Monday’s Matchups to Watch in the N.C.A.A. Tournament

The final eight spots in the round of 16 of the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament will be decided Monday. Follow along with the bracket and live scores, and check out our picks for the games we don’t want to miss (teams organized by seed; all times Eastern):

Women’s Tournament

No. 4 Villanova vs. No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast

7 p.m., ESPNU

For the second year in a row, Florida Gulf Coast entered the N.C.A.A. tournament as a No. 12 seed, and for the second year, the Eagles beat a No. 5 seed. This time it was a 74-63 win over Washington State. Sha Carter led Florida Gulf Coast with 24 points, and Tishara Morehouse added 16 points. The Eagles held the Cougars’ leading scorer, Charlisse Leger-Walker, to 5 points on Saturday. They may have a harder time putting the clamps on Villanova’s star forward, Maddy Siegrist. In Villanova’s 76-59 first-round win against Cleveland State, Siegrist scored 35 points and became the fifth Division I women’s player in N.C.A.A. history with at least 1,000 points in a single season.

No. 1 Indiana vs. No. 9 Miami

8 p.m., ESPN2

Indiana easily dispatched Tennessee Tech on Saturday in its first N.C.A.A. tournament game as a No. 1 seed, led by 19 points from guard Sydney Parrish. Miami, on the other hand, needed a 17-point comeback in the second half to beat Oklahoma State. The Hoosiers are playing to get to their third consecutive round-of-16 game, while Miami has made the second weekend only once. The universities met in the second round of this year’s men’s tournament as well.

No. 2 UConn vs. No. 7 Baylor

9 p.m., ESPN

Baylor struggled early on Saturday, falling behind by 18 points in the first quarter to 10th-seeded Alabama. But the Bears pulled out the third-largest comeback in the tournament’s history to win, 78-74. UConn faced no such struggles, racing to a 53-20 halftime lead on the way to a 95-52 win over Vermont. The last time UConn and Baylor met, in the 2021 tournament’s round of 8, the game ended on a missed shot from Baylor’s DiJonai Carrington that was tightly contested by two UConn defenders, a play that was loudly decried after the game for the absence of a foul call. Can we get similar drama in the rematch?

No. 4 U.C.L.A. vs. No. 5 Oklahoma

10 p.m., ESPN2

Oklahoma features the second-ranked offense in Division I, at 84.5 points per game. U.C.L.A. has tightened defensively at the end of the season, holding its opponents to an average of 61 points over its previous 10 games. In the first round, the Bruins allowed only 45 points to Sacramento State. Oklahoma scored 85 on Saturday against Portland; the Sooners got double-digit scoring from five players, led by the 14 points of Taylor Robertson and Aubrey Joens.

Source: Read Full Article