The first weekend of the 2012 NCAA women's basketball tournament didn't feature a whole lot of upsets, but did feature a number of competitive games.
SB Nation's network of college blogs had reactions to both the NCAA and WNIT games from the weekend.
- norcalnick of California Golden Blogs summed up Cal's 84-74 win over Iowa by saying that Cal advanced due to "pure athleticism". While he focused on the things we might not have expected from a Cal win, the most significant statistic was familiar: Cal outrebounded Iowa 38-22. Read more >>>
- AndyPanda of Building the Dam summarized the men's and women's (Cal vs Iowa, Washington's 52-39 win over Utah) Pac-12 action on Sunday while also sticking up for the conference in looking ahead to Cal's next game against Notre Dame: "It's ridiculous that Notre Dame as a #1 regional seed gets to play at home, while Stanford, also a regional #1 seed, has to play in Virginia. Either all top seeds should get to host the first 2 rounds, or none of them should." Read more >>>
- Gamecock Man of Garnett And Black Attack noted that South Carolina matches up well with Purdue prior to the tournament, but also laments a considerable disadvantage: "The bad news in this game is that it will be played on Purdue's home court...Why can't we ever have these things in Columbia, again? Oh, right." (Answer in the comments) Read more >>>
- Chris Pendley of Rocky Top Talk summarizes Tennessee's 72-49 win over Tennessee-Martin, pointing out some of the Lady Vols' sloppy play despite the rather large margin of victory to "Sleepwalk and Advance." He didn't seem so pleased about the number of 3-point shots the Lady Vols took (27). Read more >>>
- Greg Alan Edwards of A Sea of Blue summarizes Kentucky's 68-62 win over McNeese State and writes that, "It just seems as though UK cannot enjoy a good seed in the tourney." He also takes a sub-par performance by A'Dia Mathies to highlight "that UK's hopes for any success in the tourney lie in the hands of one A'Dia Mathies." Read more >>>
- Mr. Sanchez of Dawg Sports considered Georgia's 76-70 loss to Marist was "extremely disappointing" but suggests that the loss was at least partially the outcome of a season-long problem for Andy Landers' team: "... the Lady Dogs had injury issues all season long, leading long time head coach Andy Landers to often play with little to no contributions from his bench." Read more >>>
- mlmintampa of Alligator Army talked about Florida becoming a "real school", noting that "even our women's basketball team made the tournament." Beating Ohio State in the first round of the tournament probably didn't hurt. Read more >>>
- Raptors HQ does a great job of keeping track of Canadian basketball players in the "NC-Double-Eh" and has the complete list of where they were playing yesterday. Read more >>>
- Jordan Esco of Crimson and Cream Machine recaps Oklahoma's 88-67 win over Michigan and says it was the most complete game that the Sooners have played all season. He notes that Michigan was one of the last four teams in
, I'll note that the game was played in Normal but I'm not bitter. Read more >>> - Greg Alan Edwards of A Sea of Blue has a preview up for Kentucky's game against Wisconsin - Green Bay, suggesting that the two teams are relatively similar in terms of their defensive prowess statistically with the Phoenix having forced Iowa State into 30 turnovers in Ames in their 71-57 first round win. However, as mentioned in our preview of the Kingston bracket, Green Bay is a much more efficient shooting team than Kentucky, which could play a role in the outcome of this game. Read more >>>
Click here for updated brackets for the Des Moines and Fresno regions and here for the Kingston and Raleigh region brackets. For more on the 2012 NCAA women's basketball, visit our "NCAA Tournament 2012" section.