Snubbed at 31-1: Fairfield women's basketball

The Fairfield Stags of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference entered the conference tournament on a hot streak, winning their last 26 games and only accumulating one loss on the season.

That's impressive.

Copyright Fairfield University Athletics, 2024

Fairfield's women continued winning in their conference tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They rushed past Rider in their first game and grounded the Canisius Griffins in their second. The Stags were met with a big scare as the Niagara Purple Eagles took them to overtime in the conference championship, but Fairfield still came away with the win to reach 31-1 and qualify for the NCAA tournament.

31-1. 

On selection Sunday, the MAAC champion received word they were slated as a 13-seed and that they would play 4-seeded Indiana in Round 1. Furthermore, they are in the same quadrant of the bracket as top-ranked South Carolina.

Copyright Fairfield University Athletics, 2024

A team with a 96.9% winning percentage received a 13-seed. In my opinion, that's insane, regardless of the team's home conference. At that point, why even be a Division I program if you won't be taken seriously by the selection committee?

Would the committee really have left out a 30-2 team if Fairfield had lost in the MAAC tournament championship? Probably.

The main problem for Fairfield is their strength of schedule. The Stags did not play a Quadrant 1 team, so that's a major hole in their resume. Furthermore, their SOS ranks 221st out of the 360 Division I teams.

Copyright Fairfield University Athletics, 2024

Still, Fairfield won games. Their lone loss was a 3-point drop at Vanderbilt in their third game of the season. Overall, Fairfield has comfortably taken down the rest of their schedule by an average of 19 points per game. This includes all 20 of their regular-season conference matchups and a 24-point victory over Rutgers in November.

Copyright Fairfield University Athletics, 2024

Is it the best resume in the field of all women's basketball this year? Certainly not. But the Fairfield Stags have done all the right things this season and received a rather unwelcome seed.

If 31-1 isn't good enough for the committee, what is?

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