Buckeyes unhappy with No. 8 seed

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Ohio State gets to play in the NCAA tournament in its home state.

But that doesn’t mean coach Jim Foster is happy about it.

Foster was irate after his team received a No. 8 seed on Monday night. The Buckeyes (25-6) will meet ninth-seeded Florida (19-12) on Sunday at Bowling Green State University.

The kicker is that, should the Buckeyes beat the Gators, they would most likely draw the colossus of women’s basketball these days, No. 1 and unbeaten Baylor.

But that wasn’t what made Foster so angry.

“In 26 years of being involved in this tournament, this is the most egregious thing I have witnessed,” he said. “We finished second in our league, had eight wins against the RPI top 50, finished the non-conference 13-0, reached the semifinals of our conference tournament and feature the Big Ten player of the year in Samantha Prahalis. We beat some very good teams who finished in the top third of their league in LSU, Oklahoma and California — two of those on the road. This team deserves much better than the seed we were dealt.”

Bowling Green is just under two hours away from Ohio State’s campus.

The shot at possibly playing the tournament’s overall top team — and the top center in the land in 6-foot-8 Brittney Griner — does provide incentive for Ohio State.

“We’re still excited to be in the tournament and to have the opportunity to take on a very good SEC opponent in Florida,” Foster said. “If we can win, then we get the opportunity to take on a great team in Baylor and go up against a great player in Brittney Griner.”

Baylor, Stanford, Connecticut and Notre Dame picked up the No. 1 seeds.

Connecticut hopes to win its eighth national championship (tying Tennessee) and will start with a matchup against Prairie View.

UConn coach Geno Auriemma told the Huskies’ faithful in the preseason that this team wouldn’t win a national championship. But his young team has developed over the past five months, and Connecticut looks poised to make another run after beating Notre Dame for the Big East tournament title.

“If you have to rely just on momentum then you don’t have a good enough team,” Auriemma said. “We’ve got to hope we have a good enough team and then rely on momentum as an extra asset.”

The Irish also have been focused on winning a title after falling just short last season, losing in the championship game to Texas A&M, which is a No. 3 seed in the Raleigh region. The two teams could meet in the regional final.

Notre Dame, which will open up at home against Liberty, reached the national title game last year by knocking off UConn in the Final Four. It was the fourth straight season that UConn made the Final Four. The two teams, who already have played three times this year, could meet for a fourth time in Denver.

The Cardinal also have advanced four straight seasons to the Final Four, and coach Tara VanDerveer is looking to get her first title in 20 years. She’ll begin with a trip East to Norfolk, Va. to face Hampton. Stanford, which has won 28 straight games since its lone loss of the season to Connecticut, hasn’t been east of the Rockies since 2001, when they went to Oklahoma.

“Well last year at this time I don’t think anyone thought Texas A&M was going to win either,” VanDerveer said. “Baylor has had a great year. I think that Brittney Griner is a great player, she’s a tremendous talent. We know that every team is beatable. I hope we have a chance to play them.”