News
Pre-season women's picks revisted
The prediction game, as I've been saying (and demonstrating) the past few weeks, is tricky business. Still, having stuck my neck out at the start of the 2006-07 season, it's time to be held accountable. So it is that I've gone back to blog entries of old to see what my thinking was regarding eight major Division I conferences. What I found is both good and bad.
On the plus side, my ability to figure out what teams would advance to the NCAA women's regional was pretty solid. As you'll see below, there were only two schools that I thought would get regional bids that failed to do so (Tulsa in Conference USA and Washington in the Pac-10). Meanwhile, there were only five teams that got regional bids that I did not forsee last September (San Francisco, Memphis, Washington State, N.C. State and Indiana).
When it came to picking conference champions, I was a little less clairvoyant, but not too bad. Four of the eight conference winners were correct (ACC, SEC, Pac-10 and WCC), with a near miss in the Big 12 (I had Texas A&M second to Oklahoma State when the reverse happened) and the same in the Big Ten (I picked Michigan State third to Purdue when the Spartans were first and Boilermakers second).
Coming down to individual conference players of the year, the toughest category to guess ... I mean predict, I was again right 50 percent of the time (ACC winner Amanda Blumenherst, SEC winner Taylor Leon, Big 12 winner Ashley Knoll and Big Ten winner Maria Hernandez). Worst one was picking Laura Cross of SMU to take the Conference USA POY award; Cross was out the entire season with an injury.
Predicted winner: Duke
Actual: Duke
Predicted POY: Amanda Blumenherst, Duke
Actual: Blumenherst
Predicted regional teams: Duke, Virginia, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Florida State, Maryland
Actual: All of the above, as well as N.C. State
__SEC
Predicted winner:__ Georgia
Actual: Georgia
Predicted POY: Taylor Leon, Georgia
Actual: Leon
__Predicted regional teams:__Georgia, Florida, Vanderbilt, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, LSU, South Carolina
Actual: All of the above
__Big Ten
Predicted winner:__ Purdue
Actual: Michigan State (picked third)
Predicted POY: Maria Hernandez, Purdue
Actual: Hernandez
__Predicted regional teams:__Purdue, Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Northwestern
__Actual:__All of the above, as well as Indiana
__Big 12
Predicted winner:__ Oklahoma State
Actual: Texas A&M (picked second)
Predicted POY: Ashley Knoll, Texas A&M
Actual: Knoll
__Predicted regional teams:Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Missouri, Baylor, Nebraska
Actual: __All of the above
__Pac-10
Predicted winner:__ Arizona State
Actual: Arizona State
Predicted POY: Azahara Munoz, Arizona State
Actual: Anna Nordqvist, Arizona State
__Predicted regional teams:__Arizona State, Southern California, UCLA, Arizona, Stanford, California, Washington
__ Actual: __All of the above, except Washington is out and Washington State is in
Predicted winner:__ UNLV
Actual: TCU (picked fourth)
Predicted POY: Da Sol Chung, UNLV
__Actual:__Rachel Newren, BYU; Jodi Ewart, New Mexico
__Predicted regional teams:__UNLV, New Mexico, BYU, TCU
__ Actual: __All of the above
Predicted winner: SMU
Actual winner: Memphis (picked fifth)
Predicted POY: Laura Cross, SMU
__Actual:__Gerina Mendoza, UTEP
__Predicted regional teams:__SMU, Tulsa
__ Actual: __Yes on SMU, No on Tulsa; failed to predict Memphis
__WCC
Predicted winner:__ Pepperdine
Actual: Pepperdine
Predicted POY: Eileen Vargas, Pepperdine
__Actual:__Misun Cho, Pepperdine
__Predicted regional teams:__Pepperdine
__ Actual: __Pepperdine, but also San Francisco