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Start with 5 sweet tidbits about NCAA women's round of 16 at Greensboro

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) – We know a lot of eyes will be on the college basketball world starting tonight. After all both Duke and North Carolina are among the 16 teams that remain alive in the NCAA men’s tournament. This is the home of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Greensboro typically ranks in the top three or four TV markets for college basketball. There’s a lot of interest.

North Carolina guard Kennedy Todd-Williams (3) and forward Anya Poole, right, celebrate during a women’s college basketball game in the NCAA tournament hosted in Tucson, Ariz., Monday, March 21, 2022. (Rebecca Sasnett/Arizona Daily Star via AP)

But if you can divert your eyes a few minutes from Mike Krzyzewski’s bid to win another national title in his final season at Duke and Hubert Davis’s bid to win one in his first at UNC, we direct your attention to the Greensboro Coliseum.

That’s where, starting Friday, one region of the women’s Sweet 16 will pare four teams down to one for its own Final Four next weekend in Minneapolis. And you may have as much of a vested emotional connection to these games in Greensboro as to those relegated to your TV screen.

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That’s because the North Carolina Tar Heels women remain alive and will play at 7 p.m. Friday against South Carolina, the top-seeded, No. 1-ranked, coached-by-the-highest-paid-coach team in the nation.

Third-seeded Iowa State is here, too, but the fourth team is upstart Creighton, which upended second-seeded Iowa – you know that girls’ high school basketball was a 6-person game in the Hawkeye State before most colleges even fielded Title IX-mandated teams, don’t you? – and blew into the NCAA’s second weekend for the first time in school history.

UNC (1994) and USC (2017) are both former NCAA champions, and Iowa State has a long history of many tournament appearances under one of the sport’s winningest coaches (Bill Fennelly).

UNC and USC play at 7 p.m. Friday, followed by Iowa State and Creighton. The games will be broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2. But you can get tickets easily, too. The winners will play on Sunday, but we don’t know the time.

Either way, we thought you might like a Starting 5 of things to know about this weekend’s games.

1. Is this getting old for UNC?

This March 27, 2015, file photo shows South Carolina’s Aleighsa Welch (24) shooting over North Carolina’s Allisha Gray (15) in the first half of a women’s college basketball regional semifinal game in the NCAA Tournament in Greensboro, N.C. North Carolina reached a 2014 regional final. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)

North Carolina probably wonders if NCAA bracket makers think they are being funny. Meeting South Carolina in the round of 16 on Friday is nothing new for the Tar Heels. They upset the Gamecocks, the top-seeded team in the Stanford Region in 2014, 68-58, in the Round of 16, but the next year, the Gamecocks, again seeded No. 1 and in Greensboro, eliminated the Tar Heels, 65-57, in the Round of 16. UNC has been back to the tournament only once since, losing to California in the first round at Waco in 2019. In case you were wondering, since 1983 UNC’s women’s team has made 27 trips to the NCAA, with the highlight coming in 1994, when they beat Louisiana Tech, 60-59, in Richmond for the championship. South Carolina has been to three final fours in the past six tournaments, including last year, and won the title in 2017.

2. How did Creighton get here?

Creighton forward Mallory Brake (14) rises to block the shot of Iowa guard Caitlin Clark (22) during the first half of a second-round game in the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 20, 2022, in Iowa City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Ron Johnson)

That’s what the people in Iowa want to know, both fans of the second-seeded Hawkeyes, who lost to the Bluejays, 64-62, Sunday IN IOWA CITY and now Iowa State. But you know how much noise Bluejays can make. They made a lot in this tournament. Creighton (22-9), which is located in Omaha, Nebraska, was seeded 10th and beat Colorado soundly, 84-74, for openers, then stymied one of the nation’s best players, Caitlin Clark (15 points, four in the second half), and dominated Iowa in rebounds, which generated a lot of put-back points. Creighton has been in the NCAA Tournament seven times, most recently in 2018, and now has a 7-7 record.  Oddly Creighton also beat Iowa, 76-70, in the opening round in 2018, before losing to host UCLA, 86-64. Creighton did win the 2004 WNIT championship, beating UNLV, 73-52, in the final.

