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Lady Coogs wait for tourney fate

Houston not in doubt about making field, should earn high seed; bracket TBA Sunday

by Christian Schmidt
The Daily Cougar

This time around, there's no danger; the Lady Cougars are assured of a spot in the NCAA championship tournament.

Two years ago, Houston had hopes of a spot in the tournament. More than 60 people at a watch party were disappointed when the Lady Cougars' name wasn't called. Houston took an invitation to the Women's National Invitation Tournament and proceeded to make it all the way to the finals, where they finished as the runner-up.

This time, the only question is where and when they'll play their first game. And no one will know for sure until Sunday afternoon, when the tournament selection committee announces the brackets.

"Of course it's nice to win the conference tournament and go ahead and have the automatic bid, to not have to put it in the hands of the committee," senior guard Chandi Jones said.

But where Houston will go is still anybody's guess. 

"It's all up in the air right now. I'm just going to find out on Sunday like everybody else," Jones said. "I think we deserve the No. 2 seed, but it just depends on what the committee thinks."

The NCAA tournament selection committee will have their hands full seeding the 64 teams that will make the tournament. The committee uses three major criteria to make its selection: team record, ratings percentage index -- a computer formula designed to give an objective measure of how good a team's season has been -- and how well the team played at the end of the season. 

Other unofficial criteria that often seem to affect teams' seeding are factors such as school prestige, which conference they are in and how they have done in the tournament in past years.

Houston checks out well under those criteria. The Lady Cougars are 27-3, the third-best record in the nation, No. 7 in the RPI and have won their last 12 games. But the Lady Cougars haven't had a high national profile until the past few weeks. Conference USA teams have had a good year, but the conference is still behind the major conferences.and Houston hasn't been in the tournament in 12 years.

What the Lady Cougars are getting is positive press from people in the sport. Texas Christian coach Jeff Mittie said he thinks Houston should be a No. 3 seed.

"When (former USA national women's basketball coach) Nell Fortner says we're a No. 2 seed, we're a No. 2 seed," Curl said.

Exactly what the selection committee thinks about Houston, nobody knows. As for the players, it seems they don't care where they're seeded or who they play against.

"It doesn't really matter to me (what seed we get)," junior center Kiki Harris said. "I'm just ready to play, and whoever comes first, we're just going to play."

Junior point guard Joanne Overstreet, a junior-college transfer who joined the team this season, said that how UH plays is more important than who they play.

"Honestly, I'm just worried about how we're going to come out and play, Overstreet said. " I don't really know much about the NCAA tournament and how they set that up. I'm just worried about how we play. As long as we come out and practice hard then we'll be all right."

Overstreet, junior forward Sancho Lyttle and senior center Amanda Barksdale, who all joined the team this season, have been a big part of Houston's success. All three have started for the Lady Cougars during the season. 

"It's just big for us, coming into this new program and getting to meet all these players, and it's just big for me because I had heard they had never been there," Overstreet said. "It feels good to be a part of a team that's never been there and come in and help them take it to the next level.

They may not have been there as a team, but Houston doesn't lack tournament experience. Curl took Stephen F. Austin to the NCAA tournament in 1994. Barksdale was a part of the NCAA champion Notre Dame team in 2001.

"Finally getting to be in the Big Dance, it's like a dream come true for me," Jones said.

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