The 2010 NCAA Women’s Basketball Bracket Is Set

The 2010 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship bracket is out, and before you ask: That song from the selection show you’re using a screwdriver to bore out of your head right this minute is “History in the Making” by Darius Rucker (yes, Hootie hath wrought this beast), and there is no known cure. Highlights from the bracket follow:
SACRAMENTO
• First and last in: No. 1 Stanford, No. 16 UC Riverside.
• UNC scrapes in low at a 10-seed, and they have to go to Sacramento to play for it.
• Oklahoma State’s Andrea Riley will be absent from the tourney opener against Chattanooga, serving a one-game suspension for a fight that happened in year before last’s tournament.
KANSAS CITY
• First and last in: No. 1 Nebraska, No. 16 Northern Iowa.
• No. 14 South Dakota State is 2-for-2 in tourney bids since becoming eligible for D-I postseason play, and will face No. 3 Oklahoma.
• Notre Dame falls to a 2-seed after a brutal end-season stretch that took them through the other four ranked teams in the Big East. UConn alone is responsible for three of their five losses.
MEMPHIS
• First and last in: No. 1 Tennessee, No. 16 Austin Peay.
• 8th-seeded Dayton earns its first bid in school history.
• Like the Sacramento region, the 1-16 matchup is an in-state rivalry game. Unlike the Stanford-Riverside tilt, one team already has a losing record. The Governesses (may not be actual mascot) are 15-17 and finished third in the Ohio Valley conference. And even though they’re hosting the regional openers in Knoxville, the Lady Vols can’t be too happy with their placement -- they’re on the same side of the bracket as the Lady Huskies for the first time since 1999, meaning another classic UT-UConn final is already an impossibility.
DAYTON
• First and last in: No. 1 UConn, No. 16 Southern, whom Trey Wingo called “Southwestern,” not that anyone will need to know their name for very long, because, again, UConn.
• Green Bay’s at-large selection is the first for the Horizon League.
• Geno Auriemma continues to age backwards. He’s starting to look like a younger Pat Summitt. You may remember Tennessee and UConn no longer play a regular-season rivalry game, so we have to ask: the hell kind of Dorian Gray scheme do those two have going on?
The first round of games tips off at noon Saturday on ESPN2, and the entirety of the tournament will be available online at ESPN360. For more women’s tourney coverage in the coming days, check out the fine work at SBN’s Swish Appeal.