Nation's top two players – Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark – on track to meet in Elite Eight of women's tournament

The player of the year argument will be settled on the court.

The biggest surprise in the NCAA women’s tournament bracket came in the Greensboro Regional, where top-seeded South Carolina could face No. 2 seed Iowa in the Elite Eight. That means Aliyah Boston vs. Caitlin Clark, a trip to the Final Four on the line.

Stanford (Spokane) and N.C. State (Bridgeport) also were awarded No. 1 seeds, as expected, when the bracket was revealed Sunday night. So was Louisville, in the Wichita Region, despite being upset by Miami in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament.

"We certainly noted that," Nina King, chair of the NCAA Division 1 women's basketball committee, said on a conference call Sunday night. "We had a lot of discussion around their total body of work and what they had done throughout the whole year. ... What they have done, as well as the teams above and below them, just didn’t feel like it warranted moving Louisville."

Another surprise was UConn being seeded No. 2 in the Bridgeport Region, which essentially gives the Huskies home games until the Final Four -- no small thing, given their considerable fan base throughout Connecticut.

"A variety of conflicts we're trying to avoid," King said, mentioning teams from the same conference and teams that have already played this season. "Then we take into account fan experience, student-athlete welfare, modes of transportation, whether it's a drive or a fly. There's a variety of things that we certainly take into account and have a lot of discussion around, and certainly UConn and Bridgeport was one of those that we spent a lot of time on insuring that we got it right."

While there are other intriguing games in the bracket – LSU-Texas in the Sweet 16 will be a brawl, BYU could be a handful for Baylor in the Sweet 16 and Kentucky will be everybody's favorite roller coaster so long as it's playing – all eyes will be focused on that potential South Carolina-Iowa matchup March 27 in Greensboro.

Boston and Clark have been, arguably, the two best players all season, and cases can be made for each of them to be player of the year.

Boston is the top scorer and rebounder for South Carolina, which has been No. 1 all season and has lost just two games, and she also leads the Gamecocks with 82 blocks and 40 steals. Clark leads the nation in scoring, at 27.4 points a game, and earlier this season became the first player in college basketball, male or female, with consecutive 30-point triple-doubles.

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But the debate over who deserves POY honors got turned up a notch last month, when South Carolina coach Dawn Staley and Iowa coach Lisa Bluder took veiled shots at the other’s star player.

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It began Feb. 14 with a Staley tweet during Iowa’s nationally televised game against Maryland. Why, Staley asked, were TV commentators talking about other player of the year candidates during South Carolina games when Boston didn’t get mentioned during other teams’ games?

“Why don’t commentators talk about (Boston) on other national televised games like they talk about other NPOY candidates on (South Carolina’s) national televised games. And halftime too!” Staley wrote.

Two days later, Staley said she’d “got off track,” but continued to advocate for Boston.

“Commentators can express themselves however they want to, but I watched a nationally televised game the other day and I barely heard Aliyah’s name,” Staley said during a news conference. “She’s worked too hard. She’s done what she’s supposed to do. She’s a great example of how you should do things in life, in our sport, and (is) getting better each and every year.”

Two weeks later, after Iowa won the Big Ten title, Bluder said there was “no doubt” that Clark was the best player in the country.

“She has the ball in her hands all the time,” Bluder said. “She has made more impact on our team as an individual than other people that we’re talking about for the NPOY. We have great people around Caitlin, we have great basketball players.

“We don’t have 10 All-Americans like some people do, and there is a difference on that.”

Of the 16 players on South Carolina’s roster this year, 10 were high school All-Americans.

Sports thrives on rivalries and grudge matches, real or perceived, and heightened tension around what would already be a big game will only make it more appealing. That's good for the tournament, and it's good for women's basketball.

Plus, the game would give a glimpse of how the NCAA tournament might have played out in 2020 had COVID not forced its cancelation. Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu was the best player in the game that year, lightning fast and with superb ball-handling skills, and South Carolina likely would have run into the Ducks at some point.

With Clark also being a speedy point guard, how the Gamecocks defend her will give an idea of what they might have done against Ionescu and the Ducks.

The women's tournament begins Wednesday with the First Four. The women's field has 68 teams for the first time, just as the men have, and the First Four games are Dayton-DePaul and Howard-Incarnate Word on Wednesday, and Longwood-Mount St. Mary’s and Missouri-Florida State on Thursday.

First-round games begin Friday at campus sites. The Final Four is April 1 in Minneapolis, and the national championship game is April 3.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA women's tournament looks to South Carolina-Iowa in Elite Eight