Cowgirl Bracketology: Where Different Projections Have the Cowgirls in the NCAA Tournament

The women’s basketball conference tournaments are winding down, and it won’t be long until we find out where Jacie Hoyt’s Cowgirls are headed in the NCAA Tournament.

Oklahoma State enters Selection Sunday at 25-6 after their semifinal appearance in last week’s Big 12 tournament. After Tuesday’s games, the Cowgirls sit at No. 27 in the NET with a 5-3 record in Quad 1 games. OSU is one of 21 teams with at least five Quad 1 wins, and only a dozen of those teams have winning records in Quad 1 games.

Despite that, the general consensus on the Cowgirls’ NCAA Tournament seeding is somewhere between a 6 and a 7.

“I think we’ve proven that we’re one of the best teams in the country,” said Hoyt after OSU’s Big 12 tourney run. “Our resume shows that. We’ve got five quad 1 wins … We belong with the best of the best, and I’m really hoping we can get off that 7 line that they keep projecting us at. I for the life of me do not understand that, but ultimately that’s not in our control.”

CBS’s Connor Groel has the Cowgirls as the top 6 seed in the tourney. ESPN’s Charlie Creme, Sporting New’s Bill Bender, Autumn Johnson and Her Hoop Stats all have the Cowgirls on the 7 line.

It’s a tricky deal projecting the field, but that seems harsh considering all of those outlets have Kansas State — a team OSU beat by 30 and finished ahead of in the Big 12 standings — as a 5 seed. The NET loves the Wildcats, as K-State are ranked ninth. I don’t mean to turn this all into an OSU-K-State comparison because there are obviously plenty of other teams involved, but the difference in the teams’ resumes looks like it has more to do with playing worse teams than good ones. In Quad 1 and Quad 2 games, OSU is a combined 9-3; K-State is 6-7. However, the Cowgirls are 16-3 in combined Quad 3 and Quad 4 games to the Wildcats’ 20-0.

The Cowgirls’ big misstep this season came Jan. 14 when they dropped a game at Houston by three points — the Cougars’ only Big 12 win. No excuses because eight other Big 12 teams beat the Cougars in Houston this season, but that game against the Cowgirls had a listed attendance of 613 — the ultimate bring-your-own-energy contest.

There is a world where the Cowgirls just have to travel about an hour and a half south to Norman. That would likely require either OSU as a 6 seed and OU as a 3 in the same region and would hypothetically set up a one of the more hyped Bedlam games in recent memory (perhaps ever) in Round 2 should both teams avoid first-round upsets. But for now, the popular projection would see the Cowgirls in South Bend, home of projected 2 seed Notre Dame. That’s where ESPN and Her Hoop Stats have the Cowgirls. Johnson has OSU in Raleigh with projected 2 seed NC State.

Soon the projecting will be over. The selection show is at 7 p.m. Sunday on ESPN.