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5 thoughts on the women’s NCAA Tournament bracket for the Iowa Hawkeyes

The dust has settled and the Iowa Hawkeyes’ path in the Seattle 4 Region is set. Here’s five thoughts on Iowa’s March Madness bracket.

The regular season was fun. The Big Ten Tournament was even better. Now, we get to the women’s NCAA Tournament, the best of them all.

The real fun begins now as it is win-or-go-home from here on out. There are no chances to bounce back and no do-overs. The Iowa Hawkeyes‘ season has led to this point and the successes of the season have them primed for a run.

The bracket is set and there are some curious things on the Hawkeyes’ side of the bracket that are rather intriguing with what the storylines could be, the matchups in play, and the chances to get to banner games.

Anything less than a strong showing and advancing in this tournament will leave Iowa feeling underwhelmed after what their year has been. Here are five thoughts on the Iowa Hawkeyes’ side of the women’s NCAA Tournament bracket before things get underway.

Twitter reacts to Auburn making the NCAA Tournament

It’s safe to say that the Auburn fanbase is pretty excited about their destination in the NCAA Tournament.

The Auburn Tigers are going to the NCAA Tournament and they have to be thrilled with their destination. They are the No. 9 seed in the Midwest Region and are set to play in Birmingham for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

Their first matchup is with the No. 8 Iowa Hawkeyes, who went 19-13 under Fran McCafferey. The game is set to start Thursday evening at 5:50 p.m. CT in Legacy Arena and will be on TNT.

The Tigers and their fans were not only thrilled to make the tournament but to be playing just 110 miles away from campus. Here are the top reactions to finding out their draw in the NCAA Tournament.

Michigan State NCAA Tournament profile: sizing up USC’s opponent

The Trojans face the #MichiganState Spartans. Let’s look at MSU’s season and roster under head coach Tom Izzo.

Michigan State, making its 25th straight NCAA Tournament appearance, naturally expects big results in March Madness. Accordingly, our friends at Spartans Wire are not trying to downplay this latest edition of the Big Dance.

Spartans Wire analyst Robert Bondy wrote the following:

“This is the third straight year where the Spartans enter the NCAA Tournament with relatively low expectations, but that hasn’t stopped them before from going on a magical run in March. Let’s take a look at the potential path to a Final Four appearance for the Spartans, and the chances of it actually happening for Michigan State.

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“Michigan State will open the NCAA Tournament with a battle against a future Big Ten peer in the USC Trojans. The Spartans should enter this game as the favorite and expected to win this matchup if they get strong guard play and continue to shoot the ball well from outside. I personally like this draw for the Spartans, and while nothing is easy in March, this is a game where Michigan State fans should expect their team to pick up the victory.”

Let’s give you some fast facts, figures and more on the 2023 Michigan State men’s basketball team which will play USC this Friday in Columbus, Ohio:

Does USC have a tough or easy NCAA Tournament region? It doesn’t matter

You might think #USC has a good draw. Others might not. It’s all irrelevant. What matters is USC playing well. #MarchMadness

The USC Trojans landed in the East Region at the 2023 NCAA Tournament. They play Michigan State in the first round on Friday morning in Columbus, Ohio.

Is Michigan State a good opponent to face, or is this a nightmare matchup for the Trojans?

Is USC in a great position to win, or in a prime position to be knocked out and sent packing after one game?

USC landed in a bracket where Marquette is the No. 2 seed and the likely opponent for the Trojans if they can get past Michigan State.

Shaka Smart has had trouble in the NCAA Tournament ever since his 2011 run with VCU to the Final Four, so maybe that’s a great draw for USC. However, Marquette just hammered Xavier to win the Big East Tournament championship after winning the Big East regular-season title.

Good path or bad path for USC? Everyone is asking that question right now after the brackets were revealed on Selection Sunday.

The inconvenient but honest and responsible answer: It doesn’t matter.

If USC plays against Michigan State the way it played in the Pac-12 Tournament against Arizona State, the Trojans are going home.

If USC plays the way it did in the second half against UCLA, the Trojans will win and advance.

USC could play nervous basketball, as it did in the first half of last year’s NCAA Tournament game against Miami, or it could play aggressive, attacking basketball, as it did in the second half.

Which USC team shows up is the main concern. Everything else is just talk.

That’s the bottom line.

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Andy Enfield’s NCAA Tournament first round games

Andy Enfield is back in the #NCAATournament. Here’s a list of his first-round performances as a head coach.

The USC Trojans are back in the NCAA Tournament once again despite losing a heartbreaker to Arizona State in the Pac-12 Tournament.

