Last Tuesday Portland beat Gonzaga 67-66 in the WCC women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Pilots did not make the NCAA tourney from 1998-2022 but have now made it back there for the 2nd year in a row. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Portland G Maisie Burnham about avenging a 50-PT loss to the Zags.
You began your college career at Eastern Washington, where you set a school freshman record with 14.3 PPG and were named 2021 Big Sky ROY: how were you able to make such a smooth transition from high school to college? I was just feeling it out and my coaches/teammates gave me a lot of opportunities.
Why did you decide to transfer, and what made you choose Portland? There was a lot of uncertainty at Eastern at the time due to a coaching change and some other players leaving so I decided it would be the best time for me to leave as well. Portland is a good academic school and I am interested in accounting. The entire coaching staff valued me as both a player/person so it made the most sense.
You play for Coach Michael Meek: what makes him such a good coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him so far? He has an impressive track record and has the program trending in the right direction. He values team chemistry and wants all his players to have a great experience. Mike is a good/smart coach but what separates him from everyone else is how he values his players. He tries to recruit players who fit our program, which is really underrated: we have a great culture outside of basketball, which makes playing basketball more fun.
In the 2023 NCAA tourney you scored 8 PTS in a loss to Oklahoma: what did you learn from that loss that you think will help you this time around? Last year we were all excited, especially the players who did not get to make it in 2020 due to COVID, but there were a lot of nerves as well. We returned a good amount of people who played in that game last March so we will just go out and play hard and enjoy the moment because we know what to expect.
Last December you scored 3 PTS in a loss at Stanford: where does Cameron Brink (23 PTS/15 REB/4 BLK) rank among the greatest players that you have ever faced? She is very talented. You never want to match up with her and she is 1 of the best that I have ever played against.
This year you were named All-WCC 2nd-team after finishing in the top-20 in both PTS/SPG: how are you able to balance your offense with your defense? I am still working on my defense but since our team is defensive-heavy I have become more confident in our system, which leads to more activity on that end of the court.
Last month Gonzaga beat you by 50 PTS: how on earth were you able to beat them by 1-PT in the WCC tourney title game rematch last Tuesday?! Coming off a loss like that we were disappointed with our showing but we know that we had plenty of room to grow. It was big for us to make some adjustments as a group to make a run or just compete at the tourney. Playing together as a team helped us bounce back: playing fearless can create a lot of confidence.
You have 7 players on your roster from Australia/New Zealand: have you noticed a biggest difference between American players and foreign players? Not really. It is fun to have such diversity in that aspect. I am constantly learning about their home countries/experiences and they are all great people/teammates.
Your father Blaze/brother Chase/brother Match all played college basketball: who is the best athlete in the family? They will hate me for saying this but I would say it is me! I am thankful for all the examples they set so I could follow in their footsteps.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? There are rumors that we will be a 13-15 seed but we just want to play basketball and are thankful for the opportunity. It does not matter what seed we get: we are just excited to play on that stage.
The Hoops HD Selection Committee – Thursday, March 14th
Tonight was the first night that the Hoops HD panel met via Zoom conference call to begin deliberations on who we feel should be in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. As we wrote earlier, one of our initial tasks was to hand out two annual awards: Mississippi Valley State won the Centenary Award for worst team in Division 1 (they beat out Detroit-Mercy for the award) and DePaul won the 2024 Stallings Award for worst power conference team in Division 1.
After a motion was made to remove all the lower-conference regular season champions from the Under Consideration board (except Appalachian State), our committee began debating on which teams were to be added to the at-large board. The first group of eight teams that were the top 8 vote-getters were Boise State, Washington State, San Diego State, Gonzaga, Nevada, Clemson, Wisconsin and Florida. Each member of our panel then ranked the teams one through eight; the top four teams (Gonzaga, San Diego State, Washington State and Clemson) were subsequently added to the tournament field. The remaining four teams were carryovers into the next round of at-large voting.
Before moving on to the next round of voting, a motion was passed to remove Butler, UNLV, Memphis and Virginia Tech from the Under Consideration board.
In the next round of voting, each committee member nominated eight teams to nominate for the field; the top four teams in this round were Florida Atlantic, Nebraska, Northwestern and Dayton. The next task was to rank these four teams and the four carryovers one through eight; this time Nevada, Wisconsin, Boise State and Florida were added to the tournament field. The last round of voting saw Colorado State, Texas, TCU and St. John’s added to the nomination board along with the four previous carryovers. In this round of ranking the teams 1-8, Texas, Northwestern, Dayton and Nebraska were added to the field. There were only three carryovers (TCU, Colorado State and St. John’s) at this stage; Florida Atlantic returned to Under Consideration after failing to advance to the at-large board for two consecutive rounds.
This completed our night of deliberations; tomorrow we will likely add at least four more at-large teams (plus any potential bids that may open up) into our field. We will also begin the task of seeding up to the top 8 lines on the Master Seed list. Also pay attention to the teams highlighted in orange on the Under Consideration board; these teams are still playing at the time this article posted to the website.