TicketsMarch 1, 2011
By Garrett Sabelhaus
GoBEARCATS.com
It's an argument often brought up for the BIG EAST Men's Basketball Championship but the same case can be made for the women; it's harder to win than the NCAA Tournament.
The bracket is set following Monday's games where every BIG EAST team was in action to settle the final standings heading into the championship set to begin Friday, March 4.
And thanks to a huge win over No. 20 Marquette, the Bearcats have grabbed hold of the No. 15 seed and a first-round date with 10th -seeded West Virginia at 6 p.m. from the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
Cincinnati head coach Jamelle Elliott knows outcomes of games in March can be unpredictable and hopes her team started clicking just in time for the tournament.
"Hopefully tonight was a turning point for us," Elliott said following the upset of Marquette. "We made [up] some ground against a really good basketball team coming off a huge win against DePaul a couple days ago. And now going into the tournament, that's the good thing about March - anything can happen."
But the whole field is stacked and includes the No. 1 ranked team in the nation playing the tourney on their home floor. With a double-bye locked up, the UConn Huskies won't play their first game in the tournament until Sunday against either Georgetown, Syracuse or Seton Hall.
Marquette played themselves out of a double-bye with the loss to the Bearcats and have the No. 5 seed. They will face the winner of Pittsburgh and South Florida. Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell, while disappointed in the loss to the Bearcats, says the extra day of rest will pay huge dividends in such a difficult tournament.
"I'll definitely like the one day that we have a bye so we can watch and have an extra day of rest and then get to it on Saturday," Mitchell said. "I just give Cincinnati credit for going at us and making their shots and even when we took our lead late in the game, we let them come back. The players need to feel the sting of this loss all week. On any given night, in this league which is the best league in the country, you can lose."
Louisville, St. John's and Georgetown are the other teams, along with Marquette to have a first-round bye. DePaul, Notre Dame and Rutgers join UConn as the top four teams which have double byes.
Cincinnati has their work cut out in the first round with the Mountaineers and Elliott knows her team has to just take it one game at a time. However, junior guard Bjonee Reaves is prepared to stay in Connecticut until the end.
"We have a lot of momentum right now," Reaves said. "We're way up here right now. We're going to take that momentum going into the BIG EAST Tournament and pack like we're staying [until] Tuesday. Pack a lot; we're going in thinking we are going to win. We never have gone into a game thinking we're going to lose."
With a few days off before the tournament, Elliott hope to get her team, especially the veterans, some rest before the first round.
The team will leave campus Thursday for Friday's opening round action.