UCSB Takes on the Best Team in the Nation in NCAA Tournament
STEVEN WILSON
News-Press Correspondent
It
took a while to find out who the UCSB womens basketball team would play in the
first round of the NCAA Tournament, but the foe is recognizable nationwide.
While watching the ESPN selection show on Monday afternoon, the Gauchos
discovered they will be playing the No. 1 team in the nation on Sunday
afternoon in Bowling Green, Ohio – the Lady Bears of Baylor.
“As bad and as ugly as we have looked
this year, at the end of the day, our goal was to play in the NCAA Tournament
and we’re here,” UCSB coach Carlene Mitchell said. “It’s a great opportunity
for these kids and it’s a great experience. We’re going to run with it. You
never know.”
UCSB
enters as the 16th seed in the Des Moines Region of the tournament
after securing a Big West Championship victory over Long Beach State on
Saturday. Baylor on the other hand, has had one of its best seasons in team
history.
The
Lady Bears, who won the national championship in 2005 and were in the Final
Four in 2010, enter the tournament with a perfect record of 34-0. They earned
their second straight Big 12 Championship with a 23-point victory over rival
school Texas A&M last weekend. They also have the No. 1 rated player in the
nation – Brittney Griner.
Griner
is a 6-foot-8 junior who averages 23.3 points, 9.4 rebounds and 5.2 blocks per
game and was named the ESPN.com national player of the year. She was also voted
as the Big 12 Player of the year the past two seasons, and the league’s
defensive player of the year for the third straight year.
“It’s
going to be a whole new definition of the triangle and two,” Mitchell said.
“The three (defenders in the triangle) could be on Brittney (Griner) and the
other two have to guard the other four (offensive players). We’ll see what we
can come up with in the next couple of days.”
One
thing is for sure – Kirsten Tilleman will have her work cut out for her.
The Gaucho center stands at 6-2,
but is very familiar with guarding taller players.
“People
have called me an undersized post player ever since I have come to college,”
she said. “I think anyone is undersized to (Griner).
“Everyone
is just excited that we are going to the dance, and it’s definitely going to be
a dance.”
Tilleman,
who earned the Big West Tournament MVP award, sat in the front row of Reitnouer
Auditorium at UCSB on Monday for the selection show. Upon announcement, she
turned her head and said, “I want to get a chance to guard her.”
Tilleman
was referring to Griner and her coach says that’s not unusual behavior from the
junior out of Bozeman, Montana.
“She’ll
never back down from anyone, so it’ll be interesting,” Mitchell said. “We’ll
come up with a gameplan and see if Tilleman can have some fun with it.
“I
have said it from day one, we go as Tilleman goes. I am thankful that she
earned the Big West MVP because she is so deserving of it. It will be a
challenge, but I know going onto the court that I feel good having her in my
corner because I know she is not going to back down.”
Griner scored a tournament-record
and career-high 45 points against Kansas State in the semifinals of the Big 12
Tournament and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player for the second
straight year.
Briner almost has as many accolades
as another Baylor Bear – the most recent Heisman trophy winner Robert Griffin
III, but for Mitchell, it’s all about her team’s mentality, not accolades. She
knows it’s one and done in the tournament and says that her team just needs to
be the best team that night – maybe Baylor might even overlook UCSB.
“I always go in expecting to win,”
Mitchell said. “It’s going to take an A plus game and a lot of other variables
to fall into place for us, but you don’t just play to play. I don’t want the
kids to go in with that mindset. If we can walk out of there and we’ve won in
our minds, that will always be something to build on for the future of this
program.”
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