Welcome back sports fans. Congratulations to the Chattanooga Mocs men, who just kept winning and won not only their first NIT Championship 85-84 in overtime over UC Irvine, but the first Southern Conference NIT Championship in history. As excited as I personally am, it is a bit interesting that considering the NCAA men’s and women’s Sweet 16 and Elite 8 along with the men’s and women’s NIT semifinals and men’s finals, the GCR is 25-3 predicting the winner. 2 of the 3 misses were due to the Mocs winning games they weren’t favored in. They converted a fast-paced 3-point loving offense in the championship. Sure, UCI had a chance to win it in OT, but the layup didn’t fall as time ran out. Both teams had 8-point leads at one time or other, but never more. The game went into overtime and a baseball pass the length of the court followed by a touch pass under the basket just about sent Cinderella home. A fitting and wonderful game for a championship.
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Tonight, the only college basketball games are the women’s NCAA Final Four featuring 4 of the best teams in the country. A healthy Southern Cal would have been an interesting team, but the loss of JuJu Watkins and, subsequently the team to UCONN, have dropped the Trojans out of the tournament and to 5th overall in the GCR. Our first game is Texas (35-3/3 with a GCR Score of 63.36) taking on the reigning national champions South Carolina (34-3/1 with a Score of 65.92. This is the 4th time these two teams have met: SCAR won at home, Texas won at home, SCAR won in the SEC Championship. In fact, of the 7 non-SCAR Elite 8, South Carolina played 6 of them (only Southern Cal not on the list) and they not only played all 3 other Final Four teams, they lost to all other Final Four teams – 2-3 overall. If you question their #1 strength of schedule rating, that should be enough data right there. UCLA beat the Gamecocks in LA stopping the long overall winning streak following a perfect 2023-24 season, UCONN beat the Gamecocks in Columbia stopping a very long home winning streak, and the Texas loss broke a years-long SEC winning streak. Are they the team to beat? The GCR has them #1 so I’d say yes. It’s hard to beat the same team 3 times in a season but rarely do two teams play 4 times in a season. The GCR gives this one to South Carolina, but it will be close: 53.8% to win.
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Our 2nd game pits the only 2-seed in either tournament to make the semifinals with UCONN (35-3/4 with a Score of 62.44) taking on UCLA (34-2/2 with a Score of 64.59). UCONN did have that huge blowout vs the Gamecocks, but they lost to Tennessee. They also played in a relatively weak conference (5th overall with an average Score a full 6 points below 2nd place Big Ten). They’ve been the hottest team in the tournament, Paige Bueckers is playing her best ball of the season and that is scary. UCLA only lost 2 games, both to Southern Cal, who UCONN just beat. This is a tough one to call: UCLA has been the better team all season, UCONN is hot and has the hottest player. The GCR doesn’t have a “recency” calculation which could change things, perhaps. UCLA to win 53.2% of the time.
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Both of these games should be agonizingly close which is what will make them extraordinarily enjoyable. If you haven’t watched a women’s basketball game before, check these games out tonight. They will be worth it! Thank you for reading and sharing with others, G
