The Nebraska and Texas A&M women’s basketball teams come into their NCAA Tournament first-round matchup riding a ton of confidence gained in their respective conference tournaments.
Nebraska (22-11) finished fifth in the Big Ten Conference with an 11-7 record, but the Cornhuskers got hot in the league’s tournament and won three straight to reach the title game, falling to Caitlin Clark and third-ranked Iowa in overtime 94-89. The Cornhuskers, who have won eight of their last 11 games, are seeded sixth.
“I just think the way we’re playing right now, I think this team has had some incredible wins,” Nebraska graduate guard Jaz Shelley said. “And if you go based on how we’ve played the last 10 or so games, I think that we are capable of beating any team in the tournament. So I think it’s pretty cool that they could recognize that as well.”
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Nebraska and A&M will play at 9:30 p.m. Friday at Oregon State’s Gil Coliseum. The host third-seeded Beavers will play 14th-seeded Eastern Washington in Friday’s first game. The winners will play Sunday.
Nebraska wasn’t ranked during the season, but flirted with cracking the top 25 after a 10-3 start, before losing four of six. Nebraska’s strong finish to the regular season had it as the second team outside the Associated Press’ final regular-season Top 25, but it was the sixth team outside the USA Today/coaches poll.
The NCAA Tournament selection committee thought enough of Nebraska to give it a No. 6 seed meaning the committee had the Cornhuskers ranked 21st through 24th.
“We were maybe projected in some of the bracketology a little bit lower seed than [sixth],” Nebraska coach Amy Williams said. “So for us, we felt like the body of work and just the strength of our league probably warranted a little higher seed than what was being projected. So for us to see our names come up on that sixth line after being projected in a lot of the brackets in the eight line was positive.”
A&M (19-12) went to the Southeastern Conference Tournament projected as the first team out on ESPN.com’s Charlie Crème’s mock 68-team bracket. That seemed fair since the Aggies went 6-10 in league play and only one SEC team with that record had made the NCAA tourney since A&M joined the league starting with the 2013 season. A&M ended the regular season by losing five of six, which coincided with the loss of graduate point guard Endyia Rogers who injured her right knee. But Rogers, who had surgery, returned to spark the Aggies at the SEC tourney to a 72-56 victory over fellow bubble team Mississippi State. The Aggies also held their own in a 79-68 quarterfinal loss to top-ranked South Carolina. It was enough for Crème to elevate A&M to one of the last four in the tournament, meaning it would have to play a play-in game, but the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee thought more of the Aggies by making them a No. 11 seed with no play-in.
“To see our name pop up, it was genuine excitement,” A&M coach Joni Taylor said. “I haven’t felt that excited in a really long time. And I told our staff, I don’t want to be in this situation [again]. I don’t want to be sitting on the bubble, wondering if we got in or not. But I do want to remember how this felt. Because when you do go to the tournament, and when you’ve gone to the tournament, I don’t want to say you take it for granted, but our excitement was just very genuine, and it was on a different level than it’s ever been before.”
A&M is ending a two-year hiatus from the tournament in Taylor’s second season. She made the NCAA tournament in four of the possible six times in her seven seasons at Georgia, including the last two years before replacing retiring Hall of Famer Gary Blair at A&M.
“I’m really proud of our team,” Taylor said. “We’ve been through some things this year in terms of injuries, not having a full roster and figuring things out. One of our goals was to make the tournament in year two, which is a big jump from winning nine games last year.”
Taylor hit the transfer portal to add talent and depth in turning around a 9-20 team, which was 2-14 in SEC play, tying for 13th. Rogers, who led the team in scoring when she was injured, is averaging 12.5 points and 3.9 assists per game. She is a three-time All-Pac 12 player having played at Southern Cal and Oregon. Senior wing Aicha Coulibaly (13.2 ppg, 5.5 rebounds per game) was a two-time second-team All-SEC performer at Auburn. Junior forward Lauren Ware (9.1 ppg, 7.9 rpg) transferred from Arizona. Sophomore forward Janiah Barker (12.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg) and senior guard Sahara Jones (7.1 ppg, 5.2 rpg) were both starters last season.
Taylor said the best thing about the SEC tourney with Rogers back is everyone returned to their regular spots. Bench play was better and the Aggies just played with confidence.
Nebraska is led in scoring by 6-foot-3 junior center/forward Alexis Markowski (15.9 ppg, 10.8 rpg), 5-9 graduate guard Shelley (13.7 ppg, 4.2rpg) and 6-2 freshman guard/forward Natalie Potts (10.6 ppg, 5.6 rpg). Freshman guard Logan Nissley (6.7 ppg) and junior guard Kendall Moriarty (3.2 ppg) are the other starters, but graduate guard Darian White (6.6 ppg) and sophomore guard Callin Hake (6.2 ppg) come off the bench. Markowski was a first-team All-Big Ten selection, Shelley was on the second team and Potts was the freshman of the year.
Nebraska averages 73.4 points per game.
“I’m really interested in playing a different style of basketball, it should be fun,” A&M junior forward MJ Johnson said.
The Cornhuskers are shooting 42.5% from the field, including 33.7 from 3-point range (282-836). Shelley has 82 3-pointers, Nissley 55 and Hake 39.
“They are really fundamental,” Jones said. “They run screens a lot. I watched them play Iowa. That’s a tough team right there, but we’re going to do the best we can do against them.”
A&M played at the Big 10’s Purdue earlier in the season with the Boilermakers winning 72-58.
“It does give us a sample size of what we’re going to feel like,” Taylor said.
NOTES — The Nebraska and Texas A&M’s men’s basketball teams are also playing in the NCAA Tournament and will play in Memphis on Friday. Former Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts was just hired for the same position at A&M. “It doesn’t feel like it’s anything distracting,” Williams said. “I mean at this point we’ve got a job to do. We’re on a mission. We know what it takes to to put ourselves in the best position to prepare and you know we don’t play against the athletic director. I mean that’s just the the facts. So we’re we’re not looking at this like a distraction in any way, shape or form.” … Alberts at his introductory press conference said it appeared “a little too coincidental to me,” that the schools’ are playing in both tournaments, but he was laughing. “I’m really happy for Amy Williams. I’m really happy for [men’s coach] Fred Hoiberg. I spent three years working with them and just trying to support them. Those basketball programs have achieved some really significant things. I’m also really, really happy for Coach Taylor and Buzz Williams, right? And had a chance, as I started to look at this job, really dive in. I’ve watched a lot of press conferences. I’ve watched Coach Taylor. Just really impressed. Those are four really outstanding human beings and four great teams. So it will be a little surreal and interesting to watch them compete. But the beauty is, I can’t lose.” ... Nebraska beat Purdue three times, but the Cornhuskers lost to Kansas, a team that A&M defeated. Both teams defeated Lamar.