D3 WBB Daily: Willamette's buzzer-beating win highlighted Tuesday's action
Games are already well underway, but I just wanted to put down some of my thoughts on yesterday’s action as well as a quick note on the regional rankings that were released yesterday. In case you missed those, be sure to check out the first regional rankings of the year (listed in alphabetical order). Next week, we will finally have an ordered regional rankings, which should provide some great insight as we start to look towards the postseason.
Tipping Off
Willamette wins at the buzzer!
It turned out to be the game of the day, as two of the top three teams in the Northwest Conference battled in a pretty pivotal matchup. Willamette entered at 10-2 in the NWC and in first place, while Pacific sat in third, at 9-3. And in more ways than one, it lived up to the hype, featuring one of the more tightly-contested games I’ve seen this season, superior defense, and a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Elyse Waldal that lifted Willamette to a 50-47 win over Pacific.
There is still a viable chance for the NWC to be a two-bid league in the NCAA Tournament this season, but you really don’t want to leave anything to chance. By Willamette winning yesterday in dramatic fashion, it put the Bearcats in a very good position to not only win the regular season title, but also host their NWC Tournament games, which should help in the pursuit the AQ to the NCAA Tournament.
Neither offense clicked especially well in this one, but both defenses came up with a series of huge plays, such as the steal from Ava Kitchin with Willamette up 3 and 52 seconds on the clock. While it didn’t result in points (and actually ended in a Willamette turnover with 29 seconds left), it took away a scoring opportunity for Pacific, as well as precious time. While Pacific ended up tying the score with 10 seconds left, I thought that heads-up defensive play by Kitchin was one of the aspects of the game that might be overlooked by glancing at the box score. We saw solid defensive plays along those lines all night. Pacific only took two free throws in the entire contest, and I really thought Willamette’s defensive discipline was another big factor in the win.
Here’s a fun stat courtesy of Scott Peterson: Over 10 quarters this season, the margin between the two has been a total of eight points in favor of Pacific. Yes, you read that right. Also, what a pass from Kaitlin Imai to set up that game-winner from Waldal! I watched this final play a few times on rewind, just to see how everything came together. Fantastic finish.
Smith survives at Tufts
Tufts had a chance to play spoiler against the top team in the NEWMAC right now, but in the end, Smith emerged from Medford with a 68-61 victory in a solid non-conference win for the Pioneers. I talked about Smith’s trend this season of winning (and losing) by close margins in yesterday’s Top 25 ballot breakdown, and that was again the case against the Jumbos. Smith won three of the four quarters, but entered the 4th up 51-49. Then came an 8-2 run from Smith, and it seemed that the Pioneers were cruising to victory, until Sofia Gonzalez cut the deficit back to five for Tufts. In the end, Smith held on, and winning on the road is very difficult this late in the season, so credit to the Pioneers for getting the result. I still don’t feel entirely sold on Smith’s ability to make a deep tournament run, but shooting 43.6% from the field and 15-of-18 at the free throw line is a pretty good recipe for winning.
What did we learn from the regional rankings?
I think my biggest takeaway from yesterday’s release of the alphabetical regional rankings is that SOS is even more of an emphasis than I had initially expected. We saw multiple cases where Team A had an SOS slightly higher than Team B and Team A ended up being in while Team B was left out, despite Team B’s overwhelmingly significant winning percentage advantage. Occidental/Whittier was a prime example in Region 10. Whittier got in, with a resume of 700 WP%, 536 SOS, while Occidental and its 824 WP%, 510 SOS was left out. In other words, 26 points of SOS overcame 124 points of win percentage. And Occidental’s SOS was above the 500-line, which has been thought to be a sort of unofficial cut-off line with regional rankings. Whittier’s SOS is not the higher in Region 10, either, as 536 is decent, but not so impressive that it immediately puts Whittier ahead. I’m interested in how the committee came to this decision to have Whittier in, and if anything, it just shows, as the men’s side also showed, that SOS is king in regional rankings. You can’t get by with a 850 WP% and a 505 SOS anymore, which does make it difficult on the programs in one-bid leagues and with smaller budgets for travel. But regardless, the committee clearly wants to reward teams who have challenged themselves and faced stronger competition, something I am glad to see. I guess I just didn’t expect us to see small SOS margins winning out over large WP% gaps in the way we did yesterday in a couple scenarios. Next week’s ordered regional rankings should tell us plenty more.
Fast Breaks
» #24 Gettysburg defeated Dickinson for its 12th straight victory, 64-55, and outscored Dickinson, 19-11, over the final 10 minutes. Alayna Arnolie had 30 points in Gettysburg’s win.
» Trinity (TX) survived an upset bid at Schreiner last night, as Jamie Ruede made two free throws with 11 seconds left for a 61-58 lead, and the Mountaineers missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds. The Tigers are now 12-1 in the SCAC, sitting in first place.
» The Belmont Voice (Belmont, Mass.) ran a great feature today on Bowdoin senior standouts Jess Giorgio and Megan Tan, who grew up playing together in Belmont and have continued their careers at Bowdoin. Very cool connection there between the two longtime teammates: https://belmontvoice.org/from-belmont-to-bowdoin-teammates-reflect-on-basketball-partnership/
» Congratulations to Nazareth’s Olivia Dobrovsky, who scored her 1,000th career point in last night’s win over Keuka. The Golden Flyers are now 21-2 overall.
» D3Football.com reported yesterday that the City of Salem, Virginia has officially put bids to host eight D-III national championships in 2026 and 2027, including women’s basketball. The 2025 D-III Women’s Final Four is also set to be held in Salem.
Looking Ahead
Tonight’s games to be watching…
#4 Gustavus Adolphus at Concordia (MN), 6:45 p.m. ET
#18 DeSales at Stevens, 7:00 p.m. ET
Calvin at Albion, 7:30 p.m. ET
UW-Platteville at #16 UW-Oshkosh, 8:00 p.m. ET
Occidental at Cal Lutheran, 10:00 p.m. ET