3. Can Iowa State do better than Iowa?

Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly reacts at the end of a second-round game against Georgia in the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 20, 2022, in Ames, Iowa. Iowa State won 67-44. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

In case you didn’t know, Iowa State, based in Ames, calls its teams the Cyclones. They were runner-up to Baylor, which was eliminated by South Dakota on Sunday in Waco, Texas, and lost to No. 7 Texas (which plays Friday in the Spokane regional) in overtime in the Big 12 tournament semifinal. They beat UT-Arlington and Georgia at home to advance to Greensboro and have a 28-6 record and were ranked 10th nationally at the end of the regular season. Coached since 1996 by Fennelly, they’ve now appeared in 14 of the past 16 NCAA tournaments and have a 19-19 overall record. They made the Elite Eight in 2009 and 1999 and the Sweet 16 in 2000, 2001 and 2010. By the way, Iowa State has beaten Creighton 16 times in 23 meetings, including the past 10, but the most recent was a 63-59 victory in Omaha in 2008.

4. Who are the star players to watch in this tournament?

Iowa State guard Ashley Joens drives up court during the second half of a second-round game against Georgia in the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 20, 2022, in Ames, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
North Carolina guard Deja Kelly (25) shoots a free throw during a second round game at the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament in Tucson, Ariz. Monday, March 21, 2022. (Rebecca Sasnett/Arizona Daily Star via AP)
South Carolina forward Aliyah Boston shoots the ball during the first half of a first round game against Howard in the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament Friday, March 18, 2022 in Columbia, S.C. South Carolina won 79-21. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)
Creighton guard Lauren Jensen (15) dribbles the ball against Marquette during an NCAA basketball game on Friday, Jan. 7, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/John Peterson)
  • Ashley Joens (no typo on that name), Iowa State’s 6-foot-1 senior center, is perhaps the biggest star in her school’s history. She set the school’s scoring record (2,210 points) and holds many of the top 10 single-game performances, with a high of 41 against Wright State in December 2019. She also has had two games of 20 rebounds.
  • Deja Kelly, a sophomore guard from San Antonio, is the leader of the Tar Heels’ young corps. She is the leading scorer (averaging 16.4 a game) and had a single-game season high of 31 against Clemson in January. She also has taken and made more shots in a game than anyone on her team. But fellow sophomores Alyssa Ustby (13.1 points and 8.7 rebounds) and Kennedy Todd-Williams (11/6) for the core contributors.
  • South Carolina’s leading scorer and rebounder (16.4 and 12.1) is 6-5 junior forward Aliyah Boston from the U.S. Virgin Islands. She dominates games (an SEC record for double-doubles for points and rebounds), but her teammate Fran Belibi stole the show in the first-round victory over Howard by throwing down the first dunk in a women’s NCAA tournament game since 2013.
  • Creighton’s Lauren Jensen, a 5-10 sophomore guard, only averaged 12.6 points this season, but don’t tell Iowa. Jensen scored nine of her team’s final 10 points, including the go-ahead 3-pointer with 12 seconds to play, in upsetting the Hawkeyes. She had 19 points and seven rebounds in the game.

5. Isn’t Dawn Staley the tournament’s true star?

South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley communicates with players during the second half a second-round game against Miami in the NCAA college basketball tournament Sunday, March 20, 2022 in Columbia, S.C. South Carolina won 49-33. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)

With due respect to Fennelly, who has won 732 games since 1988, and Courtney Banghart at UNC, who has gone 54-31 and returned the Heels twice to the NCAA since taking over from legendary Sylvia Hatchell in 2019, and in deference to Tara VanDerveer, the coach at defending champion Stanford who has won more games than any other women’s coach (1,155 in 43 years), Staley has become the rock-star of women’s coaches. A former Hall of Fame player at Virginia, in the Olympics and in the WNBA (mostly with the Charlotte Sting), Staley, 51, has been the coach of the Gamecocks since 2008. She has a contract for $22.4 million for seven years and will earn just shy of $3 million this year. No Black head coach has earned more.  There were some suggesting that she take over the men’s team at USC when Frank Martin was fired two weeks ago. After coaching eight years at Temple, Staley has led the Gamecocks for 14 years (winning 532 games overall), including three Final Fours in the past six tournaments, dominating the SEC, setting NCAA attendance standards of 10,000-plus for seven years running and, of course, that 2017 NCAA title.


Source: Fox 8 News Channel

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