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Alexander: In March, everybody has something to prove

March 16, 2026

ESPN commentator Andraya Carter, during the network’s coverage of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament pairings Sunday, referred to one of the four regionals as the “Chip on the Shoulder Region.”

The point: Every one of the top four seeds in that region had something to prove.

The region: The “Sacramento 2” regional, the one that will be decided in the state capital. The one headed by UCLA, the No. 2 overall seed in the 68-team field.

No offense intended, Andraya, and you’re likely correct, but I doubt that there are any among the 136 teams whose names were called in the men’s and women’s brackets Sunday who don’t have something to prove.

Consider, for example, the Southern California teams who qualified for March Madness.

UCLA’s women have been chasing Connecticut in the rankings all season, haven’t lost since December, enter the women’s tournament as the national No. 2 seed and are still smarting from the Final Four loss to the Huskies last March.

And the comments by selection committee chairman Amanda Braun to ESPN defending the decision to make UConn the No. 1 seed, even though UCLA played a tougher schedule and beat 12 Top 25 teams, probably had UCLA’s players bristling.

It “went to a committee vote,” Braun said. “Just two terrific teams who won a whole lot of games. We watched a lot of UConn. We watched a lot of UCLA as a group. The vote gave the edge to UConn.”

Asked why, she added this: “I would say observable component was talked about a whole lot of the way. We watched UConn win throughout the year, from the beginning to the end. UCLA did a lot of winning as well. But ultimately, the committee felt like observable component with UConn really gave them the edge.”

You think the words “observable component” didn’t add weight to that chip on the Bruin players’ shoulders? If that wasn’t a “we’ll show you” moment at the team’s gathering, I don’t know what would be.

The Bruins’ men seemed to have hit their stride late in the season, but will go into their first-round matchup Friday in Philadelphia against Central Florida with some doubters in any respect, especially until Tyler Bilodeau and Donovan Dent show up in uniform and ready to roll.

It is now three decades since the last national championship for a program that, as Mick Cronin reminded the media Saturday in Chicago, “practice under 11 banners that say National Championship every day. They warm up under another banner with 19 Final Fours on it. We don’t even have one with conference championships because there’s 36 or something or so many.”

In other words, there’s one truly acceptable outcome, and it doesn’t involve going home early. And you can pretty well assume that Bilodeau, the Bruins’ most consistent player, and Dent, the engine that has sparked UCLA over the last several weeks, will play Thursday if they can walk.

(And if you don’t have at least some sort of chip on your shoulder, how can you possibly play for Cronin?)

For USC’s women, a legitimate national championship contender last season, the magic number might be 2027 when the Women of Troy again have a full complement of superstars. Without JuJu Watkins, they currently are 17-13 and a No. 9 seed, and they’re in the sub-regional hosted by South Carolina, the No. 1 seed in the “Sacramento 4” bracket. And guess who they’d likely play in the second round?

You think they may be grumbling about observable components as well?

And then there are SoCal’s Cinderellas, the men and women of California Baptist University in Riverside. Both teams are in the field after each swept to Western Athletic Conference titles Saturday in Las Vegas, putting themselves into the history books as the final champions of that 64-year-old conference. The WAC will rebrand as the United Athletic Conference on July 1 – but it will do so without CBU, which will join the Big West along with Utah Valley next season.

The men draw Kansas, the No. 4 seed in the East. The plus? It will be in San Diego, a relatively simple commute down the 15. And, as befits a team that is 25-8 and has a potential game-changer in WAC Player of the Year Dominique Daniels Jr., I suspect they’re not going to scare easily.

They played Oregon State, Colorado, Utah and BYU in a row in December, and then started conference with three straight road games, one in Utah and two in Texas, and lost all three, the last to Tarleton State in overtime. They they won 15 of 17 to earn second place and a double bye in the WAC tournament.

“There’s a competitive chip with our group that’s been refined, I would say, through the competition,” coach Rick Croy said. “And we’ve gained more and more confidence in our ability to compete well.”

The men (25-8) are making their first NCAA Tournament appearance since CBU joined Division I. The women (23-10), who have won 17 of their last 20 and placed six players on the all-WAC team and the league’s all-freshman team, have been there once previously, in 2024. And guess who they played and where?

Right. Pauley Pavilion, and UCLA won that game 87-73 without Lauren Betts, who was injured. I think we can expect Betts to play in Saturday night’s rematch. CBU’s people might have a legitimate gripe about winding up in another 16 vs. 1 matchup, given that some pre-Selection Sunday bracket projections had them as high as a 13 seed.

See? Everyone enters this with chips on their shoulders, even the Cinderellas.

jalexander@scng.com

Orange County Register

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Alexander: In March, everybody has something to prove

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