The Sweeney injury and the loss to Syracuse really hurt our chance at a better seeding. Creme's eight seed for us is about right but that pretty much leaves us only two venues to play in - in California with probable #1 seed Standford or Texas with #1 seed Baylor. A long way to go for fans and a pretty certain second round defeat if we managed to win in the first round. The other two #1 seed sites would be Bridgeport (UConn) and probalby Norfolk (Notre Dame), both of which would not be available to Nova since the NCAA does not pair conference teams against each other in the first two rounds.
Hopefully the NCAA tournament committee likes or dislikes us enough to get us a 7 or a 10 seed instead to send us someplace a little more agreeable (like Maryland). I know I can't make either one of those 8-9 sites, unless they play late on a Saturday and I can catch a frequent flyer bargain (not likely on short notice and does any airline even fly to Waco?). No way I could miss a day or two day of work to travel to see them play on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday night.
With regard to Sweeney's injury - I have not gotten to look at the TV replay yet, and did not see it happen at the game, but the foul was called on Vanessa Moore. I remembered watching Georgetown play at Notre Dame and the same thing happened with either Auchunwa or McBride almost getting knocked out cold with a wicked roundhouse elbow that missed on the backswing but caught her on the return swing. Really ugly to watch on the replay. The Georgetown player was ejected. Sure enough, if you check the box score it was Vanessa Moore. Not sure if she had other instances during the year, but twice in one season is not good.
The team looked so crisp and confident in their Saturday blowout win - the best consistent offensive 40 minutes I have seen Nova put up in my 10+ years of watching them. We may have still lost to Syracuse with Sweeney, but I think the game probably would have taken a whole different spin, both offensively and defensively. Even without being able to stop Alexander, the girls had a chance to pull it out if we could have made a few more shots at the end, or avoided that awful almost 8 minutes without scoring in the first half. Just would have loved to have it played out with our whole team available, noting that we beat them twice before when Coyer was not available.