Ever since coming to USC, Andy Enfield has worked wonders and even got a contract extension. The first two seasons they won a combined 23 games, but this will be the fifth NCAA appearance for Enfield. It would be six if the 2020 NCAA Tournament had not been canceled because of the pandemic.

Enfield made his mark as Florida Gulf Coast’s head coach and stunned 2-seed Georgetown on the way to a Sweet 16 in 2013. That was the performance which led to Pat Haden hiring him as USC’s next head coach. The past 10 years have had their ups and downs, but the past four seasons have all been successful.

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Here’s a list of Andy Enfield’s record in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, including his time with Florida Gulf Coast:

Bruce Pearl aiming for ‘shining moment or two’ in Birmingham

Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl hopes that playing the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament in nearby Birmingham will give his team an advantage.

As the popularity of Auburn basketball has grown, head coach [autotag]Bruce Pearl[/autotag] has become accustomed to seeing Auburn fans show up in droves to away games.

It has become difficult to find an affordable ticket to watch the Tigers play home games at Neville Arena, so Auburn fans have hit the road this season to take advantage of cheaper ticket prices at away venues in an effort to watch their favorite team play. The group that has been given the appreciative nickname of “the witnesses” by Pearl will be rewarded this week when Auburn begins the NCAA Tournament at Legacy Arena in Birmingham.

Because this is a great opportunity for Auburn fans to make the short drive to the Magic City, Pearl hopes to make the experience worth the fans’ time.

“For our fans and for our students, I think it’s just awesome,” Pearl said Sunday. “So hopefully we’ll get great support and see if we can have a shining moment or two.”

Not only will Auburn have an advantage in fan support by playing close to home, but the Tigers have also found success in Birmingham. Since Pearl took over the program in the 2014-15 season, Auburn has played four games in Birmingham and has won all of them.

Auburn, the No. 9 seed of the Midwest Region, will face No. 8 Iowa on Thursday at 5:45 p.m. CT on TNT.

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USC Women’s NCAA Tournament results

The #USC women’s basketball program was the first WBB program to win two NCAA national championships in the 1980s.

The USC women’s basketball program is poised for greatness under current coach Lindsay Gottlieb. The Trojans made the bracket in this year’s NCAA Tournament, and will bring in the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Juju Watkins, next season. The program is building considerable momentum and is on a flight path to much greater heights.

The Trojans hope to approach the lofty status they first gained in the 1980s. USC won two national titles, becoming the first program to win two NCAA Tournaments. The Women’s NCAA Tournament began in 1982. USC quickly established itself as the number one program in the sport before Pat Summitt and the Tennessee Lady Vols took over and gained that place of primacy. Then came Geno Auriemma and the Connecticut Huskies in the 21st century. They overtook Tennessee as the most successful women’s college basketball program of all time.

Here are all of USC women’s basketball’s particularly significant NCAA Tournament results. You will note they are all confined to an increasingly distant past, which makes the current revival under Gottlieb and assistant coach Beth Burns so exciting:

Social media buzz after Vols make 2023 NCAA Tournament

A look at social media buzz after the Vols make the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

The NCAA announced the field for the men’s basketball tournament on Sunday.

Tennessee (23-10, 11-7 SEC) is a No. 4 seed in the East Region and will play Louisiana (26-7) in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday.

The tip between the Vols and Louisiana is scheduled for approximately 9:40 p.m. EDT. CBS will televise the first-round matchup.

The Tennessee-Louisiana winner will advance to play the winner between Duke and Oral Roberts.

Rick Barnes has guided the Vols to five NCAA Tournament appearances as Tennessee’s head coach. Tennessee advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2019 under Barnes.

Following Selection Sunday, Vols Wire looks at social media buzz. NCAA Tournament social media buzz is listed below.

USC men’s NCAA Tournament results

#USC MBB has become a regular in the #NCAATournament over the past few years. Here are the Trojans’ best results:

The USC Trojans men’s basketball team is back in the NCAA Tournament despite losing to Arizona State early in the Pac-12 Tournament.

Andy Enfield has done well since coming to Southern California. The Trojans will try to make another improbable run.

The Trojan men’s team doesn’t have the accolades and historical achievements of the women’s program by any means. The women won two national championships in the 1980s. In fact, the NCAA Tournament appearances for USC haven’t occurred very much over a larger span of time, and the Trojans have a lot of early exits.

Here are the best results for USC in the history of the program, beginning with a Final Four appearance back in 1940:

Andy Enfield landed the plane safely this year for USC men’s basketball

Andy Enfield dealt with a lot of turbulence and difficult conditions, but he got #USC back to the #NCAATournament.

Andy Enfield did it. He got USC back to the NCAA Tournament in 2023. It could be his best coaching job yet at USC. Maybe the 2021 Elite Eight run was better — we wouldn’t argue with that — but 2023 represents a particularly strong coaching performance from a man who continues to improve and evolve.

