The Arizona women's basketball team remained 59th in the NCAA Net Ratings despite an 83-64 loss at Oklahoma State on Wednesday. Arizona remains squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble. With TCU at Arizona on Sunday, the Wildcats will have another chance for a signature win to add to its NCAA Tournament resume.
Arizona is 5-5 on the road and 1-5 versus quadrant one opponents after the loss at Oklahoma State. The Wildcats are also 0-2 on neutral site games, 10-4 at home, 2-4 versus quadrant one, 2-2 versus quad three opponents and 10-0 versus quad four. Arizona's record in the first three quads could potentially be damaging.
A pair of losses that looked awful early in the season appear less questionable now. Grand Canyon is 20-2 and 65th in the Net Ratings. Northern Arizona is 18-6 and 82nd in the Net Ratings. The losses to Grand Canyon at home and at Northern Arizona, based on the current Net Ratings, would be a quad two.
Arizona having a 5-5 road record could impress the committee. The 3-9 record versus quads one and two and having two losses in quad three could be troubling to the NCAA Tournament committee. Charlie Creme of ESPN projects Arizona as his third team out of the NCAA Tournament.
Autumn Johnson of NCAA.Com projects Arizona as her last team in the NCAA Tournament and playing in the First Four for the second consecutive year. TCU is projected with an 80.1 percent chance to beat Arizona by ESPN. Arizona is a prohibitive favorite versus BYU, Houston, Texas Tech and Arizona State.
If the ESPN projections prove true, Arizona would finish the regular season 19-12. Arizona is currently tied with Cincinnati for ninth place in the Big XII with 6-7 records. The Wildcats own the tiebreaker over the Bearcats with a 72-62 win in Tucson last month. That would match Arizona with last place Houston in the first round of the Big XII Tournament.
Colorado is currently a game ahead of Arizona in the Big XII standings at 7-6 and owns the tiebreaker after beating the Wildcats 56-47 earlier this month. Arizona might need wins in four of its final five regular season games, plus two victories in the Big XII Tournament to earn an NCAA Tournament berth.