The conversation is likely to be similar on the top floors of the Kansas City, Mo., hotel where the NCAA men's and women's basketball committees are meeting this weekend to pick the field for next week's tournaments.
Besides the difficult task of figuring out which teams get invited, both committees are likely to struggle over whom to award their final No. 1 seed.
Just as with the men, three of the women's top seeds appear set. Purdue (28-1), Tennessee (28-2) and Louisiana Tech (24-2), the top three teams in the national polls and in RPI ratings, are overwhelming favorites to get No. 1 seeds when the tournament pairings are announced around 5 p.m. today.
But as many as five teams -- Colorado State, Connecticut, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech and Old Dominion -- appear to have some claim to the last No. 1 seed.
Here's a look at the pluses and minuses for each of the candidates:
Colorado State (30-1)
AP Rank: 4
RPI Rank: 4
Record vs RPI top 50: 4-0
Pluses: The Rams, one of the surprise teams of the season, started the year by winning the National Invitation Tournament, and haven't stopped winning since, capturing the Western Athletic Conference title with an unbeaten mark on the way to an 18-game overall skein. Colorado State knocked off co-Pac 10 champion Oregon, Florida and co-Big East regular-season winner Rutgers in successive games in November.
Minuses: Outside the above-mentioned games, the Rams have played a soft schedule, so soft that they haven't played a top 50 team since the end of December. Through a scheduling quirk, they missed playing New Mexico, which won the WAC's Pacific Division, and their lone loss, a five-point December setback to California, is a bad one.
Connecticut (25-4)
AP Rank: 6
RPI Rank: 5
Record vs. RPI top 50: 8-4
Pluses: The Huskies romped through the Big East as usual, but this year, it meant something, as the league boasted two other top 10 teams. Connecticut has won 11 of its past 12. Its status as one of the glamour teams in the game certainly helps the Huskies' case.
Minuses: The Huskies were young, injured and occasionally inconsistent, which showed up in bad losses to Tennessee and Louisiana Tech.
Old Dominion (24-3)
AP Rank: 5
RPI Rank: 10
Record vs. RPI top 50: 4-3
Pluses: Old Dominion has put itself in position to make a deep run in the tournament, dominating the Colonial Athletic Association and beating Connecticut and Texas Tech.
Losses: Just like Colorado State, the Lady Monarchs are in a weak conference (12th in the RPI) and haven't been challenged in months.
Texas Tech (27-3)
AP Rank: 9
RPI Rank: 6
Record vs RPI top 50: 5-2
Pluses: The Lady Raiders, ever so quietly, won the regular season in the Big 12, the second-rated conference behind the Southeastern Conference, and are only two-hundredths of a point behind Colorado State in the RPI rankings. A win over Iowa State in the Big 12 final could push them over the top.
Minuses: Texas Tech drew a top seed last year, with the regionals on its home floor, and lost in the second round. That fact, and a 21-point November loss to Old Dominion could make the committee nervous about giving it another No. 1
Virginia Tech (26-2)
AP Rank: 12
RPI Rank: 7
Record vs. RPI top 50: 7-2
Pluses: The Hokies, another surprise team, were the last Division I team to lose, and have some big early-season victories over Duke, the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season winner, and Virginia, the ACC runner-up. Even their two losses, both to Xavier (33rd in the RPI) aren't bad.
Minuses: Virginia Tech hardly dominated the Atlantic 10, and the specter of being taken to triple-overtime by lowly Dayton in the league quarterfinals, as well as losing to Xavier in the semifinals, raises some questions.
Pub Date: 3/07/99