Women’s NCAA Tournament - Agents of Innovation entering the Sweet 16
Yahoo Sports women’s college basketball analyst Cassandra Negley looks at the players who could find innovative ways to lead their teams to victory during the Greenville and Seattle regionals of the women’s NCAA tournament.
Video Transcript
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CASSANDRA NEGLEY: This is Cassandra Negley with Yahoo Sports. Heading into the Sweet 16, it's time to highlight the players who are finding innovative ways to lead their teams to victory during this year's NCAA Women's Tournament. Let's look at our Agents of Innovation, brought to you by Invesco QQQ.
First, let's talk about senior guard Charisma Osborne at UCLA. The Bruins are going up against number 1 overall seed South Carolina, so they're going to have to be on point. Osborne scored a career-high 36 in the win over Oklahoma in the second round.
Now the Bruins could give South Carolina one of their toughest matchups of the tournament. They've met before. So Osborne will have to have another huge game to help them out. She was huge against South Dakota State earlier in the year. And in that South Carolina one, she scored 24, despite not having a highly efficient night.
On the left side of the bracket, down in the Seattle 4 Region, let's talk about Colorado junior guard Frida Formann. Now the Buffaloes are one of the better 3-point shooting teams, though they don't rely on the shot a lot. But they're going up against Iowa, and Iowa's offense is incredible. So they'll need to keep up with those 80 points per game because solid defense is not going to keep them down that much.
Look at Formann to potentially get hot. She averages 2.3 makes per game, which is in the 97th percentile of the nation. Her 39 shooting percentage is also in that top percentile. She had five 3's in the first round against Middle Tennessee on eight attempts. Can she match Caitlin Clark and Gabbie Marshall from beyond the arc?
On the right side of the bracket, in the Greenville 2 Region, let's look at Miami, which upended number 1 seed Indiana to reach the Sweet 16. Miami averages about 8.7 steals per game, and the player leading that charge by just a little bit is graduate student forward Destiny Harden. Harden leads a trio of tough Hurricanes. She has 1.6 steals per game. Now can she steal enough possessions and have the team convert them to points to keep up with Villanova's Maddy Siegrist?
We'll see if Charisma Osborne, Frida Formann, and Destiny Harden can continue to lead their team to the title. For more women's tournament coverage, keep it here on Yahoo Sports, brought to you by Invesco QQQ, the official ETF of the NCAA.
