#7 Wisconsin-Green Bay vs. #2 Kentucky

[KL31NY]

The final game of today's women's basketball tournament slate is Phoenix vs. Wildcats in Ames, Iowa. Green Bay led for nearly every second of its win over host team Iowa State whereas Kentucky had to hold off a feisty McNeese State. Still should be a good game.

What makes this match-up intriguing is the defense of each team. Kentucky and Green Bay are the top two teams in the country in creating turnovers and turnover margin. GB's "Buzz" defense and the intensity that it brings proved very beneficial against the Cyclones, and it will be needed to earn the school's and the conference's 2nd-ever Sweet 16 appearance.

Game on ESPN2, but anyone in NWI or Chicago will get DePaul/Tennessee for its duration (reference: http://www.greenbayphoenix.com//pdf8/834145.pdf). Also available on ESPN3.com

[StlVUFan]

Ouch, what a heartbreaker.  I was stuck at work during the first half and kept saying to myself, "It ain't gonna happen."  Just looked like Kentucky was going to be too much for them, but I was only following it on gamecast.  Fired up espn3 for the second half and sat there stunned as they mounted the mother of all comebacks, until I was convinced they were going to win.  3 charging calls later, they lose 65-62.

Ouch.  They had the Kentucky Lady Judds flumoxed with the Buzz defense, but every once in a while, at just the wrong time, they'd find their center all alone under the basket for an easy layup.  It was never a momentum changer -- testament to Phoenix resolve -- but just barely enough to hold them off.  If the game lasts 5 minutes longer, the Phoenix win.  I'm no expert, but unless Gonzaga is nothing special, I wouldn't bet on Kentucky next Saturday (Gonzaga -- yet another double-digit seed with the home court advantage this past weekend).

[valporun]

I don't recall Gonzaga being special in women's basketball, but they did beat a perennial Big East top tier women's team in Rutgers. To the uneducated eye, because it isn't UConn or Notre Dame, it doesn't seem like much of an upset, but it was a shocker considering how deep Rutgers usually plays in the NCAA tourney.

I watched maybe the last 10 minutes of this game, and UWGB had that fight in the time that I watched. From score updates to the end of the game, the game looks like it played out like many of the men's games. Kentucky got out to what looked like a comfortable lead that should have resulted in a strong, confident blowout by 45-50 points, but as Stl said, GB's defense got under  the Wildcats's skin, instead of UK just getting content and throwing up shots or making stupid mistakes because they knew they would win easily. It's definitely a game I'll watch in full.