Closing the regular season in a hurry, the Georgia Tech women’s basketball team will navigate one of the deeper and stronger conference tournaments imaginable.
The Yellow Jackets, who won their last two games of the regular season and six of their final eight, earned the No. 7 seed and will play the Virginia-Boston College winner in a second-round game at 6 p.m. Thursday in Greensboro, N.C.
Should the Jackets advance out of that game, they’ll face nemesis Duke in a 2-vs.-7 matchup Friday. Tech has not beaten the Blue Devils since February 1994, a stretch of 36 consecutive losses, including a 64-47 defeat at McCamish Pavilion in January.
By Associated Press poll rankings, the 15-team field will have the Nos. 2 (Notre Dame), 7 (Duke) and 9 (Maryland) teams and two more in the top 15, N.C. State and North Carolina. The 1-9 seeding goes Notre Dame, Duke, Maryland, N.C. State, Syracuse, North Carolina, Tech, Miami and Florida State. The top four teams will receive double-byes and won’t play until the quarterfinal round Friday. The 5-9 seeds will play their first games Thursday.
The bottom six teams will play in the first round Wednesday — Virginia Tech-Clemson (12-13), Virginia-Boston College (10-15) and Wake Forest-Pittsburgh (11-14).
The Fighting Irish, in their first season in the ACC, are 29-0 and seeking to become the first ACC team since 2006 and third overall to win an NCAA championship. Through Thursday’s games, Notre Dame ranked No. 2 in the country in scoring offense (87.6 points per game), scoring margin (25.7), field-goal percentage (51.3 percent), 3-point field-goal percentage (41.0) and assists (21.2).
With a 19-10 record and a No. 37 RPI ranking, according to warrennolan.com as of Sunday evening, Tech can make a pretty good case for its seventh NCAA tournament berth in the past eight years, although a 20th win would help. ESPN projected Tech for a No. 10 seed last Monday, and that was before the Jackets defeated FSU for their third top-50 RPI win.
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