Welcome back, college sports fans. Yesterday, we had the Women’s NIT Championships and congratulations are in order for the Marshall Thundering Herd for besting Illinois St 66-41 to take home the title. With predicting that game correctly and just one Women’s game to go, the GCR is now 205-79 (.722) this postseason. The Men had two sets of semifinal games with Oklahoma over Baylor, West Virginia over Creighton, UCONN over Illinois, and Michigan over Arizona. We were 2-1 (.667) in those games (no prediction for OKLA/BAY and missing MICH/ARIZ), we are 192-93 (.674) for them with 3 games to go. Overall, we sit at 397-171 (.699).
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Today is the last day of Women’s college basketball until November. It has been a pleasure reporting on the games of what may be the fastest growing sport in the USA. Today’s NCAA Final, played in Phoenix (Arizona = state #1), two #1 seeds who beat the two other #1 seeds in the semis face off. Here’s a tale of the tape.
| Category | South Carolina Gamecocks | UCLA Bruins |
| Championships | 3 (NCAA: 2017, 2022, 2024) | 1 (AIAW: 1978) |
| Conf Tourney Championships | 12 (Metro: 1986, 1988-89 SEC: 2015-18, 2020-21, 2023-25) | 3 (PAC 12: 2006 Big Ten: 2025-26) |
| Reg Season Championships | 15 | 7 |
| NCAA Tournament History (Including 2026) | Appearances: 22nd Sweet 16: 16th Elite 8: 10th Final Four: 8th Championship Game: 5th (3-1) | Appearances: 21st Sweet 16: 11th Elite 8: 4th Final Four: 1st Championship Game: 1st |
| Season Game Averages | 86.5-57.2 | 84-0-56.6 |
| All-Time Record (Both teams began play in 1974) | 1091-542 (.668) | 890-549 (.618) |
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In the Semifinals, both teams drove defensive games. South Carolina scored 24 points below their average but held UCONN to 38 points below. Texas (best defense in the country) gave UCLA difficulty scoring 33 points below average, but the Bruins gave as good as they got holding Texas to 40 points below. In the Tournament, SCAR has outscored their five opponents by 175 points (35.0 points per game) while UCLA won by 115 (23.0 ppg). Both teams have strong long players in the middle and really good backcourt play. The GCR predictions are based on an assumption that all games were played “now”. There is no recency in the math. However, in the semis, the Gamecocks played a nearly perfect defensive game (outrebounding UCONN by 15) with enough offense (4 different players in double figures) to win the second half convincingly. But they had 15 turnovers which will not be good enough today. The Bruins burned 3 timeouts trying to inbound the ball in the 4th quarter alone AND had two 5-second violations, but they also had 4 players in double figures and 6 blocks. Watching the game, it felt that Texas was not going to win long before the game was over, but the Bruins never put it away. The head coach apologized for sloppy play after the win. This is UCLA’s first Final Four in the NCAA tournament. This is South Carolina’s 3rd straight championship game. All told, the tale of the tape, assuming South Carolina does not lose focus, leans towards the Gamecocks taking their 4th title in 10 years. The GCR which doesn’t give any more credence to the last 5 games played than the first 5 games played is picking UCLA by about 5 points. Maybe the Bruins win a close game, but if it’s a blowout, look for the Gamecocks. Here is the official prediction.
| Tour/Round | Time | April 4th Women’s Games (All Times Eastern) | Conf | Seeds | Pred |
| NCAA/FINAL | 3:30 | South Carolina (36-3/3) / UCLA (36-1/1) | SEC/B10 | 1/1 | UCLA |
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The Men have two final games: the NIT in Indianapolis (Indiana = state #2) and the CBC in Las Vegas (Nevada = tri-state). The NIT features two #1 seeds in Tulsa and Auburn. Tulsa is a 30-win team who played the 174th most difficult schedule this year. Auburn is just 5 games over .500 playing a Top 5 schedule. The GCR has two predictive metrics, Score and RPIF. The Score metric is picking Tulsa on the neutral site (would have been Auburn, barely, on their home floor), but the RPIF (due to the stronger SOS) is picking Auburn. If I had to make a choice, I think Auburn wins this as they have faced games with this type of pressure more often this season. But the GCR cannot make a prediction on this one. The CBC, which only had 8 teams and 3 of them had losing records, at least has two 20+game winners in the final. Here are both games.
| Tour/Round | Time | April 4th Men’s Games (All Times Eastern) | Conf | Seeds | Pred |
| CBC/FINAL | 5:30 | Oklahoma (21-15/101) / West Virginia (20-14/98) | SEC/B12 | U/U | WVU |
| NIT/FINAL | 8:00 | Tulsa (30-7/39) / Auburn (21-16/58) | AAC/SEC | 1/1 | NPre |
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That’s it for today. Thank you for reading and sharing. Tune in tomorrow for the final game of the 2025-26 basketball season when the Michigan Wolverines take on the UCONN Huskies for the Men’s NCAA Championship, JoJo and G.
