Racers getting at-large consideration
WBB: With one week left in regular season, Murray State is on Bracketologists' radar
At this time of year, it is natural for coaches, players and fans of any team that has NCAA Tournament hopes and dreams to spend time scouring Bracketology pages across the internet looking for good news. If you’re a fan of Murray State Women’s Basketball, you found good news on Monday.
ESPN.com released their weekly prognostications and, as expected, has the Missouri Valley Conference as a one-bid league. ESPN listed Missouri State as the Valley’s automatic qualifier, and the Lady Bears are listed as a #13-seed playing #4-seed Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
(A quick note before you frisbee whatever device you’re reading this on across the room. Murray State, Missouri State and Drake are all currently tied for the Missouri Valley lead with 14-4 conference records. In situations like this, where it is a one-bid league, the person putting together the bracket usually designates the team who is currently the #1-seed in the conference tournament as the automatic qualifier. Today, that is Missouri State.)
The part about the ESPN.com Bracketology report that caught some people’s attention around the Murray State program was looking at the teams on the outside looking in to the Field of 68 — specifically the teams that are considered the “Next Four Out.”
Murray State, a program with one NCAA Tournament trip in their program’s history, is currently considered by ESPN to be the 7th team in line for the final at-large spot to the tournament. With a record of 20-7 and an NCAA NET ranking of 61, the Racers have worked themselves into the fringe of consideration for one of those exclusive at-large spots. While Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner doesn’t have any interest in leaving her team’s NCAA Tournament fate up to the selection committee, she said just being mentioned in the same breath with the tournament bubble shows how far this program has come.
“It's a big deal to be looked at nationally on that stage,” Turner said. “It just does so much for our program. Recruiting is a 365 day a year thing, and things like that make a difference. Being able to send that graphic out, being able to hear our name mentioned on several broadcasts. One of the things that gets our name on the (TV) broadcast, more than anything, is we're the third leading scoring team in the nation. Any time you can get Murray State out to to all of our recruits, it’s what we want to do — but it's an accumulation of what's happened over these eight years (with Turner as head coach). This team is getting to reap the benefits of it this season, but it's because of all the ones that have come before, and all the ones that have built this to put us in this position. It's not just about this year's team. To me it's about everyone that paid the price to help us get a little bit better each year.”
HerHoopStats.com exclusively covers women’s college basketball and they released their own version of Bracketology today. In their bracket, they have the Racers, as the Missouri Valley automatic qualifier, listed as the #13-seed in Birmingham facing #4-seed Ole Miss.
In the end, all the Bracketology sites are nothing more than conversation starters to help promote the sport. While they can give some general idea about seeding, they are usually as correct as the rest of us when we try to fill out our own brackets as we try to win our office pools. The only bracket that will matter will come out on Sunday, March 16th when the official NCAA Tournament field is released — the same day one Missouri Valley Conference team will cut down the nets in Evansville.