Looks like it’s time to just go ahead and assert this: The 2023 version of the NCAA Women’s Tournament is giving us the best mix ever of team quality, with an all-time dominant team to appreciate atop brackets that keep churning up extremely enjoyable underdogs.
To quantify the obvious, we estimate that South Carolina, now 34-0 and still unslowed by speedbumps, currently has an overwhelming 76.6% chance to win the whole shebang.
But also, entering this tournament, No. 1 seeds had gone 154-6 in the second round, for a winning percentage of .963 (compared with .846 in the men’s game). Then two of them suffered classic bracket breakings this week, setting up the most longshot-laden Sweet Sixteen in women’s history.
On Sunday, 8-seed Mississippi knocked off 1-seed Stanford, 54-49. The Rebels have become our statistical model’s new favorite bracket-breaker with that result and second-round losses by Florida Gulf Coast and Georgia. Honestly, we should have introduced them earlier than this. As we have explained, though, while we have isolated various statistical traits crucial for winning underdogs in the men’s tournament, we are still trying to determine how to weigh their impact on women’s teams. It’s fairly easy to see how FGCU’s three-pointers or Georgia’s…
