2025 women's NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen preview
Both days this time!
Instead of doing two separate ones, I think it’s best to combine these into one, especially since this isn’t that long a post. First one is free, rest are paywalled, but there’s video and analysis here I am confident you’re not going to find many other places on the internet, if any.
No more preamble; I gotta get out for a run.
Friday
(2) Duke (-5.5) vs. (3) North Carolina, 2:30 PM ET, ESPN
Well, if you like having one 2/3 rivalry game on Sweet Sixteen Friday, you’ll also like this other one that happens to have (I think?) the exact same point spread. Unlike the Tennessee/Kentucky game happening on the men’s side, Duke and UNC split their season series in a pair of slow-as-molasses games that featured the loser scoring 46 and 53 points, respectively. Torvik’s projected score is 61-56 here, and when these two teams needed an overtime to combine for 99 in their first outing, it almost feels high.
Still, I find myself pretty excited for a battle between two elite defenses and two, uh, offenses. Duke actually found some real success the second time around against the Tar Heels thanks to a huge shooting day from Reigan Richardson (5-8 threes, 7-39 otherwise in ACC play) and their usual mondo edge on the boards. It’s not optimal for UNC whatsoever that they lost the turnover battle by 18 over the course of two meetings while also losing the boards.
Still, there are some intriguing things UNC did across their two meetings. For one, UNC deploys a heavy rim denial scheme that forces opponents into lots of jumpers. Duke was forced to take 37% of all shots from the midrange against UNC, saw their rate of drives to the rim decrease, and took twice as many pull-up jumpers as they did against all other opponents on average. Duke can hit threes, but in general, they’re one of the less jumper-reliant teams in America and prefer to own the paint as much as possible.
Defensively, Duke had the complete opposite strategy: run UNC’s group of quality shooters off the line and funnel everything to the paint. UNC’s rate of kickout threes was cut by almost 70% in games against Duke, and frankly, it worked; the Tar Heels shot just 38% from two across two contests and got almost no shots off whatsoever from deep.
Ultimately I’m not sure what would make me think this game is much different from the first two: low, slow, defense-heavy, and likely slanted a little more to Duke because they’re going to possess a pretty solid shot volume edge in an otherwise equal game.
THING TO WATCH FOR: If UNC is going to win this game, they’ve gotta hit some threes. Duke has been unbelievable in both meetings at running UNC out of catch-and-shoots, forcing UNC’s two lowest catch-and-shoot rates of the season. Put simply, that cannot happen a third time if they’d like to see the Elite Eight.
THING TO CTRL+F THE BOXSCORE FOR: I mean, I gotta see UNC hit some threes. They’re 19-2 this year when they make 7+.
PREDICTION: Again, nothing makes me think this is any different from the first two. Duke 59, UNC 54.