overhaul of the selection process. Hopefully, that discussion won’t be necessary in a week’s time.

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Notre Dame projected as No. 4 seed or better in all bracketologies

The Irish might not be done playing at home yet this year.

In beating both Virginia Tech and Louisville last week, Notre Dame did what it needed to do to move up bracketologists’ projections. Every available bracketology now projects the Irish to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. ESPN, CBS Sports and Her Hoop Stats all have the Irish as a No. 4 seed in their latest updates. College Sports Madness projects them as a No. 3.

Connor Groel, the women’s bracketologist for CBS Sports, wrote the following about the Irish in his latest update:

“It’s been a terrific close to the season from Notre Dame, who now have a chance to perhaps even jump to a No. 3 seed, equaling last season’s result despite [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] having missed the entire year. [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] exceeded all expectations and was named both ACC Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year while [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] is playing some of her best basketball as of late.”

With the Irish one of the four ACC Tournament semifinalists, they have another chance to make their case. Hopefully, they won’t need to with the case possibly already having been made.

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Notre Dame moves up to No. 3, No. 4 seeds in updated bracketologies

Alexa, play the theme song to The Jeffersons.

It appears Notre Dame’s wins over Virginia Tech and Louisville are starting to pay off. In two updated bracketologies released Monday, the Irish moved up in their projected seeds to the point where they would host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament if they held true.

ESPN finally bumped the Irish up to a No. 4 seed. College Sports Madness, which already had the Irish as a No. 4, took it a step further and made the Irish a No. 3 seed. Her Hoops Stats and CBS Sports both last updated their bracketologies before the Irish’s last game against the Cardinals.

Splitting the games with the Hokies and Cardinals merely would have kept the Irish’s hopes at a top-four seed alive at best. Instead, they won both games and have become impossible to ignore. Plus, two of three ESPN analysts are picking the Irish to win the ACC Tournament, fueled in part perhaps by a combination of their strong regular-season finish and the suddenly questionable health of Hokies standout Elizabeth Kitley.

March is here, folks. Time for the madness to begin.

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Notre Dame remains No. 5 seed in most latest bracketologies

Sure feels like the Irish are stuck right now.

Notre Dame beat No. 5 Virginia Tech on Thursday, but most bracketologists remain unmoved. A couple of new bracketologies were released Friday, and the Irish remain where they’ve been in those particular ones. ESPN, CBS Sports and NCAA.com all have the Irish as a No. 5 seed, joining Her Hoop Stats from the day before. Only College Sports Madness currently has the Irish as a fourth seed.

Perhaps the biggest warning yet that the Irish might not get to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament came from the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee. In the top 16 it released before Thursday’s game, the Irish were nowhere to be found. The way things are going, that probably wouldn’t have changed even if the rankings had been released after the game.

One now has to wonder if an Irish win over Louisville would be enough to bump them up in the seedings. Are they going to have to win the ACC Tournament to even have a shot at being a tournament host? It sure feels like it right now. We’ll see if they rise to that challenge.

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CBS Sports moves Notre Dame back to No. 5 seed in latest bracketology

Five is the number of the day.

At least for the moment, the Notre Dame women’s basketball team has gotten back on track. After winning its past two games against Duke and Clemson, it has a NET Ranking of 10th and an SOS of 30th. That’s good enough for CBS Sports to move the Irish back to a fifth seed in its latest bracketology after listing them six for the past two weeks.

That means between ESPN, College Sports Madness and Her Hoop Stats, the Irish are a unanimous pick for a No, 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. So basically, not a lot has changed with the forecasters. That’s not good if the Irish are hoping to improve to a fourth side, and time is running out to make a case for that. They’ll need to be at least one of Virginia Tech and Louisville to have a chance.

We know the Irish can be better, but they just haven’t been able to take that extra step. Maybe that will change with the regular season winding down.

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Notre Dame still No. 5 seed in most latest bracketology updates

Nothing has changed.

Notre Dame didn’t do anything to move the needle one way or the other in the latest bracketology updates. They beat Florida State in a double-overtime thriller but lost badly at home to NC State, giving them two defeats in their past three games. While they didn’t hurt their standing with the bracketologists, they didn’t help it either.

The Irish remain a No. 5 seed for the latest projections from ESPN, Her Hoop Stats and College Sports Madness. However, they also haven’t moved off the No. 6 seed projected by CBS Sports. The possibility of hosting the first two round of the NCAA Tournament is shrinking with only five games left before the ACC Tournament.

The Irish visit Duke and host Clemson over the next week. It’s a tough situation to be in. Winning both games likely won’t do enough to move up them up the seedings. Lose either one, and you can forget about tournament basketball in South Bend this year.

All the Irish can do is play who’s in front of them and not screw up. They need to control what they can control.

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Louisville loss drops Notre Dame to No. 6 seed in CBS bracketology

For one bracketologist, the Louisville loss was too much.

The hope after Notre Dame’s loss to Louisville was that the bracketologists would be a little forgiving. After all, the Irish had just played a tough team that is undefeated at home this season. While most bracketologists indeed looked past the defeat, one did not.

ESPN and Her Hoops Stats both updated their bracketologies Friday and kept the Irish as a No. 5 seed as they had previously. But Connor Groel of CBS Sports was not so charitable. He dropped the Irish to a No. 6 seed, only citing their No. 10 NET Ranking and No. 48 NET SOS. Both numbers are changes from No. 8 and No. 56 respectively from the previous bracketology updates.

Basically, what Groel is saying is that since the Irish’s SOS improved and their NET Ranking, it was time to give the Irish a lower seed. That means the Irish might already are falling further away from a top-four seed that would give them home-court advantage in the first two rounds of an NCAA Tournament. Plus, the margin for error has decreased, so the Irish might need to get it together sooner than they had hoped.

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Notre Dame is No. 5 seed in every latest Bracketology projection

The Irish have some work to do if they want to be an NCAA Tournament host.

Nobody knows just how dominant Notre Dame would be if it was fully healthy. All we can judge the Irish on is how good they currently are. And in the eyes of various college hoops experts, they’re not good enough to host the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

In the latest Bracketology updates for ESPN, CBS Sports, College Sports Madness and Her Hoop Stats, the Irish are in a fifth seed for each and every one. Only the top four seeds in each quadrant are selected as first- and second-round hosts. So in this particular case, the Irish currently are on the outside looking in.

Don’t despair yet though. ESPN chooses to highlight the Irish in its latest update as a team that can move up the seedings. As it currently stands, they don’t have a lot of big wins on their resume except for UConn. Whether that resume can improve depends on how the Irish fare against the ACC gauntlet over the next two weeks, beginning Thursday at Louisville.

[autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] admitted after the Irish’s win over Pittsburgh that February is going to be a tough month for her team, and she wasn’t lying. While the Irish are a lock for the tournament barring a complete collapse over the next month, they’ll need to dig even deeper if they want March Madness to come to South Bend. We soon will find out if them doing so leads to optimal results.

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