Half of the women’s Final Four turned out as expected, with top seeds Tennessee and North Carolina facing off in a national semifinal.
From the other side of the bracket emerged two unlikely championship contenders.
LSU, burdened by controversy, and Rutgers, loaded with freshmen, each upset a No. 1 seed to make it to Cleveland and create an unlikely matchup in the other semifinal on Sunday.
“It’s so hard to get to the Final Four now – the regionals are a lot like the Final Four used to be because there are so many great teams,” North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell said Wednesday. “So many of the great teams have been eliminated. It’s just so much more difficult to get there.”
Perhaps nobody had a tougher job than LSU acting coach Bob Starkey, who took over after Pokey Chatman’s sudden resignation March 7 amid allegations of improper conduct with a former player.
Starkey won four straight games, including an upset of top-seeded Connecticut, to deliver the Lady Tigers’ fourth straight Final Four appearance.
“This has been a focused team from the very beginning of the season,” Starkey said. “It made my job a little bit easier. I didn’t have to create something that wasn’t there. I just maybe had to draw them back and remind them of what we established.”
But reaching the sport’s biggest stage is nothing new for the other three coaches.
Tennessee is making its 17th Final Four trip under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt, while Hatchell has the Tar Heels here for the second straight year and third time overall.
Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer, the only coach to take three schools to the Final Four, is here for the fourth time – a quarter-century after bringing Cheyney to the 1982 national semifinals.
This time, she coaxed a Rutgers team that started the season 2-4 with five freshmen and no seniors to the Big East championship.
Then, the fourth-seeded Scarlet Knights (26-8) beat Michigan State on the Spartans’ home floor, stunned No. 1 overall seed Duke in its Tobacco Road backyard and routed third-seeded Arizona State to claim the Greensboro Regional championship.
For LSU (30-7), this NCAA tournament started with the team in turmoil after Chatman stepped down.
Starkey guided the Lady Tigers to victories over UNC Asheville, West Virginia, Florida State and UConn to advance from the Fresno Regional.
The other semifinal has a familiar feel, with Tennessee and North Carolina meeting in Cleveland. The Tar Heels beat the Lady Vols a year ago to win the Cleveland Regional and advance to the Final Four in Boston. The teams also met in the regular season, with North Carolina cruising to a 70-57 victory on Dec. 3.