Women's NCAA Tournament upsets: How Ole Miss upset No. 1-seed Stanford and Sweet 16 projections
Bracket Breakers analyzes how Ole Miss upset Indiana and looks forward to the Women's Sweet 16.
theathletic.com
On Sunday, 8-seed Mississippi knocked off 1-seed Stanford, 54-49. The Rebels have become our statistical model’s new favorite bracket-breaker with that result and second-round losses by Florida Gulf Coast and Georgia. Honestly, we should have introduced them earlier than this. As we have explained, though, while we have isolated various statistical traits crucial for winning underdogs in the men’s tournament, we are still trying to determine how to weigh their impact on women’s teams. It’s fairly easy to see how FGCU’s three-pointers or Georgia’s steals disrupt opponents. But even at the beginning of this tournament, we weren’t sure that big-time offensive rebounding mattered for women’s teams the way it does for men.
After all, when we studied teams that were particularly strong on the offensive glass, we looked at Gonzaga, which grabbed more than 40% of its own missed shots in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and was at 37.5%, near the top of the heap, this season. But, though it wasn’t in a giant vs. bracket-breaker matchup, the Bulldogs got smoked, 71-48, in the first round.
But here’s the thing—and you’re allowed to yell, “Duh!” at this point: they were crushed by Mississippi, which itself has turned into a rebounding machine under coach Yolette McPhee-McCuin. Since McPhee-McCuin took over in 2018, the Rebels have zoomed from 263rd to 15th in the nation in ORB%, according to HerHoopStats. Their performance against Gonzaga actually demonstrated the importance of hitting the offensive boards quite nicely. And facing Stanford (effective field-goal percentage: 51.1%, ranking 29th), Ole Miss put on a clinic on how to amass possessions against a superior opponent.
In their second-round matchup, Mississippi shot 29.7% against Stanford. It’s hard to believe that could be good enough to beat anyone, let alone a 1-seed. But the Rebels had 20—20!—offensive rebounds, part of an overall strategy to challenge the Cardinal for the ball at what seemed like every instant of the game. As a further part of that plan, they harassed Stanford into 21 turnovers. As a result, Ole Miss took a dozen more shots from the field than the Cardinal. Mississippi’s offense played out like the old joke about the guy who lost money on every sale but made it back in volume.
Ole Miss also made their shots count more by hitting 5 of 11 threes (45.5%), while limiting Stanford to making just 2 of 7 (28.6%) from behind the arc. Overall, the Cardinal shot only 32.7%. There’s a reason why Mississippi players wear “We Are Defense”—they’ve allowed just 0.69 points per play this season. That ranks 15th, up from 231st during McPhee-McCuin’s tenure, per HerHoopStats. Incredible but true: Stanford shot just 10-32 (31.3%) on layups.
Mississippi almost blew it: Stanford star Cameron Brink wasn’t 100% after missing the first round with an illness, but still scored 20 points, notched 7 blocks and sank free throws that tied the game with less than a minute to go. But three more Stanford turnovers in the final seconds, including a huge steal by Ole Miss G Myah Taylor, sealed the upset.
No. 5 Louisville vs. No. 8 Ole Miss
Of the lower seeds still standing, our model gives Mississippi the best chance of advancing into the Elite Eight. The Rebels’ Sweet Sixteen game against 5-seed Louisville technically won’t be a bracket-breaker matchup (which requires a difference between opponents of at least five slots). But we’ve got to let you know this: Entering the tournament, there was less than 1 point per 100 possessions between Ole Miss and the Cardinals in our power ratings, and we had Ole Miss ranked as the 18th-best team in the tournament. And through two impressive performances, Mississippi has shown forcefully that it can dominate the boards while pulling other bracket-breaking tactics out of its bag of tricks when needed. So our model favors them in this next game.Winning chance: 54.7%.
