The biggest moment of Championship Sunday didn't involve a conference tournament title game.
Instead, it came in Ames, Iowa, when Iowa State's Ashley Joens made a free throw with less than a second left to help the Cyclones stun No. 2 Baylor in a Big 12 regular-season finale. The upset snapped the Lady Bears' 58-game Big 12 regular-season winning streak.
Baylor was the only projected No. 1 seed to lose Sunday. The other three projected top seeds dominated their conference championship games, illuminating once again the gap between the very top teams in the country and the rest of the field. South Carolina (SEC), Maryland (Big Ten) and Oregon (Pac-12) duplicated their regular-season titles with tournament crowns, winning by a combined average of more than 20 points in their championship games.
Sunday's loss doesn't hurt the Lady Bears' position in the bracket. Their status as a top seed has already been established and Baylor will remain a No. 1 seed even if it doesn't win the Big 12 tournament. With Louisville's loss in the ACC semifinals and Stanford's 33-point loss to Oregon on Sunday in the Pac-12 title game, UConn is the only other team in the conversation for a No. 1 seed. The Lady Bears beat the Huskies by 16 in Hartford in early January; UConn is not passing the Lady Bears.
The Huskies also are still headed to the Portland Regional. Whether UConn is the fifth or sixth overall team or Baylor is the third or fourth overall team, the Huskies still face a logjam of bracketing principles that pushes them out west. Two factors are in play; these are taken directly from the principles and procedures manual:
"Each of the first four teams selected from a conference shall be placed in different regions if they are seeded on the first four lines."
That means that Stanford, as a No. 2 seed, will not be placed with Oregon, the No. 1 seed in Portland. It also means that UCLA, whether a No. 2 or 3 seed, also can't go there, and both the Cardinal and Bruins have to take up residency in another region. That blocks the Huskies from going to Dallas or Greenville.
"By order of the S-curve, the committee will assign each team to a regional and first-/second-round site by taking into account distance from site, mode of transportation and accessibility by fans."
The history of recent selection committees indicates that they really want to stick with this. If teams and fans can drive to a site, that is where those teams are going to be placed. It enhances the experience for all involved. That has been the model.
With its ACC tournament title, NC State has supplanted UCLA as the final No. 2 seed. Given the second principle, however, the situation for UConn remains the same. The Wolfpack campus is within driving distance of the Greenville region and, thus, more accessible for fans. The same holds for Louisville in Fort Wayne. So with NC State in Greenville, Louisville in Fort Wayne and Stanford, by principle, not going to Portland, west is the only destination left for the Huskies.
So Baylor's loss and NC State's first ACC tournament championship in 19 years didn't change anything for UConn. The same principles apply, providing the same results.
The bracket can still be balanced to the desired level of the committee with the Nos. 1 and 2 seed pairings like this:
Greenville: No. 1 overall South Carolina and No. 8 NC State
Fort Wayne: No. 3 Maryland and No. 6 Louisville
Dallas: No. 4 Baylor and No. 7 Stanford
Portland: No. 2 Oregon and No. 5 UConn
No, it's not a true S-curve placement of the top eight teams. But the truth is that rarely happens in any major college basketball tournament, women or men.