More than a half-dozen conference tournaments have already started, meaning the first bids for the 2024 women’s NCAA Tournament are just days from being claimed. As the action progresses and weekday gameplay turns into weekend competition and spots in the field of 68 are solidified, The Athletic will deliver a daily briefing to update you on the most important results.

We’ll bring you games to watch and analysis of key results, anecdotes from tournament sites and everything you need to know. Check back for updates from Thursday’s action. If there are things you, the reader, want to see during conference tournaments or as NCAA Tournament play begins, please let us know in the comments.

Keep a close eye on …

As conference tournament play continues, pay particular attention to what’s happening in the Pac-12 and Atlantic 10. Last March, seventh-seed Washington State ran off four consecutive wins to claim the school’s first conference title. The Cougars’ run was undoubtedly a surprise. But it wouldn’t be shocking to see Colorado or Utah, two programs that won their conference tournament openers Wednesday, go on similar runs and win four straight — though doing so would involve upset victories Thursday.

Pac-12 high stakes

Five Pac-12 schools ranked in the AP top five…

The SEC is closing in on being a billion-dollar conference: Revenues continued to go up in the most recent fiscal year and are expected to keep climbing amid a new TV deal, College Football Playoff expansion and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma.

The SEC announced Thursday that it distributed $741 million to its 14 schools in the 2022-23 fiscal year, meaning an average payout of $51.2 million. That’s up from the average payout of $49.9 million during the previous fiscal year.

That revenue comes mainly from television deals (CBS and ESPN up until this year),  football bowl games, the Playoff, the SEC Championship Game, the SEC men’s basketball tournament and NCAA championships.

The current fiscal year largely will feature the same sources of revenue, so the average payout may only go up slightly. But starting with the 2024-25 fiscal year, the new TV deal with ESPN will kick in, and it’s expected to be worth around $811 million. There will be the 12-team Playoff, which will pay out more in television and other revenue to all conferences. And the addition of the Longhorns and Sooners should help attendance and other revenue.

The SEC still would be short of the Big Ten, with its new $1.1 billion TV deal and addition of four schools (USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington). But the…

Watching Creighton and Gonzaga struggle mightily from 3, Iowa smashing the spread against Southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi State hitting everything it threw at the basket, Miami coming back from a 17-point deficit and James Madison giving Ohio State all it could handle is a good reminder that anything can happen in March. Trends and stats gleaned from the regular season don’t always translate in March.

My overall record (picks are based against the spread, not straight-up winners) from the first round is 19-13. I underestimated Notre Dame to cover the spread, overestimated South Carolina’s ability to achieve a near 50-point margin, and should have trusted my gut with FGCU. But that’s part of the madness, right?

On to the second round.

If you’re unfamiliar with betting numbers, the general idea is you subtract whatever the number is from the score, and that should make it even. So “South Carolina -25.5” basically means the Gamecocks should win by 26 points against South Florida. The .5 allows you to pick a side, so there are no ties. In short, the team with the “-” number next to it is giving the other team that much of a lead in this figurative world. If “PK” is listed, it means the teams are rated even strength and it’s a straight win or loss…

On Thursday, we started looking for potential Cinderellas in the Women’s NCAA Tournament, and our statistical model got off to a pretty good start if we do say so ourselves.

Only two first-round matchups in our top 10 list took place on Friday. In one of them, Mississippi State was the third-most likely longshot to pull an upset (with chances of 40.3%), and the Bulldogs upended Creighton, 81-66. In the other, we warned you the implied gap on betting lines between Michigan and UNLV was closing so fast that the underdog Lady Rebels were actually looking overvalued, and Vegas lost by a dozen.

Beyond Mississippi State, three other teams defeated higher-seeded foes on Friday, setting up a first installment of seven giant vs. killer matchups (where opponents are separated by five or more seeds). Now, this is where the power of chalk in the women’s game really begins to show. Even for the Bulldogs or a successful double-digit seed such as Princeton, the reward for first-round success is often a nearly impossible follow-up.

Our colleague Austin Mock estimates that of the Sunday underdogs, only three have a 20% or greater chance of winning. In two of those cases, women’s Goliaths have been pretty severely overseeded.

Sunday second round upsets to watch

No. 2 Maryland vs. No. 7

Filling out the women’s NCAA Tournament bracket is fun, sure. But with betting lines included, the stakes are raised and it’s a whole other ballgame — even if you’re sure of the winner, you can still pick against the spread. Last year, I had a hard time finding lines for the women’s tournament. This year, the information was much more available. I took all info into account — stats, schedules, personnel matchups, strengths and weaknesses — as I began the arduous task of analyzing each pick and selecting game winners. (And I reminded myself, more than once, not to overthink it.)

If you’re unfamiliar with betting numbers, the general idea is you subtract whatever the number is from the score, and that should make it even. So “South Florida -1.5” means the Hurricanes should win by two against Marquette. The .5 allows you to pick a side, so there are no ties. In short, the team with the “-” number next to it is giving the other team that much of a lead in this figurative world. If “PK” is listed, it means the teams are rated even strength and it’s a straight win or loss pick.

My picks for the first round are based against the spread, not straight-up winners. Check back, as I’ll have subsequent picks for every round of the tournament.

Friday

No. 9…

The women’s NCAA Tournament is finally here, and across the country some of the sport’s biggest stars will get the opportunity to showcase their talent on the biggest possible stage. But before the tournament fully gets underway, our women’s college basketball reporters at The Athletic wanted to see who could put together the best possible March Madness fantasy team. Each team consisted of six players, a coach and a mascot. Prior to the draft we laid out the following rules:

• Each player, coach or mascot needed to be part of this year’s 68-team field. (Sorry, Aneesah Morrow.)

• Each team needed to have representation from at least one mid-major school.

• Schools could not be reused, meaning once a player was picked all other members of that university (and very importantly, that university’s mascot) were wiped from the draft pool.

We utilized a snake draft, and Ben Pickman was awarded the first pick by winning our draft lottery (being closest to a random number selected by our editor, Shannon Ryan.) Sabreena Merchant picked second, followed by Chantel Jennings.

Comment below or respond to our Twitter poll to let us know who you think won the draft.

Round 1

Pick No. 1

Ben: Caitlin Clark, Iowa

The Athletic’s Player of the Year and the best offensive player in college…

With such a crowded and talented transfer portal, the offseason was a busy one in women’s college basketball. Top players such as Angel Reese, Ashley Owusu and Aijha Blackwell left their respective schools for fresh starts at other programs. Naturally, questions arose. Would they mesh with current rosters? Vibe with new coaches? Thrive in different systems?

Now, with the 2022-2023 season well underway, it’s a good time to take a look around and glean some answers. Some, like Reese, are thriving. Others, like Blackwell, have been derailed because of injury. But with so many transfers to choose from, I decided to narrow it down to 10 players who had high expectations as well as the potential to make a significant impact.

When Edwards hit that memorable 3-pointer to give Kentucky the 64-62 win over South Carolina in the 2022 SEC championship, it appeared she was ready to take the reins from soon-to-be-drafted Rhyne Howard. Edwards was a top player on the Wildcats roster last season, averaging 16.8 points and 8.4 rebounds per game. But surprisingly, she and a handful of other Kentucky players entered the transfer portal. She decided on Baylor, and took the opportunity to play for Nicki Collen and compete in the Big 12 instead.

As a preseason watchlist candidate for the Katrina…