Can you believe a coach voted Baylor No. 1 in the final women’s Top 25?
I mean, can you believe a coach made so much sense?
Here’s to Charlotte Smith, the Charlotte Smith formerly of the University of North Carolina, the Charlotte Smith of the shot to win the 1994 NCAA title, of a 10-year WNBA career, of Elon University where she coaches, and of the USA TODAY Sports coaches poll where she votes and uses her brain.
It’s not that the other voters don’t, even if everybody does tend to make an annual stampede to vote No. 1 the men’s or women’s tournament winner (in this case, Connecticut). It’s just that Smith’s thinking took into account that we value March Madness for thrills more than merit. It’s a fun way to find a champion but not a sound way to find a best team. If you want to find a best team, try the NBA playoffs almost every June.
Now, often, March Madness unwittingly does reward the long slog of merit from November through April. It almost inarguably did so with the Louisville men this year. It inarguably did so with the Kentucky men and the Baylor women last year. The North Carolina men clearly were best in 2009, Florida in 2007, the Connecticut women in 2010 and 2002 and probably a bushel of other times, maybe even 2013 for a specific reason involving a specific player.
On the other side we have, say, the national-champion Connecticut men of 2011, who spent the fall and winter ninth in their own conference. Surely injuries and timely hotness factor in, but had the Wichita State or Michigan men squeezed out a little more or caught some loony big break and ousted Louisville, which would have been the best team, all told?
I know: Louisville.
It’s one thing to hand out a trophy and another to vote in a ranking. As one-and-done addicts, we should remember that we’re one-and-done addicts. Smith remembered that there had been a November, a December, a January and a February during which universities switched on the lights and staged games during which young women played and other people kept score. Amid that grind, on February 18, No. 1-ranked Baylor went to Hartford to play No. 3-ranked Connecticut on the road. Baylor won, 76-70, behind, of course, Brittney Griner.
We never got to see Baylor-Connecticut reprise, of course, because in an impressive but precarious result in the round of 16, an admirable Louisville toppled the Bears by a point. For any potential Final Four match between Baylor and Connecticut, we might widen Baylor’s prospective margin because of the neutral site, and then we might narrow it all the way to even-money because of one Connecticut freshman.
On Feb. 18, Breanna Stewart compiled this against Baylor: seven minutes, 0-for-2 on field goals, 0-for-1 on three-point shots, zero rebounds, zero assists, zero steals, zero blocks, zero points.
In two Final Four games, Stewart compiled this against Notre Dame and Louisville: 65 minutes, 19-for-31 on field goals, a brilliant 7-for-8 on three-point shots (demonstrating both accuracy and judiciousness), 14 rebounds, four assists, four steals, seven blocks and 52 points.
You might even look at that and reckon that freshmen do improve.
Maybe the Griner presence would have hampered Stewart, or maybe Connecticut would have romped over Baylor as it did six others (except not quite so soundly). We’ll never know, but in surveying a season and pegging Baylor as the best, Smith certainly qualified as sensible. And in doing so in a system duly celebrated as “Madness” but to which everyone reacts by hurriedly voting in a team that won at “Madness,” she probably mustered more sense than anybody else.
