Who's Number One?

The Women’s Basketball Rankings came out for this week and frankly, C and R are surprised. One, the powers that be (TPB) dropped UConn to number two after their loss to Stanford. Everyone (well, all our friends) thought TPB would still keep UConn number one, and are still arguably the number one team in basketball and the one to beat in the  NCAA tournament. So who is number one, you ask? Baylor!
Baylor over UConn? Wait, didn’t UConn beat Baylor? C and R don’t understand that one. Duke is number three, and everyone is going to be looking at the match up of UConn and Duke at the end of January. Number four on both the AP Top 25 and the ESPN Coaches poll is Stanford. Actually, both polls agreed on numbers 1-4 and differ with Tennessee being number five on AP and Texas A and M five and Tennessee’s sixth on the coaches poll. So wait, didn’t Tennessee beat Stanford? C has to give a special shout out to R because she predicted Stanford would be 3 or 4 but above Tennessee and C was all, no, Tennessee beat Stanford, Stanford can’t be placed above Tennessee! But R had teh faith. Well, it’s good to know that TPB are looking at how the teams are playing that week and not the strict record.

TH writes in to ask how we think Stanford would match up with Baylor as they might meet in the NCAA tourney. We think you have to beat Baylor with lots and lots of threes and getting Baylor’s Brittney Griner in foul trouble. She can’t hurt you from the bench! Stanford could easily follow UConn’s game plan from last year’s NCAA tourney win over Baylor, which involved having their center, Tina Charles, drive inside and up and in against Brittney so she would collide with Brittney in the air and although BG might get the block, she would get the foul. Plus I think Maya Moore made was dead-on from outside. We think Kayla Pedersen could be the Stanford player to try and get Brittney in the air and foul with her body. Stanford also has a good supporting cast and if hot can hit outside, too, as well as provide stifling defense. Lastly, if Jeanette Pohlen is still red hot and firing up threes and driving in to the lane with Brittney on the bench, we think Stanford could pull it out.

First Stanford has to get past the Arizona schools this weekend.