Women’s NCAA Tournament - FGCU, Toledo bring exciting upset action
Yahoo Sports women’s college basketball writer Cassandra Negley recaps the most surprising upsets from the second day of the women's tournament - including Florida Gulf Coast's takedown of Washington State and Toledo's triumph over Iowa State.
Video Transcript
- This is Cassandra Negley with Yahoo Sports. And we're looking at more upsets in the NCAA women's tournament. Shout out to the 20% of Yahoo Sports bracket users who picked Florida Gulf Coast to advance. That's a team that we were high on. We liked that their experienced. They're a great shooting team. They lead the nation in 3-point rate. Now they took down number 5 Washington State in the Greenville two region.
We weren't super high on Washington State because they had flown through their Pac-12 tournament and were very hot. But they had a cooling off because we didn't play for a week. And they might have been a little over seeded, whereas FGCU was under seeded. Florida Gulf Coast actually got it done inside the arc instead of outside of it. They hit only five 3s that's tied for the fewest this season for them.
Florida Gulf Coast now advances to play National Player of the Year Maddy Siegrist and Villanova in the next round. That could be an interesting game. Never count out the Eagles. The bigger upset of the day, though, was Toledo. Only 15.89% of Yahoo Sports bracket users picked them to win over Iowa State. It was their first tourney win since 1996. And it is only their fourth all time.
Now, these two teams actually lined up really nicely on paper. The Rockets outscored Iowa State by 10 in that second quarter and rode out the win. Four players were in double digits. And we really like that two of those players came off of the bench. Much like Florida Gulf Coast, this is a sharpshooting team. They hit it nearly 50% against Iowa State. And they had seven 3s to win this game. Iowa State hit it only 35%.
And they had six 3s. But on 31 attempts, that's 20%. Ashley Joens ended her career at Iowa State with 23 points, 13 rebounds, an absolutely incredible career and a great game there. But it's Toledo that is riding its 17-game winning streak into the next round. They will play Tennessee. The thing we really like about Toledo in this one is they do not turn it over a lot.
Their 12.4 turnovers ranked top 20 in the nation. And they don't foul a ton, but they can get to the line themselves. We also want to shut out Drake, which took Louisville and Hailey Van Lith down to the wire, which we saw coming. Hailey Van Lith was on an absolute mission to get the Cardinals to the next round.
The other double digit seeds advancing from day one are Princeton, Georgia, and Mississippi State. We'll see if any of them can get to the second weekend. For more from the tournament, stay here at Yahoo Sports.