Women's Hoops Guru

By Mel Greenberg

Not so fast.

Although the Guru, who is down here in Philadelphia with the Atlantic Ten, was not on the scene in Hartford, he initially was inclined to agree 100 percent with the postgame quote by Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer following the upset loss to Louisville in the Big East quarterfinals.

But Rutgers does not have exclusive rights to making a muck of things and because of that, anything can still happen when the seeds play out.

For one, although in many of the conferences the point is moot over wrong winners, eight of 11 top seeds had gone down at the close of business Sunday night and a few more were at risk going into Monday. Several more might be also on shaky ground when the second wave of conference tournaments begin Tuesday and Wednesday and continue through the weekend.

First, in terms of No. 1 seeds, Rutgers might actually back into the last one. But anything can happen and to really take this discussion further, one should wait for the PAC-10 game with Cal and Stanford to play out and likewise for the Big 12, but the Guru knows you're an impatient bunch.

Three No. 1s have been determined in Tennessee, Connecticut and North Carolina.

But, in the messing things up department, it is going to be a very close call in the overall No. 1 department between Connecticut and Tennessee. So credit the cancellation of the Tennessee-UConn series to make things a bit more murkier, assuming Connecticut wins the Big East.

The basketball argument tends to tilt somewhat to UConn, especially the way the Huskies overcame the season-ending injuries to Kalana Greene and Mel Thomas. The mathematical argument has an ever-so-slightly tilt toward Tennessee.

But, based on the way we went through our mock bracket exercise at NCAA headquarters, there will be a bunch of individuals on the committee voting on computers to try to get to some consensus and there is no single clear guideline to make their initial votes a slam dunk.

Now, had LSU beaten Tennessee, Sunday, the Tigers probably would have had a case to leap into a No. 1 slot, especially after the Rutgers defeat. But it didn't happen.

So at this hour, and based on CollegeRPI for the math since the computation was completed before sunrise, we're looking at four candidates for the last No. 1 slot.

LSU stands at 27-5 and an RPI ranking of No.8; Stanford is at 29-3 with one game to play and a ranking of 6. Maryland is 30-3 and a ranking of 5. And Rutgers is at 24-6 and No. 4. The Nitty Gritty sheets tell a lot more in the comparisons but let's way a day for that topic.

Into this discussion, one will have to look at the finish of the Stanford game and the clockgate loss to Tennessee, which, by the way, could enable Connecticut to get the overall No. 1 if the Rutgers outcome is used against the Orange. Only ten points, in round numbers, are the difference between three wins, which are now losses for Rutgers.

Meanwhile, Duke, off its upset of Maryland, could become the missing last No. 2 seed on the second line, because the Blue Devils saw tougher competition than Baylor (24-5, RPI-7) or Texas A&M (23-7, RPI-9), either of which must still win the Big 12 to become part of the mix.

The others are whoever doesn't get the No. 1 out of aforementioned four candidates. Rutgers' math still is competitive, but the injury factor will work somewhat against the Scarlet Knights the way it is working for Connecticut.

The Stanford result is really needed to get more into the No.1 discussion, so the Guru will re-visit the topic in the next 24 hours.

But there are three additional observations involving the Rutgers discussion.

The first is how strange the karma that when the Scarlet Knights were being edged by Louisville, over in the once-proud Big Ten, Illinois, the No. 9 seed under new coach Jolette Law, the former Rutgers associate head coach, was suffering a similar heartbreak ending to go with a bunch of them the Illini suffered through during the season.

Furthermore, it would have been symbolic for a No. 9 seed to become the Big Ten champion since the conference is likely to be without a team in the AP poll if Ohio State gets bounced.

Secondly, watching Tudy Reed help a rebuilt Xavier team advance to the Atlantic Ten title game down here, one wonders how much help she might have become staying at Rutgers, a muse only in terms of the injury affect.

Thirdly, the Guru also wondered about distractions of the book tour but wasn't going to go there until he saw the topic addressed on the Rutgers message board.

First, understand, these stops are scheduled well in advance, so the Rutgers outlook in terms of being able to do both in this brief period had to be rosy at the time.

But what has also happended is the 10-ton elephant that the Guru will simply refer to as "The Imus thing," has managed to find its way back into the Rutgers family when it had begun to fade as the basketball returned to become the focal point of the season.

The offseason coverage extending from the Imus affair carried into the Stanford opener, somewhat, and in the last week, with non-basketball types writing stories about coach Stringer, the Imus issue returned and in the process players were once again being interviewed on the topic. Now, they are young students and it is mid-term time, additionally, so there had to be a hidden mental fatigue factor, especially added to the weight of the killer schedule and limited roster.

But there are two weeks to refresh and re-group, although to come full circle on this post, there will be a todo of sorts once the bracket and seeds are announced next Monday night.

Meanwhile, when George Washington fell in the semifinals to Xavier, the loss by the Colonials, who will still be NCAA bound, continued a streak of bad homecoming appearances for coach Joe McKeown when the tournament has been in Philadelphia at either Temple or St. Joseph's.

McKeown, a Father Judge graduate, had two Atlantic Ten strikeouts before winning in 1995. Since then, GW is Atlantic Ten tournament appearances, not games, has gone 0-7 after Sunday to make the personable coach 1-9.

Next year the tournament will be in Charlotte and then move to a neutral site in 2010.

-- Mel