FGCU women bring distinctive style to Virginia Tech matchup

College PARK, Md. (AP) — Virginia Tech mentor Kenny Brooks has experienced a number of days to come to grips with his team’s upcoming obstacle.

“I get large anxiousness when we perform against teams who shoot a whole lot of 3s,“ he claimed. ”So naturally it has been a annoying 7 days being aware of that you are taking part in towards a crew that shoots the absolute most in the state.”

The fifth-seeded Hokies just take on 12th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast on Friday in the initially round of the women’s NCAA Match. That’s the 1st of two online games in University Park. Fourth-seeded Maryland meets 13th-seeded Delaware afterward.

FGCU (29-2) provides a exclusive design and style into this match, with no one taller than 6-foot-1. Each individual participant on the roster is outlined as a guard — and only Maddie Antenucci is outlined as a “guard/forward” on the team’s web-site. The Eagles lead the nation in 3-point attempts with 1,120 — next-put New Mexico is 200 guiding.

Mentor Karl Smesko “doesn’t like us capturing midranges,” guard Kierstan Bell explained. “And if you do, you are going to be correct on the bench with him.”

Virginia Tech (23-9) can take a great deal of 3s as properly, while its foremost scorer, 6-foot-6 Elizabeth Kitley, could existing a main challenge for FGCU. She is a 3rd-team All-American.

But the Eagles will be determined.

“When we were being looking at the assortment display, we have been pondering exactly where we had been at, and then when they introduced that we have been a 12 seed, we have been all like, ‘OK, this is what they want to do to us,’” Bell said. “So we’re likely to occur out and show why we are far better than a 12 seed.”

FGCU’s seeding was definitely curious for a team that was rated in the Major 25 earlier this 7 days. Virginia Tech is 16th in the AP poll — so maybe the Hokies sense underseeded much too.

“I would like to go guiding the scenes to try out to determine out how they arrived up with the truth that Florida Gulf Coast is a 12 seed. They’re not,” Brooks stated. “I really don’t comprehend how you can be ranked in both polls — as a issue of simple fact, they’re rated in advance of us in 1 poll and they are a 12 seed.”

Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks motions to his group throughout the 1st half of an NCAA university basketball game towards North Carolina Condition in the semifinals of the Atlantic Coastline Convention women’s match in Greensboro, N.C., Saturday, March 5, 2022.

Maryland commenced the period rated No. 4 in the state, and now the Terps (21-8) are seeded fourth in their location, but the Terps haven’t played considering that getting rid of in the Large 10 Match on March 4, so they’ve experienced time to refresh.

Diamond Miller and Ashley Owusu have every single skipped a good quantity of time for the Terps this year.

“We’re ultimately at the healthiest place that we have been with our crew all time,” mentor Brenda Frese stated. “So we’re hunting forward to obtaining some of our finest basketball ahead, which we’re likely to have to have against a genuinely excellent Delaware workforce.”

The Blue Hens (24-7) are led by 5-foot-10 Jasmine Dickey, who has now declared she’s coming into this year’s WNBA draft.

“We got a CAA championship, so which is generally superior, and we nevertheless acquired additional basketball to play,” Dickey said. “Even while it is coming to an finish, we nevertheless play Friday, and we’re hoping to survive and progress, and that’s the key aim proper now.”

A NEW WAY?

Perhaps it is no shock that Smesko thinks it’s possible the seeding system for the NCAA Event ought to be distinct.

“I know they have a bunch of factors, 14 or something factors that they determine in to set these seeds together. But I’m not confident any one is familiar with just which 1 outweighs a further 1 and at which periods they use which just one,” the FGCU mentor explained. “So you are sort of at the mercy of this committee. Ideally we can get to the stage the place they can just have an algorithm which is good more than enough that it could pick the best groups and it could seed the match, and I imagine that would be probably a far more honest problem for most people.

“But for us, we’re in this article. We get to play. We get to perform a good opponent, and we’re psyched about it.”

Back again Residence

Delaware coach Natasha Adair is a indigenous of the Washington, D.C. place and coached at Georgetown ahead of using around the Delaware method. A number of Delaware players are also from this place.

“It hasn’t hit me yet. I’m confident it will tomorrow when we see all of our relatives and mates,” she said. “It’s terrific remaining house, but it is also good remaining a Blue Hen, due to the fact we’re going to have admirers that journey and come guidance us.”

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Follow Noah Trister at https://twitter.com/noahtrister

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Much more AP coverage of March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-insanity and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-higher education-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Best25