Creme believes Buffs will host
ESPN Bracketology expert projects CU for No. 4 seed
With several wins against top teams, no bad losses and a top20 ranking throughout the season, the Colorado women’s basketball team has put a lot of good on its NCAA Tournament resume.
Whether it’s good enough for the selection committee to make the Buffaloes one of the top 16 seeds — which means hosting games in Boulder — won’t be known until Sunday evening. The top 16 (four in each region) will host first and second-round games next week.
ESPN bracket expert Charlie Creme believes the Buffs (22-9), ranked No. 18 in the Associated Press poll, have done enough — but just barely — and not enough to make it a guarantee they’ll be a No. 4 seed in one of the four regions.
In a conference call on Friday, Creme, who has CU as a No. 4 seed in his projected bracket, said conference tournament losses by Kansas State, Oklahoma and Syracuse were important for CU, despite its own disappointing 2-6 finish.
“They sort of backed back into the top 16 (with those losses by others),” Creme said. “Even Gonzaga losing in the WCC championship game sparks a little question about the Zags, too. So that had me put Colorado back in because of their full body of work.”
The body of work includes a season-opening win against defending national champion and then-no. 1 LSU, currently projected as a No. 2 seed. CU is the only team in the country to beat a No. 1-ranked team and the only team to have beaten two of Creme’s projected No. 1 seeds (Stanford and USC).
Working against the Buffs, however, is their finish. One game in particular bothers Creme.
In the regular season finale on March 2 in Boulder, the Buffs blew a late five-point lead and got outscored 14-0 down the stretch to lose to Washington State 72-63. Although the Cougars are a solid No. 29 in the NET rankings, they went 3-8 after losing star Charlisse Leger-walker to a knee injury and CU was their only quality win without her.
“I don’t mean this to frame that as a bad loss,” Creme said, “but it was a loss that was at home, it was Washington State, who had been really struggling without its best player and hadn’t won a quality game in a while and somehow
managed to put together a fourth quarter against Colorado that really shouldn’t have happened.
“Let’s just put it this way: If Colorado had not lost that game against Washington State, I would be very confident that they’d be in the top 16 now, given what else happened.”
But, the Buffs did lose that game and Creme said, “That’s what’s giving me pause.”
Two games later, in the Pac-12 quarterfinals, CU was dealt an 85-79 double-overtime loss to No. 12 Oregon State. That’s not a bad loss, except that the Buffs led by 12 with 7 minutes, 30 seconds left in regulation and blew another fourth quarter.
“How does a team with that many seniors blow two fourth-quarter leads like Colorado did against Washington State and Oregon State in the Pac-12 tournament?” Creme said. “Those results and how those results happened were fairly shocking to me.”
The NCAA selection committee, however, looks at quality of losses and CU is one of only six teams in the country that hasn’t lost to anyone outside of the top 30 in the NET rankings. That’s a big reason why the Buffs were a projected No. 1 seed in the committee’s first top 16 reveal on Feb. 15 and still sitting at a No. 4 during the second reveal on Feb. 29.
Those two fourth quarter meltdowns have happened since the last reveal, though.
“It’s the one thing that’s giving me a little bit of hesitation to saying they’re absolutely a No. 4 seed because the committee could kind of reverse themselves on how they felt about Colorado early in the season and could put them on the five line,” Creme said. “But I think they’re going to be hosting games.”