Oregon State guard Katie McWilliams, a South Salem HS grad, talks about the Pac-12 tournament on Feb. 28, 2018. Gary Horowitz/Statesman Journal
CORVALLIS – Oregon State women’s basketball coach Scott Rueck is puzzled.
Based on its No. 10 ranking in the Associated Press and USA TODAY coaches polls, OSU would appear to be in excellent position to host early-round NCAA tournament games.
But in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), which is used by the NCAA men's and women’s basketball committees toseed teams for the NCAA tournament, OSU is No. 33.
“The discrepancy is confusing to me,” Rueck said after Wednesday’s practice.
The top 16 seeds are host-site schools for first and second-round games of the NCAA tournament. .
That leaves the Beavers (23-6) with work to do in the Pac-12 tournament.
OSU opens with a quarterfinal matchup Friday (8:30 pm., Pac-12 Networks) at KeyArena in Seattle against the winner of Thursday’s game between Arizona State and Arizona.
OSU’s relatively low ranking in the RPI is due primarily to strength of schedule, even though the Beavers play in a strong conference and have wins over two top 10 teams – Oregon and UCLA.
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Their non-conference schedule, despite games against national powers Notre Dame and Duke, and the low RPI ranking of Pac-12 bottom feeders like Washington, Arizona and Washington State, hurt the Beavers’ strength of schedule.
“I think this team, playing in this conference, absolutely deserves to host for what they’ve done to this point,” Rueck said. “There’s no other rating anywhere that has us lower than 12th.”
The past three years OSU was Pac-12 champion and hosted NCAA tournament games at Gill Coliseum. The Beavers reached the Final Four in 2016 and advanced to the Sweet 16 last season.
With one senior on the roster – all-Pac-12 center Marie Gulich – OSU is a young team on the rise. The Beavers enter the Pac-12 tournament on a seven-game winning streak.
But they may need to reach the Pac-12 tournament championship game to be among the 16 national seeds.
“I think looking ahead we have more work to do,” said Gulich, who is averaging a team-high 17.4 points and 9.1 rebounds, and is coming off a career-high 36 points in the regular season finale against ASU.
“Going into the Pac-12 tournament now I think we can prove how good we are. At this point, nothing is given to us. We have to fight for everything.”
A top 16 seed that would give Gulich and her teammates at least one more home game, where the team is 14-2 this season.
OSU could play No. 2 seed Stanford in the semifinals, with a potential matchup against No. 1 seed Oregon, the Pac-12 regular season champions, in the conference championship game Sunday. The Beavers and Ducks split their two games this season with each team winning at home.
“If it were to come to that, it would take an elite performance (to win),” Rueck said. “That’s what we have to bring every night we play up there (in Seattle).
OSU’s winning streak coincides with increased scoring from junior guard Katie McWilliams (7.9 points per game, 4.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists).
McWilliams, a South Salem High graduate, has scored in double figures in seven of the last nine games, and averaged 12.4 points in the second half of Pac-12 play. She leads the team in minutes played.
“Coaches have been on me all year about just getting to the paint, just being more aggressive scoring-wise," McWilliams said. "I think I’ve done a better job of that and I’m gonna continue to do that the rest of the season.”
Said Rueck: “When she’s aggressive we’re really hard to beat.”
McWilliams and sophomore guards Kat Tudor (12.0 points) and Mikayla Pivec (11.0 points) were named honorable mention all-Pac-12.
There is no doubt the Beavers will be part of March Madness for the fifth consecutive year. The question is where will they open?
“At least two wins this weekend would put us in a good spot,” McWilliams said.
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