Why was this season such a good example of Andy Enfield’s evolution as a coach? We have to start with the fact that he had a five-star big man, Vince Iwuchukwu, who was going to be the next in a line of elite big men who would be a defensive wrecking ball for the Trojans. Onyeka Okongwu got the party started in 2020. Then came Evan Mobley. Then Isaiah Mobley stepped up and had a marvelous 2022 season. Vince the Prince was next up, but then he had an episode of cardiac arrest at a workout in July. He didn’t play for the first two months of the season. When he was medically cleared to play, he was on a minutes restriction. Then he suffered from back soreness late in the season. He hasn’t played 30 or more minutes in any game this season.

USC didn’t get any elite player in the transfer portal this offseason, a possible result of Boogie Ellis and Drew Peterson both choosing to stay and play one more year. Boogie and Peterson were good players in 2022 for USC, but they weren’t great players. Isaiah Mobley was the leader of that team. Peterson did have a career game against UCLA last year, but Mobley was the consistent two-way player who held that team together at both ends of the floor. Ellis hit a game-winning shot against Washington State and stepped up in a few other crucial moments, but in the NCAA Tournament, he was injured and ineffective. Mobley did not have his best game, and USC lost as a result.

In addition to Iwuchukwu being out for two months and then limited for the next month and a half, USC also had a thin bench this season. Reese Dixon-Waters was a generally reliable reserve, but he didn’t have a dominant, overwhelmingly remarkable year. He was good, but not special. Enfield didn’t have a whole lot of bench options. He and his staff relied on Boogie and Peterson to play 35 or more minutes per night and improve their games relative to 2022. Would we see development and progress from USC’s starting lineup? Would the coaches help these players get better? Could USC possibly hold down the fort in what looked like a rebuilding year, especially after the awful home-opening loss to Florida Gulf Coast in November?

USC had nothing close to its best situation and its ideal roster for a majority of this season. There was all sorts of turbulence to deal with over the past four months. Yet, like an expert pilot, Andy Enfield landed this plane safely. In what felt like a rebuilding year due to Vince Iwuchukwu’s health problems, Enfield reached the NCAA Tournament. This felt like a season which was going to slip through the cracks. When USC lost to both Wisconsin and Tennessee in the Battle 4 Atlantis, USC’s ability to put quality wins on its resume was remote. The Trojans basically had to thread the needle. They absolutely had to beat Auburn, and they had to beat UCLA. Without those two wins, the Trojans would not be here.

They beat those two teams.

Arizona is a horrible matchup for USC, so the Trojans really did need to beat the Bruins, who won the Pac-12 by four games this season. They did, becoming one of only two Pac-12 teams to beat UCLA this year, the other being Arizona. Enfield did that with less than a complete roster. He finished third in the Pac-12 with less than a full deck of cards.

Remember when Andy Enfield couldn’t coach a team in February? USC’s February record used to be so awful. Once again, February was a strong month for USC under Enfield. USC lost both games under the Oregon road trip, but it held serve in all four February home games and then scored the crucial Mountain road sweep of Colorado and Utah which gave this team a huge push toward March Madness. The 6-2 month of February put USC in a position where one more win against Arizona State on Saturday, March 4 would get the job done. That’s when Kijani Wright played 24 huge minutes and gave Enfield something special when needed. Enfield kept coaching Wright hard this season, and his work paid off in a big spot. Boogie Ellis played like a superstar in that game with 28 points, carrying Drew Peterson on a night when the senior was suffering from back spasms but playing through pain like a Trojan warrior.

The players stepped up. Teammates had each other’s backs. The collective group displayed toughness and composure. Those are all indicators of good coaching — developmentally, mentally, holistically.

Andy Enfield and his staff had to deal with so many elements of adversity, limitation, and complexity this season. Through it all, they got back to the NCAA Tournament in a season which looked doomed in November.

Now USC gets the elite point guard it has needed for a long time. Isaiah Collier is coming next season. With Iwuchukwu almost certain to come back — this time (hopefully) without a minutes restriction, his health improved and his body able to mature — and role players returning with more of an awareness of how to play, USC is going to have more depth, more size, more length, and more resources. The Trojans could legitimately make a run at the Pac-12 title and a high NCAA Tournament seed. Next year was always going to be a year in which USC could do something special.

This year looked like an NIT season in November and early December. Andy Enfield wouldn’t let that happen. We give Enfield very high marks for this season of USC hoops. Nothing which happens against Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament will change that.

Congratulations to Enfield, Eric Mobley, Chris Capko, and the rest of the USC staff. They really earned their money this season. They all landed the plane safely after dealing with a ton of turbulence.

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