Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

Everything that needs to be said ahead of time has been said of Rutgers-Connecticut, Chapter II.

Monday night's prize in Hartford is the regular season championship. Next week's prize in the XL Center is the Big East tournament title and NCAA automatic bid. Could a fourth prize involve the two. That would be the NCAA championship in Hartford.

Come back to this space for more on this item early Tuesday morning.

There's No Middle There

It finally happened. When it came time to vote Sunday night in the weekly Associated Press Poll, stump the panel finally arrived. Going down the list and keeping true to our previous ballots, the first seven were easy enough.

And then the nightmare began. Teams eight through 13 took losses. Now Notre Dame is a fine team, but it felt a bit much to give the Irish that high a jump based on being the next winner.

And there was no place to really punish California, Baylor, and Oklahoma, though they all needed it. So some teams were held in place in sort of a neutralized state.

Meanwhile, the way the landscape is forming this season, with the exception of a very few teams beyond the Rockies, one could start selling beachfront property in women's basketball along the Colorado River and not get accused of bad business practices.

The Guru's line of the night to a person familiar with the committee deliberations: "When they get in that room next week and it comes time to speak on behalf of local teams, the representatives from the West are going to feel like public defenders taking the cases of obvious suspects."

Conference Brackets: First Look

Now that our sheets are in place, here's a look at some of the conference tournaments already set up.

Atlantic Coast: Talk about fish eating fish. Virginia was unbeaten in the ACC minus North Carolina, Maryland, and Duke, which was unbeaten in the ACC minus North Carolina and Maryland, which was unbeaten minus North Carolina, which was just plain unbeaten and the No. 1 seed.

Key games: N.C. State vs. Clemson - Wolfpack need to win from the get-go or no Cinderella-style move like last year. Georgia Tech and Virginia could quickly meet again in the quarterfinals after Sunday's double overtime thriller won by the Cavaliers, Virginia is trying to move up the NCAA seed ladder, the Yellowjackets are trying to solidify their grip on the NCAA door. Maryland and North Carolina are gunning for NCAA #1 seeds, while Duke is gunning to move up some NCAA seed notches.

Atlantic Sun: Top-seed East Tennessee State needs to know one thing _ Just win, baby, or pick your alternate trip between the WNIT and WNIC.

Atlantic Ten: Temple, George Washington, and Xavier all trying become part of the semifinals and hope that's good enough for two of them to get NCAA at-large bids if the third gets the automatic through the conference title. Suzie McConnell=Serio made noise as a new coach at Duqusne as she did in the late 1980s when PSU was in the A-10. The Dukes open play Friday for everyone, meeting Richmond.

Big Ten: If you insist. What can you say about a conference this season in which Indiana made a phantom point in scoring to win a game, while few points could be made about the competition. Ohio State will go to the NCAAs no matter what. So the Buckeyes are playing for some decent seed possibilities. Iowa's at-large candidacy strengthens with advancement in Indianapolis. Minnesota, Purdue, and Michigan State will try to attract attention, but not all will be successful. Penn State is now trying to snap an 11-game losing streak, but if that fails, the Nittany Lions will have to wait until next season to snap a 12-game one.

Conference-USA: Everyone's cheering for top-seed UTEP since none of the potential also-rans are getting any respect in at-large and bubble talk. And, UTEP, is not a sure at-large lock, either, depending who lands on the bubble.SMU has the most likely shot at an upset.

Metro Atlantic: All the bubble teams in America are cheering for top-seed Marist to keep the aisles from getting crowded by winning the conference title. Last year, the Red Foxes did a little housecleaning of their own all the way to the Sweet 16.

Ohio Valley: SE Missouri is the top seed but has no chance of rescue work as an at-large team if it takes a tumble in the conference playoffs.

PAC-10: If UCLA upsets Southern Cal in the quarterfinals, it's a three-team deal with Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State. But it could be just a two-team deal short circuiting Arizona State so the non-Stanford side of the bracket will be interesting.

Patriot League: American is the top seed. Host Army is the sentimental favorite in its own arena on the second anniversary of late coach Maggie Dixon leading the Black Knights into the NCAA tournament.

Southeastern: Where have you gone Mrs. Robinson, a nation now now turns its eyes to the Big East for fun and excitment. Well, Tennessee-LSU for the championship will be the Rutgers-UConn of the SEC with the same NCAA top seed implications. Vanderbilt and Georgia are playing for better seed money, while Auburn is trying to make it a fivesome.

Southern: Chattanooga is the top seed here and the same goes for the regular season champs as we said goes for UTEP over at C-USA, well, sort of, anyway.

Sun Belt: Western Kentucky is the top seed and hopefuls elsewhere are counting on the hilltoppers to be Hellraisers in this conference.

West Coast: Gonzaga dominated. But that and only a runnerup finish will earn the Zags invites from either the WNIT or WNIC. And we'll be back after Rutgers-UConn.

--Mel