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BYU WOMEN: Cougars happy with No. 11 seed |
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JaredLloyd | Monday, March 12, 2007, 10:48 pm
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Jared Lloyd
Daily Herald
On paper, the BYU women’s basketball team isn’t considered to be as good this year as it was last year.
In 2006, the Cougars were awarded a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament and beat Iowa before falling to No. 2 seed Oklahoma in the second round.
As the team discovered at a party at Legends Grille on campus Monday night, the NCAA selection committee announced that BYU would be a No. 11 seed and meet No. 6 seed Louisville on Saturday in Los Angeles.
But the Cougars aren’t complaining for a couple of reasons.
“I’d rather be a No. 11 than a No. 7, No. 8, No. 9 or No. 10, because then you have to face a No. 1 or No. 2 in the second round,” said BYU head coach Jeff Judkins. “I like be seeded where we’re at. If we play well, we can cause some damage.”
History is also on the side of the Cougars. The best run the team has even had in the postseason came in 2002 when the Erin Thorn-led squad dismantled Florida and upset Iowa State before falling to Tennessee in the Sweet 16.
They came in as a No. 11 seed that year as well.
“I’m pretty happy,” said senior center Dani Kubik Wright, the co-Mountain West Conference player of the year. “This is where I expected us to be and I think we’ll do pretty well.”
The team didn’t have to wait long to figure out who and where it would be playing. The BYU-Louisville pairing was the fifth game announced.
“Last year it felt we sat here for half an hour twiddling our thumbs and waiting to see where we’d be,” senior guard/forward Melinda Johnson said. “It was a relief. I think we were pretty sure we were in the tournament, but you’re always nervous and you never know what your seed will be.”
The players cheered as expected when their team’s name flashed on the screen. But shortly after, they were focused on Louisville.
“I know (Cardinal head coach) Tom (Collen) and he knows me,” Judkins said. “He likes to run picks on the ball high and his bigs can shoot. They like to go high-low. I think the matchup is good for us and it will be a great game for both teams.”
Collen coached at Colorado State for five years before moving to Louisville. The Cardinals are making their third straight tourney appearance and earned the school’s highest seed ever this season.
The Cougars feel they are more prepared to be successful because of the experience they got last season.
“It help tremendously,” Wright said. “Last year, off the tip-off, I made a backcourt violation because I was so nervous. It makes a big difference for everybody to have been there.”
The success of 2006 has the team thinking big. The players believe they could make it to the Sweet 16 or even farther this year.
Plus they have a secret advantage: Playing in Los Angeles. Not only is it closer to Utah than to Kentucky, it also is forecasted to be 78 degrees and sunny.
“We’ve had some success in Los Angeles,” Johnson said. “We won at Stanford at the beginning of the year. We also have a joke that we play better where it’s warm.”
BYU and Louisville will meet at the Galen Center on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on Saturday at 6 p.m. |
