Gobrecht Makes Case For UW In Ncaas Huskies Need To Win At Least Three Of Last Four

Before their aggressive scheduling comes back to haunt the University of Washington women’s basketball team, the Huskies still have the chance to make their own postseason plans.

“It’s the old thing, with our schedule, ‘they haven’t proved that they’re good, but they haven’t proved that they’re bad,”’ UW coach Chris Gobrecht said.

It’s time for the Huskies to prove that they’re good if they intend to keep playing.

Their four-game stretch run begins Thursday night at Arizona State, then peaks with the key game Saturday at Arizona, and then returns home for a couple of scary tilts against the Los Angeles schools next week.

Basically, to gain entry to the NCAA Tournament for the 10th time in 11 seasons, they need to win all four games, although three victories might be enough as long as one of them is over Arizona.

Terms like “probably” and “might be” are things that the Huskies and Gobrecht don’t want to have hanging over them on Selection Sunday, March 10.

The same predicament faces Arizona.

- Washington has played a very difficult schedule, but has won none of its eight games against ranked opponents. Only two of those games have been home, Gobrecht pointed out, but the Huskies can’t escape their middling 14-11 overall mark.

- Arizona is 1-2 against ranked teams, with a game at No. 4 Stanford next week. In attempting to complete her rebuilding process, coach Joan Bonvicini loaded a non-league schedule with opponents like South Utah State, Harvard and Cal State Fullerton, which means the Wildcats’ 17-6 record is not as impressive as at first glance.

Washington has proved it can play good teams tough (but not beat them), while Arizona has proven it can win lots of games without playing many tough teams.

And they’re both 8-6 in the Pac-10, tied for third place.

Making things especially dicey, is that for the first time in the 1990s, the Pac-10 might not get a fourth team in the tournament. Strong, balanced years in the SEC and Big Eight and elsewhere has Pac-10 officials concerned that only three teams will be invited to join the 64-team field.

“For ages, we’ve never seen anything less than four Pac-10 teams go to the tournament,” Gobrecht said. “I’d be surprised if four don’t get invited.”

It will probably take an 11-7 league mark to impress the selection committee; no Pac-10 team with at least 11 wins has been snubbed since the tournament expanded from 40 to 48 teams in 1989.

In 1994, the tournament went to 64 teams, and five Pac-10 teams have been invited each time since then.

The problem could be if the Huskies are Team No. 4.

If Washington loses to Arizona, the best the Huskies could be no better than 17-12, with an 11-7 league record and an 0-8 record against ranked teams.

“We could have easily scheduled ourselves to be 18-7 right now,” Gobrecht said. “We didn’t do that. Thankfully, you finish in the top four in an excellent conference like the Pac-10 and the selection committee will notice that.”

She hopes. But she’d rather not tempt fate.

Oregon, actually, gives the league its best hope for a fourth-place team, but the Ducks (8-7, 16-9) need a sweep in LA this week and would have to beat Oregon State next week. That’s not impossible: The Ducks have won 8 of 11, and pushed the Beavers to the wire before losing Corvallis Jan. 5.