For the first time since 2006, women’s basketball powerhouse UConn is not a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
The bracket — which ESPN accidentally leaked early and robbed team’s of their special moment — features Baylor, Mississippi State, Louisville and defending national champion Notre Dame as the No. 1 seeds for the 2019 NCAA women’s bracket. The Huskies are 31-2 and No. 2 in the AP poll, but they’re a No. 2 seed in the Albany Region as they play for their first national championship since 2016, which capped a stretch of four straight titles.
Needless to say, not everyone on the team took the news of the seed well. But senior star Katie Lou Samuelson had possibly the best reaction to the bracket, posting this on her Instagram story a few hours after the seeds were leaked:
Now, because there’s no specific mention of the tournament or bracket, it’s entirely possible that Samuelson — who’s averaging 18.9 points per game as UConn’s second-leading scorer — was talking about something else on Instagram. However, senior forward Napheesa Collier — the Huskies top scorer with 20.9 points per game — also added the image to her Instagram story after Samuelson tagged her in the original post.
UConn is in the same region as No. 1 seed Louisville, which handed the Huskies one of their two regular-season losses. They also fell to Baylor earlier this year.
In an interview with ESPN’s Maria Taylor, Rhonda Lundin Bennett, the chair of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Committee, said deciding where to put UConn was “really difficult discussion,” adding:
“The things that were the deciding factors for us were strength of schedule, as well as strength of their conference. And our committee watched UConn, as well as all those teams, a lot and really just thought that playing down the stretch, the teams that made it onto the (No.) 1 line were stronger.”
College basketball fans on Twitter were similarly stunned by the Huskies getting a No. 2 seed.
