Monday night revealed a startling fact for the Texas A&M women’s basketball team: if the season ended today, the Aggies would have to travel for their NCAA Tournament matchups.
The NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee revealed its first top-16 selection. Among those listed were SEC schools South Carolina, currently ranked No. 1 in the AP poll, and Mississippi State, who was projected as a three-seed by the committee’s rankings.
The recognition of the top-16 is an important factor when seeding happens for the NCAA Tournament. At the end of the season, the top 16 teams will serve as host sites for the first two rounds of tournament play.
Noticeably absent from the top-16 selection was the A&M women’s basketball team, which was ranked No. 6 in the preseason AP poll. The Aggies are the only team from the AP preseason top-10 to not make the committee’s selection.
Over the last four years, the Aggies have hosted the first two rounds of the tournament three times, including each of the last two years.
Starting the season as a top-10 team, the Aggies have struggled to match their early season expectations. After winning 14 of their first 15 games, the Aggies lost junior guard Chennedy Carter indefinitely with a sprained ankle and have fallen in three of their last seven conference contests.
With the amount of parity among great teams this season, there is a high probability for change in the next top-16 reveal from the committee, said Diane Turnham, chair of the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee and senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at Middle Tennessee State University.
“The season has shown there is an increased parity and that was reflected in the difficulty that the committee had in identifying the top 16 seeds here in early February,” Turnham told NCAA.com “There are so many great games coming up in February that will be very telling before our next reveal in early March.”
The second and final top-16 committee reveal is planned for March 2.
The Aggies return to action this Sunday, traveling to Starkville to take on Mississippi State at the Humphrey Coliseum. Tipoff against the Bulldogs is scheduled for noon.