Notre Dame women's basketball: What to expect for Irish on Selection Sunday
Selection Sunday is always one of the most optimistic days of the year. When the NCAA Tournament hits the masses and you see Notre Dame’s name with a seeding number next to it and a plethora of potential opponents in the Fighting Irish’s path to the Final Four, you can’t help but wonder what it might be like for ND to burn through all of them on their way to the final destination of the season.
Optimism, however, isn’t running as rampant in South Bend in mid-March this year.
Notre Dame has lost three of its last five games entering tournament season. The Irish were once in a good spot for a No. 1 seed. Tonight, when the bracket is revealed at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN, they’ll probably be announced as a No. 2 seed. That is what ESPN bracket expert Charlie Creme is predicting in his latest Bracketology report that he came out with Saturday night.
According to Creme, Notre Dame will host No. 15 seed Lehigh, No. 10 seed Nebraska and No. 7 seed Oklahoma State in South Bend at the end of this week for the first two rounds of the tournament. In that case, the Irish would play Lehigh in the first round and, if they win, the winner of Nebraska and Oklahoma State in the second round with a spot in the Sweet 16 on the line. All three games would be played at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend, Ind.
The top four seeds from each region in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament get to host the first two rounds of the big dance at their home arena. Meaning, if you’re a No. 1 through a No. 4 seed in any of the four regions of the bracket, you won’t have to play a neutral-site game until the Sweet 16.
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The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight are being held in two locations this year; Spokane, Wash., and Birmingham, Ala. Notre Dame will not know which site it could possibly be heading to until the bracket is complete. Either way, there will likely be a No. 3 seed waiting for the Irish in the Sweet 16 and a No. 1 seed on the schedule in the Elite Eight. If Creme’s projections were gospel, it would be No. 3 seed LSU and No. 1 seed UCLA on the Irish’s collision course.
UCLA would be a scary test for Notre Dame considering the Irish don’t match up well with 6-7 center Lauren Betts, but nothing is easy this time of year. And this is still an Irish team that beat three of the top-five teams in the country earlier this season in USC, Texas and UConn. If head coach Niele Ivey’s team can find the magic it took to knock those teams off again, this could be a special run for the program.
It all starts Sunday night when the bracket is finalized and released.
